Neighbours Paper ’
Issue No 88
Putting the People of Ealing First
Also featuring: Heathrow Flight Path Changes Ward Forums under threat Parkers Bakery Our High Streets Community Energy Projects
Spring 2019
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Pl One e Tak rterly Qua
Acton | Ealing | Greenford | Hanwell | Northolt | Perivale | Southall
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E ditorial
Editorial................................................ 2 Save Ealing's Libraries......................... 3
This edition leads on the threat to our libraries. The Council proposes 7 out of the 13 libraries to be run by volunteers rather than paid staff, implying a sacking of employees. We realise that the Council has a £57 million budget gap due to Government funding cuts. Goodness knows what the answer is. How can this be happening in Britain, the 6th biggest economy in the world? Are we really this poor? There is also great concern over new flight path plans at Heathrow which would mean more aircraft noise over Ealing (see page 9). And some Ealing residents are concerned at the lack of engagement with our Borough Councillors and Officers. Especially in areas (like Walpole Ward) where Councillors do not hold surgeries (see page 11). What with the threat to Ward Forums too (see page 8) will we be left with no contact option other than to e-mail Councillors? From experience, they may, or may not reply. This cannot be good for democracy.
EVENTS AROUND EALING Pitzhanger Manor, designed by Sir John Soane, is due to reopen on 16 March after extensive renovations. The acclaimed sculptor Anish Kapoor presents an exhibition of his work in the Gallery. Details on Ealing Council Website. West London Sinfonia: Verdi Requiem Saturday 23 March 7.45pm St Barnabas Church Pre-concert talk 7.00pm www.westlondonsinfonia.org St Mary’s Church Perivale, Perivale Lane: Weekly Sunday concerts: 3.00pm, Wednesday concerts at 7.30pm and Tuesday piano recitals: 2.00pm www.st-marys-perivale.org.uk
Questors Choir: Mozart vs Saliera: Saturday 30 March 7.30pm, St Martins Church W3 www.questorschoir.org.uk St Barnabas Church, Pitshanger Lane, Ealing W5: Weekly Friday Lunch time concerts www.barnabites.org.uk/concerts. Also Monthly Programme of films. See: www.barnabites.org/ social/pitshanger-pictures
Ealing Notes......................................4-5 Our High Streets................................... 6 The Best Hot Cross Buns in London.... 7 Power to the People............................ 8 Ward forums face axe?...................... 8 Heathrow to Change Flight Paths...... 9 The Chesskteers Club....................... 10 Us and Them...................................... 11 Ealing Kickboxing............................. 12
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Ealing Films: Fantastic Films: First Thursday each Month 7.30 – 11.00pm Royal Harvester Boston Manor Road. Contact Darren on 07939 395 128 or e-mail filmhorror@yahoo.co.uk Ealing Classic Cinema Club. Weekly films at Ealing Town Hall: see: www.classiccinemaclub.co.uk.
Hanwell Hootie Saturday 11 May 2019 Across many venues with many BANDS and solo artists performing in what is now LONDON’S LARGEST FREE ONE DAY MUSIC FESTIVAL. THE HANWELL HOOTIE was started to commemorate JIM MARSHALL OBE who set up his company MARSHALL AMPLIFICATION in HANWELL in 1962 and went on to be a legend himself as “The Father of Loud”. The Hootie is a free festival in local pubs and cafes as well as a church venue, a busking bus and outdoor stages (more info on these will be released shortly),
Contents Contents
Editor: Tom Whiting (020 8840 5740) Treasurer: Judy Breens Writers: Arthur Breens, Judy Breens, Louisa Dennis, Will French, Michael Holmes, Richard N. Mwangi, Oliver New, Grace Quansah, Grant Venner, Tom Whiting Designer: Jamie Anson
all within walking distance of each other showcasing live original music. From raucous bhangra and gypsy folk to ambient synth and soul the Hootie has it all. It is essentially a rock festival so fear not, there is always a heavy dose of guitar driven rock music in all its forms! Full announcement will be made at the beginning of March. More info at www.hanwellhootie.co.uk, www.facebook.com/ TheHanwellHootie#hootie
Team Digital: Jamie Anson, Sonia Nimley, Ron Nicholls Advert Designer: Sandy Anson Printer: Pollyprint Ltd, 263 Northfield Avenue, Ealing W5 4UA, 0208 579 1441, www.pollyprint.co.uk Advertisement rates: Single Box £25, Double Box £45, Triple Box £70 Next copy deadline: 30th April 2019
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Putting the People of Ealing First
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Save Ealing’s Libraries By Grace Q uansah , founder of WAPPY Ealing Council has revealed plans to close Pitshanger Library, one of Ealing’s much-loved libraries, when its 16-year lease comes up for renewal. Council Leader Julian Bell’s proposal, rehashed from 2006, to replace it with ‘community led’ library space in a nearby church, enraged local residents and resulted in a protest launch of an Ealing-led, e-petition. ‘This an utter disaster for the local people who use Pitshanger Library and for the future of Pitshanger Lane which won the Great British High Street accolade [in 2015].’ (Conservative Group Leader, Cllr Gregory Stafford). In response, Labour Councillor Jasbir Anand (July 2018), said, ‘The local Tories know their government has slashed our core funding by two-thirds. This means Ealing Council has to find £57 million over the next four years. They are forcing us to reduce costs.' Then Ealing residents received a shock announcement in the New Year that the Council plans further drastic cuts to libraries as well as its Early Years services. Seven of its thirteen libraries (Greenford, Hanwell, Perivale, Pitshanger, West Ealing, Wood End, Northfields) will sack its paid, professional staff, becoming entirely dependent on unpaid, part-time, volunteers. If no community groups are forthcoming, these libraries would face permanent closure.
staff and their families, who, after decades of loyal service to community and Council, will be ‘consigned to the scrap heap’. ‘All this at a time when London has the highest child poverty figures in the country, literacy levels are in decline, wages are flat lining, living costs rising and many are in precarious employment. Many need libraries to access vital local and government services. Is this the time to implement these cuts?’ (UNISON statement 2019) Internationally-acclaimed poet and literary critic, Benjamin Zephaniah, wrote about the downsizing of Ealing Central library: ‘Ealing Library is not just another business on the high street, it is a sanctuary, a safe place, and a place of learning. It is a place that has turned lives around and saved lives...The jobs of the people that work at this library must be protected… Save it, and you’ll save us!’
[Ed note: Our libraries provide a hugely valuable support network and resource for local residents, with the best ones an ‘open university’ to learning and inquisitive minds. For a compelling read on why we need them, get hold of a copy of ‘The Library Book’ by Susan Orlean (Atlantic Books, 2019). We should be celebrating our libraries, cherishing them, putting them at the very heart of our communities. Once gone, we will never get them back.]
Please sign the petition at www.change. org/p/save-ealing-libraries-from-beingoutsourced-from-being-managed-bycommunity-volunteers-save-libraryjobs. Also see www.wappy.org.uk.
UNISON, working alongside this Save Ealing Libraries campaign, urges members of the public to challenge these cuts. Dismantling the very ‘fabric of our local communities’, the cuts will catastrophically impact on library Putting the People of Ealing First
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Ealing Notes
By O liver New and Will French
Time to put ‘Shaping a Healthier Future’ out of its Misery We’re now entering year 7 of the failing 5-year plan called ‘Shaping a Healthier Future’. Some readers may remember when this plan was introduced 2012, after a dodgy public consultation. NHS bosses declared they would close four local Accident and Emergency Departments in North West London, along with hundreds of hospital beds and much else. Apparently, we would all be ‘healthier’ if these services were replaced by care in the community and bigger departments in fewer hospitals. Well, it was never going to work and of course it hasn’t. Ealing and Charing Cross A&Es are busier than ever, the beds are all full and the replacement community services have not appeared, nor has the money for
them. So last weekend people in Greenford and Pitshanger Lane local shopping centres were once again queuing up to sign the latest petition from Ealing Save Our NHS, this time calling for Shaping a Healthier Future’ to be dumped, funding restored to Ealing Hospital and our Maternity and Children’s Services to be re-opened. It’s totally wrong that huge amounts of money continue to be spent on a failed re-organisation while under-resourced frontline NHS staff struggle to cope. If you want to collect signatures, email info@ealingsaveournhs.org.uk for a petition sheet.
Tensions grow over the future of Ealing Town Hall We reported previously on the Council’s deal with Hotel developer Mastcraft to convert the building into a luxury hotel. Mastcraft are now seeking planning permission to add an 8-storey extension at the rear of the building to provide 120 hotel rooms, and convert most of the rest of the building into a bar, restaurant and a sports and fitness centre. One bay of the Victoria Hall will be removed to provide the space for the hotel rooms, and the Rose Window will be repositioned. The application was a shock to Save Ealing’s Centre. They had already alerted the Charity Commission that the Victoria Hall, and
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the Prince’s Hall underneath belong to a charitable trust and it’s against charity rules to hand them to a commercial organisation. The Halls were built with public donations to commemorate Queen Victoria’s jubilee in 1888. A legal deed requires them to be hired out to the community with profits given to local charities. Save Ealing’s Centre say fees from the Halls hire generate over £250,000 annually, producing a surplus of £50,000 after costs. The Halls are still used as intended by an astonishing range of social, cultural, community and political groups. In recent years these have included
Putting the People of Ealing First
hosting Jeremy Corbyn, PM Gordon Brown and the Polish Prime Minister, Armenian independence celebrations, local election hustings, Ealing music festivals, Save the NHS campaigns, International Women’s Day, the Queens Award celebrations, Carol singing and Divali and Durga Puja events to name a few. If they are taken over by the Hotel there would be no place for most of these events. The community would only have access to the Halls at restricted off-peak times when Mastcraft doesn’t need it to generate profits for itself. See www.saveealingscentre.com.
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Ealing Notes continueD Crossrail
Ward Boundary Changes
Crossrail delays continue. The Borough’s station rebuilds will continue deep into 2020, and the full service will not start until December that year at the earliest. Crossrail now says the designs for Ealing Broadway Station’s new frontage will be cut back from the designed blazed across their hoardings since they were given planning consent in 2014. This is because the owners of Villiers House who own some of the station forecourt don’t like them. This all means the occupation of Haven Green as a construction site will continue indefinitely. There is no news about the revised completion dates for West Ealing and Acton Main Line.
Ward Boundary Changes. The Electoral Commission is running a consultation until 15 April on planned changes to our ward boundaries. An extensive review of the Borough has come up with a package of proposals that will see just one ward – Perivale – remaining as it is now. Expected population changes mean other wards need adjusting to keep them roughly equal with 3,671 electors for each councillor. Overall, the Borough is set to increase the number of wards by 1 to 40 and the number of its councillors will rise by 1 to 70. Go to the consultation page to see whether this will affect you. https://www.lgbce.org.uk/all-reviews/ greater-london/greater-london/ealing.
Small Sites Development Is your street one of the growing number facing plans to replace perfectly good houses with an overlarge box with nine or so flats? Maybe there’s a house with a fairsized back garden ripe for some cramped town houses overlooking their neighbours. If not, the chances are it will be soon. New London Planning policies earmark Ealing to spearhead a new strategic policy of ‘evolving’ the character of our neighbourhoods to build new homes. The Borough as a whole has a target of building 3,419 new homes each year. Of all London’s boroughs, only Newham and Tower Hamlets, with their tracts of decontaminated brownfield land,
exceed this. Unlike those boroughs, Ealing is characterised by its extensive low-rise residential suburbs. Outside Park Royal and Southall Gasworks there is little space to fit all the homes, except on what planners call ‘small-sites’. This will mean bulking up residential streets. The effects are already being felt in some areas, producing furious opposition. With pressure on Ealing’s planners to deliver 1,074 homes a year on these sites, the rows are expected to intensify. Curiously most small sites will have around 8 or 9 new homes on them. You’ll find none with 10. The Borough’s housing crisis is about the shortage of affordable homes, and the policy requires developments with 10 new homes to include ‘affordable housing’. Those with less than that don’t. So canny developers make sure
each project is below this threshold allowing them to sell all their new homes on the open market.
8 St Johns Parade, Mattock Lane, Ealing W13 9LL
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Challenging times for our High Streets By J udy B reens Neighbours Paper is shocked to hear that Parkers Bakery in Northfields will close at Easter.. This prompted me to consider how traditional shopping streets like Northfield Avenue are faring. Over my years here many premises have closed, others seem to thrive. So, what’s going on? High rents and business rates One problem all shops face is the high rents reflecting local property prices and the ever- rising business rates. Although the Council collects the rates, levels are set by Government. This makes beginner trading costs massive. On learning the figures, I was amazed that any shops survive at all. There is also Internet shopping, which tempts shoppers away (cited by Darch and Duff on closing their businesses) and competition with the large supermarkets that can keep prices down through economies of scale. This could well account for the sad loss of the two independent butchers we once had (Thoroughgood and Richardson) Other costs include staff, waste disposal (not included in business rates), delivery services and Controlled Parking Zone charges. Business vehicles are charged 15+ times the CPZ permit charge of residents. CPZ’s also exclude worker parking and there is no car park. Why Ealing Council punishes business in this way escapes me. Property developers We once had two post offices and at least one bank. All closed. There
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Northfield Avenue used to once was a paint /wallpaper shop. Perhaps the owners could replace such premises on cheaper trading estates, knowing builders would be able to travel to them. Then, we have development issues. For example, near the railway bridge were small businesses now replaced by a large block of flats. The small businesses on the bridge are also going (including my chiropodist) because a large apartment build is proposed there. The predatory developer is ever present in our Borough. The Avenue once had a TV repair and a motor vehicle spare business, also a fishing tackle shop. Could the loss of these be to do with changing habits? Fishing is not so popular now and perhaps people are no longer up for repairing their own cars, even if they could! Cars, TV’s and electrical gear are ever more complicated and beyond the amateur. Also, it’s often cheaper to replace, rather than repair, the latter.
Putting the People of Ealing First
have
flourishing independent shops , but the high street climate has changed.
Independents can buck the trend Many businesses thrive however, such as restaurants, cafes, pubs (with food) and food take-away outlets. Others are businesses that offer a personal service, like hairdressers, dry cleaners, florists, pharmacists, opticians, and estate agents. Then there’s the “niche market”, like the highly successful micro-brewery in Northfield Avenue, halal butchers (in West Ealing) and specialist services such as Personal Computer Services. We all need help with our computers! The final essential point is that running a business is cost risky and very hard work. The proprietor is fully responsible for everything. Working “all the hours that God sends” is often what is required. Perhaps it is not surprising that few accept this lifestyle choice.
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“ The best hot cross buns in London ” End of an era as Parkers Bakery closes after 106 years By Louisa Dennis Parkers, Ealing’s oldest and much-loved traditional bakery, has announced it will close on 20 April 2019 after selling some of the borough’s finest baked goods for over a century. The Northfield Avenue shop has garnered a loyal following over the years with many regular customers refusing to buy bread, cakes and pastries anywhere else. My father, owner and director Brian Davis is retiring after nearly 50 years at the helm. He says, “This decision is after many months of consideration, following a serious health scare I suffered in 2017. Parkers has been an important part of my life for almost half a century but with my 70th birthday approaching I no longer have the energy to work the long days and nights needed to keep the company thriving. I’m hugely grateful to both customers and staff for their loyalty over the years. I’m sure the final days will be emotional and we will continue to sell the best hot cross buns in London until we close at 5pm on Easter Saturday.” A major part of Ealing’s heritage Parkers was first opened by Thomas Parker in 1913 against a background of major UK events, including the peak of the suffragette campaign, increasing worker strikes and the first Chelsea Flower Show. The world was
still reeling after the Titanic disaster the year before. Later, Thomas Parker’s son John took over the business with his wife Monica. Monica Parker continued working with Brian up to her death in 2010 aged 90. A friend of the Parker family, Brian joined the company in 1970, just after the death of John Parker when there were six branches of Parkers across West London. To this day, Brian drives the van and works alongside his colleagues in the on-site bakery, in addition to the day to day administration of the business. Brian, who is a qualified aircraft engineer from Bristol University, cites his engineering skills as an essential part of running the bakery and its machinery. And it’s the superior quality bread, cakes, pastries and sandwiches - still made in the traditional way - that has earned Parkers its exceptional reputation. Brian says: “We’re proud to have survived two world wars and several recessions by concentrating on quality products and personal service.”
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A loaf for a penny Celebrating their 100-year anniversary in July 2014, Parkers sold a traditional penny loaf for one old penny in homage to early days of business, when the average family income was about £100 per year. Staff also dressed up in the traditional Edwardian clothing of the time. Brian said to his staff, “Despite my best efforts, I have been unable to secure a buyer who will continue Parkers as a business. I had no option but to sell the company to a developer who intends to convert the bakery area into flats, while potentially keeping the shop as it is.” [Ed note: To many Parkers represents the heart of Northfields, as well as loyally supporting Neighbours Paper as advertiser and stockist! Parkers will be sadly missed. We wish Brian a long and happy retirement.]
A much - loved Ealing
treasure
will soon be no more.
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Power to the People By Grant Venner, Ealing Transition Volunteers from Ealing Transition have been working with schools across the borough to install community-funded solar arrays. Nine schools have participated so far, with more in the pipeline. The panels are installed by a not-forprofit co-operative call the Schools Energy Co-op. Members of Ealing Transition have helped to provide the funding (amounting to almost £500,000 to date) and receive a small return on their investment, currently 4.5%. When the 20-year term is completed, the panels are given to the schools. The schools benefit by reducing their electricity bills and their carbon emissions. They are also able to integrate learning about the panels into various aspects of the curriculum. Some schools have been inspired to take their 'green' measures further with plastic reduction and food growing initiatives. Funding for initial feasibility studies has been provided by the Mayor of London's Community Energy Fund. Panels have been installed at the following schools: Grange,
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Grant and Andy of Ealing Transition with Deputy Mayor of London Shirley Rodrigues and Cllr J ulian B ell at the 50 kW solar array at Horsenden school.
Castlebar, Horsenden, Mandeville, Lady Margaret, Fielding, Wood End, Drayton Green and Wolf Fields. 'Decentralised, clean energy is definitely the way forward,' according to Ealing Transition. 'Solar and wind power are now competitive with traditional power sources, and every panel we install cuts carbon emissions. Almost all of the electricity our panels generate is immediately used by the schools. But there is a long way to go. The UN have recently warned that we need to accelerate progress towards being zero carbon by 2030. We owe it to the next generation to scale up our efforts.' Ealing Transition hosted a meeting on Saturday 9 February called '12 Years to Save the Planet', focussing on how residents of Ealing can work together to manage the energy transition and avert runaway climate change. For more information on this, see www.ealingtransition.org.uk.
Putting the People of Ealing First
Ward forums to be axed? According to Ealing Liberal Democrats, the Council is considering scrapping Ward forums as part of its planned budget cuts. Not only that, but it plans to take away the £40,000 annual allocation to each Ward which is spent on local community projects and priorities. If this goes ahead, it will be yet another nail in the coffin for democracy and the rights of residents to raise concerns and ask questions of their locally elected representatives. Ealing Lib Dems have set up a petition online to save ward forums which needs 1500 signatures to get on the Council’s agenda for discussion. See www.ealinglibdems.org. uk/savewardforums
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Heathrow to Change its Flight Paths More Aircraft Arrivals over Ealing – and that’s BEFORE the Third Runway By Tom Whiting If Ealing residents were concerned about the current levels of aircraft noise affecting their borough, well things are going to get a lot worse under new plans by Heathrow to reconfigure its flight paths. Currently Ealing borough residents are affected by aircraft noise in two ways: 1) by aircraft landing on ‘westerly’ operations (when the wind is blowing from the west, on average 70% of the year) in the southern part of the borough, bordering neighbouring Hounslow, and 2) by aircraft taking off on ‘easterly’ operations (wind blowing from the east, on average 30% of the year) with noise affecting a broad central swathe from Boston Manor and Northfields to Ealing Broadway and Hanger Hill. At an ‘Airspace and Future Operations’ consultation event in the Town Hall in February, plans were unveiled for Heathrow to add 25,000 more flights per annum using its existing two runways (so even BEFORE the Third Runway is built). To cater for this huge expansion, existing flight paths need to be redesigned and a new system of operation called independent parallel approaches (IPAs) introduced.
You needed a Bachelor’s Degree in Physics (which incidentally I have) to make sense of all the bundles of literature on show. Flight envelopes, dBA contours, performance based navigation and ATMs (Air Traffic Movements – not the machine for your bank card, D’oh!) were the de rigueur phrases of the day. Beyond the smokescreen and platitudes, this is what I managed to deduce for our readers. An IPA allows aircraft to land simultaneously on both Heathrow’s runaways during busy periods. IPA A1 is one of the plans for the northern runaway during aircraft landings in westerly operations, roughly 70% of the year (see diagram). Notice straightaway that the arrivals flight path over Ealing borough has shifted north, resulting in areas
not previously affected by aircraft landings (north and south of the Uxbridge Road, roughly from Hanwell in the west to Acton in the east) now underneath the flight path envelope. So if you’re like me and currently only affected by aircraft taking off from Heathrow, you might also soon be faced with gaping at the undercarriage of ‘the hotel in the sky,’ the Airbus A380, rattling your roof tiles before it lands at Heathrow. The current consultation ends in early March, as do the presentation events, but we are promised further consultations in June 2019. To voice your objections now, visit www.heathrowconsultation.com to view the new flight paths, then email info@heathrowconsultation.com or write to Freepost, LHR AFO CONSULTATION.
U nder IPA A1, aircraft from the three holding stacks at Bovingdon, Lamborne and Ockham begin descending to below 3,000 feet near Wembley, then to 2,000 feet and below over a central and southern swathe of Ealing borough .
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The Chesskteers Club By Richard N Mwangi, Chess Club Secretary & Tutor The Welshore Community Hub in West Ealing, which is a charitable organisation centred around providing services in the local area, boasts an incredibly lively chess club known as the ‘Welshore Chess Club’ although we are also known by our nickname ‘The Cheeskteers Club’ in the same way that ‘Arsenal Football Club’ is known as the ‘the Gunners’. Rubbing shoulders with world champions We’ve been running since 2016 and have had the pleasure of frequenting the London Chess Classic, the most prestigious chess tournament in the UK, where we often rub shoulders with the likes of Chess World Champion Magnus Carlsen, and many other former world champions. We have our very own Middlesex Under-8 Chess Supremo Christo Sivakov: Christo is also the North Ealing Primary School Chess Champion in his section. At the South East England Girls and Boys Chess Championship in Esher, we had two entries in the girls’ section: the magnificent sisters Veduka Parulkar and Parnika Parulkar. In the most recent London Chess Classic Weekend Tournament back in December, we had nine entries. I am particularly watching out for rising star Aneesh Chaudhary.
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Chess improves your brain At the Chesskteers Club, our chess philosophy is to encourage lively play in the spirit of the romantic era of breathtaking chess. For us, chess is first a past-time: A form of entertainment. Then it is an art: To be appreciated by the finer intellectual and spiritual sensibilities. Chess is finally a way of improving knowledge: An educational tool. Chess-playing has long been thought to improve children’s and even adults’ memories and thus phrases like ‘Chess makes you smarter!’ were coined. But improved memory is just the tip of the iceberg. In 1973-74 in Zaire, a Belgian researcher Dr Albert Frank carried out research on “Chess and Aptitudes” and discovered that there was a significant correlation between the ability to play chess well, and spatial, numerical, administrativedirectional, and paperwork abilities. It showed that the ability in chess is not due to the presence of only one or two abilities but that a large number of talents all work together. The conclusion was that students participating in the chess course showed a marked development of their verbal and numerical aptitudes. Furthermore, this was noticed in the majority of chess students and not only those who were better players.
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B udding Chess Masters in action Welshore Community H ub .
at the
Reading and maths skills Another study conducted in four large elementary schools in Texas, USA in 1997 further confirmed that chess playing children improved in reading and mathematics at a rate between 1.5 and twice as fast as non-chess playing students. We meet fortnightly on Sundays between 1pm and 4pm at the Welshore Community Hub, 99 Broadway, West Ealing W13 9BP. Tel 02085664099.
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Us and Them
Local councillors need to engage with the public By Arthur B reens Residents feel we have an “Us and Them” situation with Ealing Council and its Councillors. Ealing Council is like a “one-party” state with a hefty majority of Labour councillors. This dangerously stifles debate and prohibits any real challenge to council decisions. Democracy and Law are based on adversarial debate and supported by a free press. “The Ealing Gazette” (if it still exists) is very difficult to obtain and has lost its local campaign thread. Remember in its glory days it chaired the Uxbridge Road Tram debate and became the voice of the people? “Around Ealing”, a monthly, paid for us but written by the council contains no readers’ comments and no guest/ controversial articles. “The Neighbours Paper” volunteers deliver a copy to every councillor. The editor is keen to publish rebuttals from councillors yet none have ever been received. Keep shtum eh? Councillors asked us in leaflets delivered at election time to “Vote for me to represent you”. But they must try harder to represent us if we have problems with council services/decisions /policy. “We hold roving surgeries,” they say. You try finding one of these! Who could? In comparison, my MP Rupa Huq is an exemplary communicator. I complained about engagement to the Chief Executive. He told me there were Ward Forums. But these happen only three times a year with agenda and minutes controlled by them not
us. Ealing council resists engagement with the public it seeks to serve. They also are under threat (see page 8). Ealing has lost its way and forgets who is the servant and who the master. My old postman forgot to renew his Resident’s Parking Permit and was FINED. Possibly he was “reminded” many months previously along with others. The remaining permit holders will be reminded in a reasonable/ timely manner. Hence in Ealing some residents are more equal than others. (G. Orwell: Animal Farm). My councillor can’t see this as a problem! The RingGo system for booking visitors parking failed one of my customers on two occasions, once through the computer (RingGo system down) and once through the App (annual registration renewal not completed with no warning). Was the resident compensated and RingGo FINED for a service not delivered? When you try to discuss this poor RingGo system, councillors tell you they are phasing out the paper visitor tickets that are fool-proof and easy for the elderly and the hard of hearing to use. Is this discrimination? Labour Councillors Sears and Wickes convinced my neighbours years ago that CPZs were cheap and simple and they voted to join. Now the CPZ system is expensive and the RingGo system not fit for 100% easy visitor parking. Why no consultation? Ask councillors but no answers. Here are more unanswered questions:
1) Where did the money go? Old YMCA in Bond Street bought by Council in 2012 for £1.9 million. Left empty for six years. Awarded ‘development site’ status greatly increasing its value and sold for £1,982,465 in 2018 to St George. Lost rates, lost rent, lost increase in value. £millions lost and never discussed at Walpole Ward Forum. Sorry, never discussed publicly anywhere! 2) Why are the pigeon flocks still in Dean Gardens after Hawk, Kingdom and £10,000? 3) Why have eight disabled parking bays been lost in West Ealing and not replaced? Readers, have you any questions? Publisher’s Note: Another “Us and Them” example. On 20th February, Ealing Planning Committee voted overwhelmingly to approve A2Dominion's development plans for total demolition of the old Woolworth's building in West Ealing including its iconic 1926 art deco façade. This contradicted the Council’s own West Ealing Neighbourhood Plan, recommending façade conservation. It also ignored 256 objections and a petition of nearly 1,200 signatures from local people to replace the building but to preserve the art deco facade. Is it now time to ask whether our planning system is representative and still fit for purpose?
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Ealing Kickboxing By Michael Holmes Welcome to a sport that combines martial arts with physical dexterity. Kickboxing, a hybrid martial art that incorporates elements of kicking and punching, originated in Japan in the 1960s and was developed by adapting fighting techniques from Karate, Western boxing and Muay Thai. Unlike most other martial arts, kickboxing is about using your energy, agility, and reflexes to outmanoeuvre and dominate your opponent over time. Ealing Kickboxing teaches you all the finer points and more. Chief Instructor, Antonio Santo explains: How did the club start? Founded in 1998 Ealing Kickboxing was the first club of its kind to be established in Chiswick and Ealing, West London. It provides kickboxing classes in personal training, self-defence, martial arts and fitness for men, women and children. A comprehensive training programme that incorporates the latest technical developments in kickboxing is available. You don't need to be fit as you will get fit through regular kickboxing training. Whether you want to get fit or lose weight, learn self-defence yourself, go through your gradings or compete, London Kickboxing is the right club for you. Sparring is optional and is light, continuous and practised under strict supervision.
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What classes are available? Ealing Kickboxing has been involved in providing set courses in several disciplines for a large number of years. These courses can be tailored to fit specific requirements and are available as follows: Kickboxing and Boxing for, Beginners, Intermediate and Advanced. SelfDefence - Specific and General courses. Combat Fitness for all. And finally: Weapons - Nunchaku, Stick and Knife. In addition to courses, group classes also take place throughout the week. Monday to Thursday and Saturday. A free trial session can be arranged with adult and children membership. Â The courses are devised by instructors with accredited qualifications, expertise and years of experience in the above fields. The courses are available to everyone aged 16-plus with Parental authorisation required for people of 16-18 years of age. Participants receive a Certificate of Attendance and Completion at the end of the course. As a club we are fully flexible and can run a course at a venue and target audience of your choice. Also our Instructors are fully qualified First Aiders, insured and CRB checked.
Putting the People of Ealing First
Kickboxing
is a martial art that
can be enjoyed by all .
What benefits does this have to Ealing residents? Opportunities ranging from socializing to getting and staying fit bring benefits to our members and those in the wider community. Being able to defend yourself is a great achievement towards a safer community. Where does the club plan to be in three years? Having expanded its membership by encouraging more people to take up the sport! Classes take place in St Benedict’s School Sports Hall, W5 2DZ. For further info see www.kickboxing-ealing.co.uk or call 07779 593 335.