Neighbours’ Paper | Issue 89 | Summer 2019

Neighbours Paper ’

Issue No 89

Putting the People of Ealing First

Summer 2019

12,000 Ealing-ers need a home lishe Pu b

d

e e r F ease

Pl One e Tak rterly Qua

Not ones like this!

Also featuring: Cuts to children's centres | The Plogolution Arch Climbing Wall | Events & Festivals Guides Acton | Ealing | Greenford | Hanwell | Northolt | Perivale | Southall

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E ditorial

Contents Contents Editorial................................................ 2 Events Around Ealing.......................... 2

Welcome to our summer 2019 issue. As ever, this issue of Neighbours Paper parades the good, the bad and the ugly in our town. For over 20 years now this paper has been publicising the activities of local volunteer groups, charities, community organisations and the London Borough of Ealing.

Since the financial crash of 2008, we have all lived through a painful period of Government austerity. Since 2016, Brexit has made us all uncertain about our future in Europe and in the wider world. It also seems to have led us to lose confidence in our politicians to look after our best interests. Locally we are forever seeing huge cranes at work and endless road works – signs that private and public money is still plentiful. However it seems that money is now not available to house all those in need, keep all our Public Libraries open or to maintain some of the Children’s Centres in Ealing.

To lift the spirits in this issue, we celebrate saving Ealing Hospital A&E, indoor climbing in Acton, litter picking whilst jogging, and the countryside pleasures of the Brent River Park. We reflect on the lack of genuinely affordable housing, the likely cuts in children’s services, threats to our open spaces and the Council’s woeful attempts at consultation. With lots of outdoor festivals to enjoy let’s hope the weather is kind to the organisers and to all who participate.

Eric Leach Guest Editor

Geniunely Affordable Housing.......... 3 Ealing Notes......................................4-5 Cuts at Ealing Children's Centres...... 6 The Brent River Park............................. 7 Ealing Summer Festivals..................... 8 The Con of Consultation..................... 9 Open Spaces Under Threat.............. 10 Join the Plogulation.......................... 11 Arch Climbing Wall........................... 12

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EVENTS AROUND EALING Music at St Mary’s Perivale Concerts in the 12th Century church Wed evenings and Tues and Sun afternoons throughout the year. Perivale Lane, UB6 8SS. www.st-marys-perivale.org.uk Ealing Symphony Orchestra – Free Family Concert Sat 13 July. 4:40pm to 5:30pm. St Barnabas Church, Pitshanger Lane Refugee Week Celebration – Refugee Tales Thurs 20 June. 2pm. West Ealing Library. Admission free Total Burnout Wed 29- Thurs 30 June and Fri 26 – Sunday 28 July. Ealing Common.

10am – 5pm. Inflatable obstacle course for all the family.

Vintage and Antique Market Sat 29 June, Sat 27 July, Sat 31 August.

9am – 5pm. The Avenue, West Ealing

Facebook.com/NeighboursPaper Email: neighbourspaper@hotmail.co.uk Guest Editor: Eric Leach Editor: Tom Whiting (020 8840 5740) Treasurer: Judy Breens

Sugar and Spice Flea Market Sat 8 June. 11am – 4pm.

St Mary’s Church Hall, St Marys Road W5 Hanwell History Walk Thurs 13 June. 6pm. Meet Hanwell Bridge. Library members £3, others £5 Lego Education Workshops Fri 21, 28 June and 5 July.

Hanwell Library. 3:45pm Sat 22, 29 June and 6 July. Northolt Leisure Centre. 10:30am £7:50 Library members, others £12 Ealing Half Marathon Sun 29 September. £10 to enter. For more info www.ealinghalfmarathon.com

Writers: Simon Hayes, Michael Holmes, Dermot Kavanagh, Libby Kemp, Eric Leach, Oliver New Designer: Jamie Anson Photo Contributor: Dave Randles 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: 31st July 2019

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Putting the People of Ealing First

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Not

Genuinely Affordable Housing by

Libby K emp

The Planning Permissions granted at the Ealing Council February 2019 Planning Committee were for 3,155 new housing units, but of these just 132 units were Genuinely Affordable Housing (GAH) units. GAH is defined by the London Mayor as social rent levels - which historically have been 40% of market rental rates. The Council’s Housing Waiting List has risen to 12,000 and is now closed.

It was a similar story at the April 2019 Planning Committee. Sadly, at least three of the developments in February and April were perfect for families, unlike the tower block given permission to put the play areas on the 32th floor roof. It will be the 55th floor at a North Acton development.

Land within the borough is finite and to date this has mostly been poorly developed for profit not families.

Profits Before People Developers themselves commission an auditor to make an assessment of the financial viability of their plans. If the assessment reveals it’s unviable, the Council has to allow the development to go ahead minus the GAH to allow a developer a profit of between 15% and 20%. One way around this is to show the value of the land as developed, rather than the cost/ purchase price plus clearance. This raises the unit housing cost to well above market price. To bring the unit cost down they remove the Affordable Homes, giving them a healthy profit.

Another developer device to increase profits is the Minor Amendment Application route. In this more floors are added with little or no GAH included bringing down the number of units to well below 35% target but upping the profit percentage.

The Government’s “Help To Buy” scheme inadvertently keeps prices high and some big developers have increased their profit from £20,000 per unit to £60,000. Persimmon banked £66,265 from every one of the 16,449 homes it sold last year.

Ealing Needs Homes for Families The Council’s Regeneration team must take some responsibility for the lack of GAH. Ealing needs homes for families. New and converted homes are proving difficult to sell. This is partly due to the overall economic downturn but also because the majority are either one or two bedroom units, neither affordable nor suitable for families.

Surely the Regeneration team has the upper hand. Developers are plentiful.

Two major developers in Ealing are L&Q and the Berkeley Group.

Profits in 2018 were £420m and £1billion respectively.

The Scandal of Empty Homes The Filmworks/Dickens Yard developer boasted that 60% of homes were sold off-plan to overseas buyers. The number is lower in other developments - around 20 – 25%. So even fewer homes at affordable prices for Ealing

The Arc Tower in Ealing B roadway families. More importantly they will be empty most, if not all, of the time, leading to less overall spend in local shops and services.

Are the developers paying Council Tax on these unsold units after they have been on the market for over six months? Or has the Council been persuaded to let them off, while closing Libraries and Children’s Centres, and selling off playing fields. The same should be asked about all the empty retail premises in Dickens Yard – who is paying their Business Rates?

Well done Ealing Council.

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Ealing Notes Bus Lane Replaced

by Cycle Lane Are we about to witness the death of a bus lane and its replacement by a segregated cycle lane in the centre of West Ealing? This is one of the future ‘interventions’ on offer travelling east along the Broadway courtesy of the Transport for London’s £8.6 million ‘Liveable Neighbourhoods’ grant to Ealing Council.

West Ealing Broadway is a busy road and is host to six different bus routes.

There are eight bus stops along the

O liver New and Eric Leach

700 yards of road. The plan is for two segregated cycle lanes – one of each side of the road. On the north side this cycle lane will replace the east-west bus lane. If this is implemented one wonders just how congested this road will become during day time, how safe it will be for pedestrians and cyclists, and how much more polluting it will be.

Could such arrangements spread along the whole of the Uxbridge Road – into Ealing Broadway, Hanwell and Acton? To see this in Southall really would be a thing of wonder.

Warren Farm

Clean Air for Southall and Hayes

The loss of the 61 acres of Metropolitan Open Land has been confirmed in the Supreme Court, as campaigners final efforts to overthrow Ealing Council/QPR plans have been defeated. Work on the new QPR Training Ground begins in June 2019. 180,000 sq metres of soil needs to be brought to the site. This will require 20 Heavy Goods Vehicle movements per hour for up to a year. We should all try to avoid travelling along Windmill Lane in Southall for many months to come.

There is also a very active local campaign attempting to ensure that Ealing Council prevents wildlife crimes taking place at Warren Farm.

If building work commences and destroys nests before the nesting season is over (September) it would be a crime under the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981. For more info: oldhanwellresidentsassociation@ yahoo.com

Southall’s old gasworks site is the location of one of Ealing’s largest regeneration projects. Covering 88 acres this 25 year development by Berkeley Group will include 3,750 homes, leisure, health and education buildings.

Planning approval was obtained in April 2016 and site clearance begin in early 2017. The new name for the area is Southall Waterside.

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by

It was decided to clean the soil on the site – rather than remove the soil. The soil was found to contain hydocarbons (including benzene – a known carcinogen), naphthalene, asbestos and cyanide. Ealing Council claim the first phase of soil cleaning has been completed.

However for some two years now local residents have been complaining

Putting the People of Ealing First

about a bad ‘tarry/petro-’like’ smell emanating for the site. In July 2018, a group called Clean Air for Southall and Hayes (CASH) was formed.

CASH is opposed to air, dust and noise pollution as well as odour, dust and noise nuisance and damage to property caused by this development.

The Environment Agency and Public Health England have both been alerted to the problems but neither has raised major red flags.

But the bad odour continues and is still making local residents sick.

See www.facebook.com/pg/CleanAirSouthall for more information or email cleanairsouthall@gmail.com

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Ealing Notes continueD Further Crossrail/ Elizabeth Line Delays March 2021 is the latest date being touted for the opening – although, apparently, the Bond Street station will still not be open by then. Also at opening date in the central, underground section only half the promised train frequency will be operating. Only sketchy details exist but it seems new contracts have been entered into for second attempts for the design and build of new stations at Ealing Broadway, West Ealing and Acton Mainline.

The delay to Crossrail/Elizabeth Line will cost Transport for London (TfL) £1 billion in lost revenue according to the Moody’s ratings agency. As well as delays we also have some enormous cost overruns. For example, the original cost estimate for Crossrail work at Paddington Station was £181 million.

The final actual cost was recently revealed in a National Audit Office report as an eye-watering £571 million.

Ealing A&E is Saved!

Finally the Government has admitted the horrible NHS North West London ‘Shaping a Healthier Future’ plan (SaHF) is not workable. It’s dead! It means that Ealing and Charing Cross Hospitals will keep their Accident and Emergency Departments and the plans to cut hundreds of beds have been scrapped, but there is still underfunding.

Former NHS England Chief Executive Sir David Nicholson had called these plans ‘the most significant reconfiguration project in the country’. But since they were first announced in 2012, the SaHF plans to downgrade four major hospitals in North West London, Ealing Save Our NHS (ESON) has been campaigning against it. ESON worked side by side with many others including Save Our Hospitals Charing Cross and the Councils in Ealing and Hammersmith & Fulham.

SaHF had offices in posh Marylebone and spent tens of millions of pounds of NHS cash on management consultants. All for nothing. Now the Secretary of State for Health, Matt Hancock MP, has finally admitted that the Department of Health and Social Care can no longer support SaHF. The applications for £513 million and then £260 million for building work have both been turned down because the figures didn’t work.

It was no surprise to ESON – the figures never worked.

ESON has distributed nearly a third of a million leaflets on the streets, held protests, attended carnivals, organised parties, lobbies, petitions, car convoys and much else to spell out the truth – all paid for out of our own pockets and donations. Without public support and campaigning we would not have saved these A&Es. More at www.ealingsaveournhs.org.uk

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Cuts at Ealing Children's Centres

By Eric Leach There are currently 27 Children’s Centres maintained by Ealing Council. The only future certainty is that the six of the seven main centres and a further nine centres will be retained at least as is. The main centres are at Academy Gardens, Grove House, Hanwell, Islip Manor, the Log Cabin, Perivale and South Acton.

Of these, it is Hanwell's Children's Centre that is being considered for closure and residential development.

In order to cut annual costs by £404,000 in 2019/20 and £404,000 in 2020/21, significant changes will have to be made at the other 11 centres, some of which might have to close. These centres potentially under threat are at Acton Park, Copley Close, Dormers Wells, Havelock, Horsenden, Northolt Park, North Ealing, Windmill, Windmill Park, West Twyford and Wood End. The Wood End children’s Centre is up for closure and the site could become a ‘potential residential development’ site.

The Log Cabin

in

Northfields

worst Wards for 0 to 16 year old child poverty – Greenford Broadway and East Acton. The highest percentages of these children living in poverty are in East Acton and South Acton. For 0 to 4 year olds, the Ealing Wards with the highest number of children in poverty are Northolt West End, Greenford Broadway and East Acton. None of the main children’s centres are located in Greenford Broadway. Acton Park in East Acton is one of the 11 centres under threat of closure. Of the threatened site there are statements in the strategy of ‘…considerable interest from the private sector…’ with regard to the children’s centres at Dormers Wells and Havelock.

There is an Ealing Council children’s centres strategy 2019 – 2022 document.

The strategy is to ‘reshape the delivery of early childhood services across Ealing’s children service’. It is made clear that ‘all children’s centres will be impacted by the reconfiguration of services’. The 35 full-time equivalent staff will be reduced.

Child Poverty is Rising

28,000 New Homes in Ealing by 2029

Using the latest statistics available (2015/16), child poverty (0 to 16 year olds) is rising in 13 of the 23 Wards in Ealing. Presumably this is not helped by the fact that no main children’s centre is located within the second and third

These potential closures are all the more controversial when viewed alongside Ealing’s new homes commitment made to the Mayor of London. By

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IN

Putting the People of Ealing First

2029, Ealing has committed to build 28,000 new homes. Those new homes could house up to 84,000 new Ealing residents. Some these people will be children in poverty, physically and mentally disabled children and educationally challenged children.

To potentially reduce the children centre resource in the borough seems to be a complete disconnect with the predicted population increase.

Equally troubling is the short timescale of the children centres strategy – just three years. The Council’s current development window is 15 years – 2011 to 2026. Its new housing plan window is 10 years – 2019 to 2028.

A public consultation on these plans closed on 17 May 2019.

You can link to the consultation and the strategy at: www.ealingfamiliesdirectory.org.uk

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The Brent River Park by

Eric Leach

The Brent River Park in Ealing is 4.3 miles of open space covering 988 acres of the Brent River valley. It includes semi-natural areas, designated sites of importance and Nature Conservation areas. Also along the way we have formal parks, golf clubs, sports grounds and allotments. The river meanders through Perivale, Greenford and Hanwell. The northern border of the park is Pitshanger Park and at the southern end is Boston Manor Park.

The park was the brainchild of a number of volunteers who formed the Brent River and Canal Society (BRCS) in 1973.

The leading light behind BRCS and the park was the late Luke Fitzherbert. In the early years cleaning away rubbish and opening up pathways occupied a small army of helpers. Relations with and co-operation from Ealing Council and its Rangers was for many years very constructive. In 1976, the Council accepted the BRCS plans. By 1985 the aim of having a continuous and integrated path was largely achieved.

Tree Plantings In 1992 Ealing Council produced a new strategy for the management of trees in Ealing. As part of this strategy several areas of the park were selected for new woodland planting. Now maturing are new woodlands and copses within the parks in Elthorne Waterside, Churchfields and Perivale Park.

Supporting Wildlife Over the years BRCS has supported various initiatives involving wildlife surveys and monitoring in the park and in the river. This has included surveys on voles, mice and shrews in Long Wood and Tentelow Wood, as well as water quality surveys.

More recently there has been an eel monitoring project. In 2017 a grant of £1,948 was secured from the Greggs Foundation Environmental Grant in support of Ealing Wildlife Group (EWG) for a bat project. EWG used the money to improve bat detection equipment and to create improved habitats to attract bats.

grants of £5,115 from the Heritage Lottery Fund ’Awards for All’ and £2,000 from the Environmental Agency.

Gurnell to Greenford ‘Greenway’ This is a major new project in the area between Gurnell and Greenford.

The project is being implemented to improve public access and nature alongside the winding course of the river. It will make the area more attractive and safer. Reed beds, wetlands, meadows, woodland and orchards will be created to boost nature. It is being developed by Thames 21 and Ealing Council and is funded with £375,000 from the London Mayor. BRCS is supportive of the project which will run till March 2021.

More at: www.brcs.org.uk

‘Backwater’ Project Building on the work already done at Boles Meadow, BRCS has recently promoted a current project to produce a little ‘backwater’ where the River Brent is fed by a stream from the Hanwell Springs. Backwaters are areas of rivers away from the current providing important habitats for a range of flora and fauna. They provide refuge for juvenile fish during times of flood.

BRCS organised the London urban rivers charity Thames 21, London Wildlife Trust and environmental consultants to help with a feasibility study. It also secured

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EALING SUMMER FESTIVALS Fun at the Soundbite Festival by David H ighton

EID Fest 2019

Greenford Carnival

Tues 4 June, Wed 5 June, Thurs 6 June, Southall Park. EID Prayer 10am. International food, stage performances, fireworks, funfair, beach and bazaar. More info 07958 183184.

Sun 7 July. Ravenor Park UB6. Free entry.

Acton Carnival Sat 13 July. 1pm – 5pm. Acton Park, W3. Begins with a procession down the main high street. Entry £2 per person, £5 family ticket (2 adults and up to 3 children). Under 12's are free.

Hanwell Carnival Sat 15 June. Elthorne Park. London’s oldest carnival. Parade leaves Hanwell Community Centre at 10am. Free entry to park 12 noon 6pm. Music, sports, animals, music, craft tent, food and drink.

Eat Drink Ealing Mon 1 July, Tues 2 July. Ealing Common.

11am – 7pm. Adults £3, children free.

Wide range of food and drink, cookery course and food education sessions.

Music, playpen and nursery for children.

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Bedford Park Festival Fri 7 June – Sun 23 June. Talks, walks, music and drama performances. www.bedfordparkfestival.org

Ealing Beer Festival Mon 10 July – Thurs 13 July. Walpole Park. CAMRA members £3, nonmembers £5. Hundreds of ales shipped from around the country. www.ealingsummerfestivals.com

Lovebox Festival Fri 12 July, Sat 13 July. Gunnersbury Park. Electric, Hip hop, House music.

Bump Roller disco, vintage fair, body painting, food and drink. More info and bookings: www.loveboxfestival.com.

Ealing Blues Festival Sat 20 July, Sun 21 July. 12 noon – 10:30pm. Walpole Park. The biggest dedicated Blues event in Britain. www.ealingsummerfestivals.com

Ealing Jazz Festival Sat 27 July, Sun 28 July. Walpole Park.

Local and international performers. www.ealingsummerfestivals.com

Brentford festival Sun 1 September.12 noon – 6:00pm. Blondin Park. https://brentfordfestival.org.uk

Zee London Mela Sat 31 August to Sun 1 September.

Southall Park UB1. 1pm - 9pm

Ealing Comedy Festival

Soundbite

Thurs 18 July, Fri 19 July and Thurs 24 July, Fri 25 July. Walpole Park.

Gates open at 6:30pm and the show starts at 7:45pm. Bookings: www.ealingsummerfestivals.com

Sun 22 September. Dean Gardens, West Ealing. Free entry. Music, food, craft market, free children’s activities, free cookery workshops and more. www.soundbitefestival.org

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THE CON OF CONSULTATION

By Simon Hayes Short and Unpublicised Consultation Ealing residents are regularly told by the Council it wants to engage with us to make the borough a ‘great place to live’. But the one area where the Council is legally obliged to listen to taxpayers - consultation on major policies seems to be the one it is ignoring.

Take last year’s consultation on Ealing’s Local Implementation Plan (LIP), a document outlining how it will adopt the Mayor of London’s transport strategy. The plan will scrap free Stop and Shop bays, change Controlled Parking Zones and spend £millions on cycling infrastructure, massively impacting tens of thousands of residents and a multitude of small businesses. Ripe for comprehensive consultation one would think.

A Legal Requirement to Consult The Local Government Association’s website sets clear consultation guidelines, reinforced by the Supreme Court’s 2014 decision against Haringey Council. Anyone affected by proposals should have their say and respondents must be supplied with materials and time to properly consider their responses. The consultation must also take place at a time when the views of the decision maker are still open to change and can be influenced by responses. By these measures Ealing Council’s LIP consultation was woeful.

It was short, running from November 5 to December 7. Other London borough consultations were far longer, Hackney’s ran from November 12 to January 6.

There was no publicity, apart from an article on the Council’s ‘Around Ealing’ website and a small paragraph at the foot of page 8 of December’s ‘Around Ealing’ magazine that contained just a web link. That magazine was published on December 3, just four days before the consultation closed. Blink and you missed it. Yet what is this publiclyfunded magazine for if not to publicise Council plans before they happen?

Council Leader Julian Bell told me in March the consultation was ‘advertised at Ward Forum meetings’. It certainly wasn’t in Northfields, or at any other Ward Forums. Ward Councillors, such as Labour’s Paul Driscoll and Fay Block, seemed unaware of this requirement

even after consultation started. Emails were sent to ‘stakeholders’ – but without the information on which to base a response. According to one stakeholder the Council's website provided a link to a previous LIP but not to the new one. As he said: ‘How can I possibly make any meaningful comment? The consultation process is flawed. I have a depressing feeling the Council will implement various schemes while hiding behind the claim it consulted residents.’

Promises Broken, Trust Undermined A total of 467 responses were received, hardly a representative sample of a borough of 350,000. The consultation results had still not been published at the end of April, despite Cllr Bell’s assurance in mid-March that it would be online ‘in a couple of weeks’.

And yet the draft LIP was passed without comment by the Cabinet in February. The Council says it will consult on future plans under the LIP, but who believes that? These decisions appear to have already been made even if those decisions clearly won’t make Ealing a ‘great place to live’.

This is another example of why journalism in Ealing is really important.

We need to keep the council accountable for Ealing's long term benefit.

Neighbours Paper is on the hunt for more volunteers as article contributors and to help with production and distribution, so we can keep the pressure on.

If you are community minded and have something to offer please contact our editor or email neighbourspaper@hotmail.co.uk Neighbours' Paper - Putting the People of Ealing First

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Open Spaces Under Threat

By Eric Leach Ealing has 127 open spaces, with some of the larger ones being called parks. It’s these open spaces, along with the trees, which have given a distinctive character to our borough.

However, this is changing and could change significantly in the future.

With ambitious residential building targets (28,000 new homes) set for 2028, some of these open spaces are being eyed by property developers as potential building sites. With austerity reducing Government grants to Local Authorities many boroughs - Ealing included – are looking at open spaces as revenue sources.

Warren Farm One of our larger open spaces at Warren Farm in Southall (61 acres) had already been ‘gifted’ by Ealing Council to the two billionaires who own QPR football club. Many of us thought that as the land was designated as Metropolitan Open Land (MOL) the possibility that it could become the site of a professional sports club was inconceivable. But we were wrong.

Gurnell Green Space Another MOL site is under threat adjacent to Gurnell Leisure Centre.

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Gunnersbury Park Here the Council with a Malaysian developer is planning to build over 600 new homes up to 17 storeys high. The justification, apparently, is the provision of a new leisure centre with a bigger swimming pool. It’s strange how many Victorian swimming pools lasted for 100 years whilst the existing Gurnell pool will have a life of just 38 years.

Playing Fields And sports grounds are by no means safe from being disposed of or ‘privatised’. Some of North Acton Playing Fields has seemingly been gifted to a local Japanese football club. A similar disposal has taken place with regard to Scotch Common in West Ealing. Pitshanger Football Club has been given a 15 year lease on most of the common, apparently with no public notification or consultation.

Haven Green The Crossrail depot on Haven Green with metal containers stacked on top of each other and its ‘tarmaced’ car park has blighted the site for years.

Almost obscenely this scar on the landscape has not been responsible

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for any new station building at Ealing Broadway. The Illegal building by Ealing Council of bike racks on the green has still not been rectified.

Gunnersbury Park This is Ealing’s largest park. Money has been raised and is being spent on building and sports facilities’ renovation.

However in order to generate adequate running costs, elaborate and quite disruptive events are being held in the park. Local residents were up in arms over the anti-social behaviour surrounding the Lovebox Festival last year. This community Interest Company which runs the park has little or no local resident representation.

Ealing Parks Foundation (EPF) The EPF was announced by the Council in 2017. Trustees for the charity are currently being sought.

Sadly it’s likely that the EPF will accelerate the privatisation of our public spaces. EPF volunteers (and Trustees) are likely to act as volunteer Park Rangers and fund raisers, but are unlikely to have any significant input in future open space policy.

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Join the Plogolution

By Dermot K avanagh

Ever despaired at what is happening to our beautiful planet and wondered how you could help? Well two friends from South West London have come up with a solution that will get you fit whilst doing so and what’s more, it’s about to hit Ealing’s streets. Back in early 2018 Michelle and Dermot noticed the sheer amount of rubbish present whilst out running along the River Thames. With fitness as their common love they wondered if there was a way to combine exercise with helping the environment and before long they came across ‘Plogging’.

Plogging is a relatively new craze from Sweden which combines the words “plocka” meaning to pick up, with jogging. Running whilst picking up rubbish? Surely this was perfect.

Running Whilst Picking Up Rubbish

They decided to do a pilot plog along the river starting at Putney Bridge and heading down towards Hammersmith. Two groups headed off, a walking route and a running group, both meeting up at the end to discuss their finds over a picnic. 16 people attended and the event was a huge success, with a huge amount of rubbish collected. They decided to give themselves a name and set a goal of making this a national movement, and so Plogolution was born.

By their third plog they had 50 “ploggers” clearing up the area

around Battersea Park and down the river towards Vauxhall. They cleared over 100 bags of rubbish, much of which was separated for recycling and plenty of friendships were made, especially after the free AcroYoga class which was laid on for all the ploggers after the clear up.

Also Rubbish Picking Whist Walking

Since then Plogolution have held regular plogs all across London, going as far out as Hackney, with at least 30 people attending each plog.

Plogolution will be holding a number of plogs in Ealing throughout 2019 and there will always be a 2k walk and a 5k run so if running is not your thing then you’re still more than welcome. Families are encouraged to come and join the walking group and all ages and fitness levels are welcome. Gloves, bags, and litter pickers are provided and every new plogger will receive a free T-shirt.

After the plog we always have a social aspect which in the past has included mixed martial arts classes, AcroYoga and picnics. Keep an eye on our website for all the latest plogs and follow us on social media.

If you are looking for ways to get fit in 2019 then why not help a beautiful planet at the same time and join the Plogolution team and help to make Ealing Borough a much cleaner and happier place to be. www.plogolution.com

Help Us Clean Up Ealing This grass roots, bottom-up initiative engendering neighbourhood pride might in some way make up for the lack of top-down, Government neighbourhood pride initiatives.

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Arch Climbing Wall

By Michael Holmes Up! Up! Up! and… Not quiet away.

The saying goes what goes up must come down. Goes to say those who attempt to climb the Arch Climbing Wall will experience just that. Having met with Emilia Shaftesbury, Head of Education and Events at Arch Climbing Wall based in Acton, I find out what brought about this initiative.

May I start by asking when was the climbing venue established? ‘The Arch began life as London's first boulderingonly climbing gym in 2008, under the railways in London Bridge. We've had a number of sites since then but are currently running three centres in London - in Bermondsey, Burnt Oak and most recently Acton, which opened on January 2nd this year. Why was the wall started and by who? ‘It was started by Fred Stone, a keen boulderer himself who is still owner and director’.

How many members to date? ‘We currently have over 46,000 registered members, though thankfully they don't all come at the same time!’

What benefits does Arch have for Ealing and the wider community?

‘The benefits of a climbing wall to a community like Ealing are multi-faceted.

There are obvious physical benefits to the individual - climbing works muscle groups all over the body, and as well as strength encourages flexibility and agility. Mental health benefits

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have been well documented, and further reading can be found at the links below under the title benefits and charity work. A climbing centre also fosters a sense of community, bringing together like-minded people who might otherwise have never met’.

Are there any professional people supporting the club i.e. current or former world athletes Commonwealth or Olympic medallists etc?’ We currently sponsor Matt Cousins who climbs for Team GB as well as working for us as a regular route-setter. He is hoping to qualify for the 2020 Olympic Games, the first year climbing has been represented. We are also supporting long term front of house employee Harry Partridge in his goal to be a successful competition climber’.

What are the club future plans? ‘In terms of future plans we hope to make a success of our Acton centre and continue to provide an oasis of climbing escapism for our customers in London!

The last Friday of every month we run an event at the Acton centre called #TAMRU, (The Arch Monthly Round-Up).

Putting the People of Ealing First

This takes the format of a climbing competition but is free to enter and for every climb somebody completes we donate 50p to a charity. This month the charity is Cape (www.capeproject.org.uk) a local mental health and well-being project. There is also a DJ and MC, prize giveaways and more - could be well worth checking out if you'd like to see what we can do for the community in Acton and Ealing.

More information about what we do here at Arch and up to date news can be found on the following social media handles and website.

Address: Arch Acton, 20-24 High Street, Acton, W3 6LJ Website: www.archclimbingwall.com, Instagram: @archclimbing Facebook: Arch Climbing Wall and Twitter:@ArchClimbingWall