Save Ealing's Centre home page

Save Ealing's Centre (SEC) is a voluntary alliance of 25 residents' associations and community groups drawn together as local stakeholders in response to proposed developments in the centre of Ealing. You can see details together with their contact details HERE
Our Vision statement (recently revised) defines the principles we believe should guide plans for the centre of the borough. All our activities are aimed at furthering this vision.
News of latest developments is below. Our archives and more details on each of the main topics which concern us can be seen in the separate sections listed above.

OUR LATEST UPDATES ON WHAT IS HAPPENING IN EALING
Meanwhile just a quick note to point you at the website http://www.ealingtoday.co.uk/ which is FULL of local information including important matters like Crossrail, The Cinema site and, of course, The Town Hall and Perceval House sell-offs. They have some adverts of course but they don't interrupt all the local stories - have a look!!

2022 STARTS FROM HERE!!

NEW! - 21st February 2022: 10 - 40 The Broadway latest proposals and exhibition details

British Land have just announced propsals to re-develop the north side of Ealing Broadway from near Morrisons and around to opposite the station. The site will be known as "The Broadway Connection"
This is a reworking of plans from 2017 which would have extended on about the same frontage but with a whole area of shops and flats to the rear and extending to the railway cutting. - See our Archive page regarding 9 - 42 The Broadway via the link above.

There are currently no actual plans or views of the proposed site but an exhibition is scheduled to take place in early March. (see below)
They do say:-
Our emerging proposals for 10-40 The Broadway are to build on this and create c.30,000 sqm of additional high-quality, flexible office space,
along with a better selection of shops, restaurants and cafes, and a new route through from Ealing Broadway Station to the town centre. For this

reason we are referring to the project as “The Broadway Connection”.

We will update when more information becomes available.

British Land's information page is at https://ealingcentral.co.uk/broadway-connection/

NEW! - 1st March: Crossrail and Ealing Broadway Station - just a few bits of information

Completion dates for Ealing Broadway Station have gradually drifted back over the last few months. There are a number of remaining issues as follows:-

There are “snagging” issues with the new toilets which it is said should be resolved in the next week or so. The temporary toilets should then be removed.

Network Rail wanted some of the new security bollards at the northern end of the forecourt to be on Ealing Council land and Ealing Council didn’t want this. The issue is said to have been resolved and work does now seem to be proceeding.

There have been arguments between involved parties as to whether the steps between the road and the forecourt meet current safety design standards. It is not clear whether these issues have been resolved or if any further work will be required

The wall and railings at the southern end of the forecourt which did not show on planning approvals and do a wonderful job of obstructing access at what is already a pinch point in the paving. Ealing Council are pursuing the matter, but as yet there is no resolution.

The door to the new waiting room on platforms 2/3 is not compliant with disability access standards but new components are expected soon, For now the door is left open when the waiting room is in use.

The large cage surrounding the air-conditioning unit on platform 2 that limits the platform width is due to be reduced in size but there is no date for that to happen.

The new canopies on platforms 4 and 2/3 are being done by a different contractor for the station operator, MTR Crossrail. They mostly represent an improvement on the approved Crossrail design and may not require any new planning permission so should resume shortly. UPDATE - MTR have just informed us that the delays are due to being reliant on track possessons but the work should be completed in April. Then works will take place on platforms 2/3 to install new mid-platform fences (as already done on some stations) to allow platform 3 width to increase.

The new roof on the lower part of Villiers House should be completed by late summer and the work should not affect passenger access to the station.

Some form of public consultation is expected on Ealing Broadway public realm work outside the station, but details are unclear. Initial work will be funded by Ealing Council rather than by TfL.

On the brighter side of things, there seems a high level of confidence that the central London part of Crossrail should be open by the end of June. A through service from Ealing Broadway to central London and out to Abbey Wood is expected before Christmas (2022).

We hope to have reports on several local items which will be on this web page when available - keep watching!

Those will include at least the following:-

Perceval Houset
Victoria Hall
CP House in Uxbridge Road
Sandringham Mews (The space between the High Street and Bond Street - mainley acar park at present)
Crossrail updates
The Ealing Local Plan including reports on Ealing's Building cluster
Changes in Springbridge Road and Gordon Road junction

NOW JUST A FEW ITEMS REMAINING FROM THE END OF 2021

24th November 2021: Crossrail and Ealing Broadway Station - latest information

Crossrail is a massive engineering project to enable trains to travel between west and east London through new tunnels under central London. It will also increase the capacity of the transport system in central London and reduce some journey times. Full details of the project are at https://www.crossrail.co.uk

The vast majority of the physical work on the project has now been completed. Most of the current effort is around testing out the new trains and the service to ensure that everything will be safe and reliable when it starts under the name of the Elizabeth Line. Central London service between Paddington and Abbey Wood is expected to start in the first half of 2022, with the whole through service running in May 2023 at the latest

Locally, the new longer trains are already running between Reading and Heathrow and the current Paddington station. Most of the work on Ealing Broadway station has been completed, with a big new forecourt canopy, a big new street level ticket hall and lifts to the platforms. Most of the remaining works are expected to be completed in the next few weeks.

UPDATED 7th February 2021: Ealing Planning Committee are to discuss the Perceval House planning application at their meeting on 17th February.

On 17^th Feb the Council’s Plans to redevelop Perceval House go to Planning Committee. If they are approved the impact on Central Ealing will be devastating. There is still time to object. Save Ealing’s Centre asks you to do so if you’ve not done so already and that you ask everyone in your groups to do so as well by forwarding this pdf or email to inform them. You can then click on this link to comment.

There are quite a lot of interesting documents available:-

The SEC objection leaflet for sending on to others is HERE

SEC's own letter of objection to Ealing Council is HERE

The GLA (Greater London Authority) initial report on the plans to replace Perceval House is HERE

SEC has also written to the GLA with avery full submission which contains (from about page 14 onwards) a load of amazing photos showing the impact that the proposed building will have on Ealing Centre. Well worth a look just for those! HERE

16th January 2021: Our latest newsletter uploaded via the "Newsletters link" above

AND ALSO JUST A FEW ITEMS UP TO 2021

MORE ON THE VICTORIA HALL PROPOSALS
12th December 2019: A new group "Friends of Victoria Hall" has been set up to fight the proposals to sell off the hall to Mastcraft as part of their planned conversion to an Hotel and remove some public access.

You can visit theFriends site at Save Ealing's Victoria Hall
Where you will find all the latest news at https://savethevictoriahall.weebly.com/in-the-news.html

Most importantly, the news site gives full details of Ealing's consultation that allows you to object to this scheme. The council consultation closes on Monday 6th January 2020 so THERE IS NO TIME TO BE LOST! You can find details at The Ealing Council site.

Also the Friends have set up a petition to be presented at the same time and it is open for your comments and objections. Please visit the 38 degrees petition site as soon as possible. We need many many signatures!

MORE and YET MORE ON THE VICTORIA HALL PROPOSALS

4th February 2019: Mastcraft new planning application to Ealing council

SEC is surprised that Mastcraft has now made a new planning application to convert the Town Hall into an hotel. This includes demolition of property owned by the Victoria Hall Trust to make room to build the hotel’s 120 rooms. The Victoria Hall will be shrunk through the loss of the easternmost bay and a rose window that is an integral architectural feature is to be relocated. Public access to the hall and several adjacent areas will be restricted.

The consultation on Mastcraft’s planning application runs until Feb 26th. There are over 100 documents in the full application details but the key sections are in the planning statement, and you may wish to view the relevant design and access statements – Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3 and the Built Heritage Impact Assessments – Part 1 and Part 2.

Please have a look at them and submit your comments via the website in good time for the 26th February.

Be warned however that these are large documents between 2 and 4Mb each although absolutely FULL of information well worth reading.

SEC lawyers have written a second and more detailed letter to the Charity Commission questioning the Council’s deal to hand over the Victoria Hall to Mastcraft who are commercial hotel developers.
These areas were paid for from public subscription and are owned by a charitable trust. You can see the affected area on these plans The Council has no right to dispose of the Hall without the permission of the Charity Commission and SEC’s lawyers believe that charity rules will not permit the deal to proceed.

You can see some previous information on the Mastcraft plans on our special Town Hall and Victoria Hall archive page HERE.

5th January 2018: Ealing Borough Faces New Building Boom

A New London Plan is proposing massive new developments in Ealing that will affect everybody. If the plan is adopted the annual rate of flat building in the Borough will double. Over the next 10 years 28,000 new homes would be built and Ealing’s population would grow by around 25%.

Save Ealing’s Centre is concerned about the implications of such a steep rise. While the need for homes is indisputable, the Borough seems expected to provide a disproportionate number of them. There is no information where all these homes would be provided and what safeguards there would be for the Borough's heritage. Impacts on services which are already over-burdened are not considered.

SEC has asked Council leader Julian Bell whether it thinks such an ambitious programme is sustainable and where the homes would be provided. Our letter to him, the current targets and particularly his response, which raises many more questions than answers, can be seen HERE.

Save Ealing's Centre proposes to respond to the London Plans consultation. However our experience has been that the GLA pays little attention to comments from local groups. Views from our Council are likely to carry more weight so we shall be raising this issue with the Council again over the coming months. However, if the implications of the London Plan's targets concern you we would encourage you to raise your concerns with Julian Bell yourself.

The Plan’s consultation ends on March 2^nd 2018 and you can leave your comments via the box at the bottom of the London Plan page.

SEC is delighted with the outcome of the 12th October referendum. Residents and local business voted overwhelmingly to support the introduction of a new Neighbourhood Plan for Central Ealing.
The new plan will form part of the statutory development plan, and will directly influence decisions on local planning applications that affect the Town Centre. It will give local businesses and residents greater democratic influence in changes taking place here.
Thanks are due to those in the Forum who laboured long and hard to bring the plan to fruition and to SEC supporters who helped ensure the vote in favour at the referendum.

For more information about the Neighbourhood Plan visit the Central Ealing Neighbourhood Forum web page where you will find the full details and view the full Plan.

30th August 2017: Neighbours paper highlights Ealing plans

Many of you will have seen The Neighbours Paper which is freely available throughout the borough. This edition is guest edited and focuses on residents' concerns about developments taking place in Ealing which are replacing the best bits of the borough with poorly designed over-sized blocks of flats - one of SEC's regular items.
You can download a copy via their website at http://www.neighbourspaper.com/ and catch up on earlier editions to see their articles giving early airings to vital subjects.
This edition has a full page article on the Council's plans for the Perceval Hose redevelopment which will doubtless feature in future SEC campaigns.

29th June 2017: The Cinema site SEC survey

New landowners St George announced in May that they are finally to build the much promised cinemas.

However they have now applied for what they call "minor amendments" to the Ealing Filmworks Development that originally received planning permission back in March 2015. St George say that the changes won't affect the 2019 deadline for delivery of the cinema, but there are quite few substantial changes that will increase the height and bulk of the development and the number of flats within it and reduce the commercial space - i.e. less shops!

SEC have produced further in depth details of the plans - which you can see HERE and also published a survey into the changes proposed. You are encouraged to complete this survey and show how local residents feel about the latest plans. You can find the survey HERE

Additionally SEC would encourage you to comment on the application either by e-mail to planning@ealing.gov.uk or via the Ealing Council planning website or even by post. Full details of all those methods are available at the end of our further details sheet.

7th July 2017: Information for Hanwell and West Ealing supporters

Here are a few new items of interest to our West Ealing and Hanwell supporters.

1. You may remember that there was a planning application to replace just the (now closed) BHS store in West Ealing. Well now it has been revealed that this will also include the demolition of the old Woolworths building. The developers A2 Dominion are having a public consultation exhibition on Saturday, 15th July from 1pm to 4pm at The Lounge, St John’s Church, Mattock Lane, West Ealing, London, W13 9LA. You are encouraged to go along to see what might be in store for the future (other than more big empty shops or restaurants?)

West Ealing Centre Neighbourhood Forum (EWCNF) has more about this site listed as "asset 6" on their web page at http://www.wecnf.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/WECNF-Heritage-Assets.pdf

2. There is also a current planning application for replacement of nearly all the little cottages between the gym and Lidl entrance in Hanwell (they were built in about 1715) and later with the front gardens were built over to provide the shops. The development will be of up to 10 storeys of 63 units mixed between studios and 3 bed flats. Amazingly, the scheme describes the block as Marshall house (after the designer of guitar amplifiers which were made in one of those shops)

The Planning application is ref: 172913FUL: 64-66 and 70-88 Uxbridge Road, Hanwell W7 3SU which you can see via the Ealing planning application website at https://pam.ealing.gov.uk/online-applications/ - which was broken but is now working again!

Ealing today published an report on this application a while ago and it can be seen on their website


The proposed Marshall House	Existing eastern end of site next to gym	Existing western end of site towards Lidl

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