WE HEAD INTO 2021 WITH 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 sell-off. They
have some adverts of course but they don't interrupt all the local
stories - have a look!!
UPDATED 7th February 2021: Ealing Planning Committee are to discuss the Perceval House planning application at their meeting on 17th February.
Urgent action
is required as the deadline for objections is now
for the Plannng Committee meeting scheduled for 17th February 2021!
On 17th 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
UPDATED 16th January 2021: Our latest newsletter uploaded via the "Newsletters link" above
2021 STARTS HERE!! What can possibly be in store?
FIRST UP A VERY RELEVANT ITEM REPEATED FROM FROM SEPTEMBER 25th 2020
A report on the PERCEVAL HOUSE redevelopment and reasons to object.
Perceval House, a
large "spanner-shaped" building designed by Sidney Kaye, Eric Firmin
& Partners was erected to the west of the town hall, as additional
accommodation for council officers and their departments in 1983.
Initially referred to as the "Civic Centre", it was renamed "Perceval
House" after Spencer Perceval, a former Prime Minister who, before he
was assassinated , lived in Elm Grove in Ealing
Stop the
Perceval House Development
Urgent action
is required as the deadline for objections is now
for the Plannng Committee meeting scheduled for 17th February 2021!
You may have seen
notices for the redevelopment of Ealing Council’s offices at Perceval
House. The Developer’s images are extremely misleading, as is so much else
they have written. This scheme would do immeasurable damage to
Ealing.
Opposing these
plans will be a big challenge. They are being promoted by Ealing Council in
partnership with developers Vistry, who put in the planning application. As
the site owner, Ealing Council is only interested in packing as much on the site
as they can, irrespective of any harm they cause. As the planning authority, the
Council is supposed to assess the impact of the development on behalf of us all,
but they are behaving they are behaving like the greediest developers. It is
using its dual status to demand far too much from the developers - brand new
Council offices, a new library and 226 new homes for their new housing company
called Broadway Living. The only way Vistry can do all this and make a profit
for themselves is by cramming 477 homes onto this small site in the shape
of a 26-storey tower block that will tower over the low-rise homes to the north
and the Grade II listed Town Hall.
Historic England
has criticised the plans very strongly. They say they will destroy the
character of the Victorian Conservation Areas and spoil views from Walpole
Park.
The developers
have held several ‘consultation’ events but they’ve changed nothing at all in
their plans. Ealing Council holds all the powers it needs to wave the scheme
through. What they are doing is wrong and we plan to fight them all the way. You
can see the application and lodge an objection, if you follow the link
on Ealing Council's website HERE
We have prepared
a list of 10 reasons to object and you can see the full details of the redevelopment and how to object HERE–
please do so
now.
Also the local Ealing Matters group have published a fully updated and illustrated item about the Perceval
House plans which is much better at giving a quick overview of the
development than the Council's page and sets out in context
the reasons to object.
You can find it on their Perceval House page
HERE
and their main page with Ealing news is at
https://ealingmatters.org.uk/ .
The
Stop the Towers Ealing website has a superb aerial tour of the site on their website
HERE
.
UPDATED 17th January 2020: Crossrail
and Ealing Broadway Station - latest information
The Crossrail work at Ealing Broadway Station is now
progressing well according to the designs approved in Schedule 7 planning
applications, the most recent one of which was in 2017. The steelwork for some
of the lift shafts and walkways has now been installed, plus preparatory work
done for the remaining lift shaft. Some other steelwork on the platforms has
been installed, plus some work has been done on the new street level ticket
hall. Monthly updates about the work are now provided on the Crossrail
website http://www.crossrail.co.uk/route/western-section/ealing-broadway-station
The only part of the original design that is being reviewed is
the design of the canopies on the platforms. There has been some concern that
they wouldn’t provide adequate protection from the rain. New designs for
canopies and shelters are being investigated and these are being subjected to
passenger flow modelling. Any change to the approved design would require either
a new Schedule 7 application or an amendment to the existing one.
The current expectation is that the right hand (southern) side
of the new ticket hall will be opened in summer 2020, with the left hand
(northern) side following by December 2020. The new lifts will open once they
are ready for service and at least by December 2020. The forecourt canopy (to
the original design) will be constructed in 2 stages in conjunction the with
station building work. The left hand (northern) part of it will go across the
frontage of Villers House. Any work on the frontage of Villiers House itself and
the estate agent below would be the responsibility of Ealing Ltd. This would
require a new planning application and is likely to be done to a different
timescale.
The new Crossrail trains are now running from Paddington (via
Ealing Broadway) out to Reading. They are currently 7 carriages long and will
increase to 9 carriages when the necessary software upgrades have been
completed. At some stage, the old Heathrow Connect trains out to Heathrow will
be replaced by the new Crossrail ones. This won’t now be until spring 2020 at
the earliest. The signalling isn’t yet reliable enough on the new
trains.
Ealing Council consulted on “public realm” changes outside
Ealing Broadway Station in 2019. They got some negative feedback and are now
re-thinking the designs, including the location of one bus stop and the lack of
drop off/ pick up points. The current expectation is that they will initially
have a workshop to discuss ideas. This would be along the lines of the Liveable
Neighbourhoods workshops.
MORE ON THE VICTORIA HALL PROPOSALS
UPDATED 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 theFrioends 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!
UPDATED 27th July 2019: Crossrail
and Ealing Broadway Station - Ealing Council consultation on redesign of the roadspace outside the station.
The
council is at long last consulting on plans to redesign the road space
outside Ealing Broadway Station ahead of Crossrail. You can see their
proposals at https://www.ealing.gov.uk/ebstation You
should read the consultation "DRAFT" paper first and there is
also a flyer available with an artists impression of what the site
could look like with the new minimalist canopy. Exactly what is
proposed is not very clear but the key features include:-
- Narrowing the carriageway outside the station to a single
lane.
- Installation of new cycle racks on both sides of the
road
- Relocating Bus stop F (E2, E7 and E8) to outside the Metrobank
- No vehicle drop off provision even for disabled passengers
- 6 trees in planters.
The Council consultation is open until 13th August.
Those who use the station will know too well how unpleasant
and overcrowded it is. Over the past 10 years, SEC has pressed hard to use the
opportunities of Crossrail to get something worthwhile and we are profoundly
underwhelmed with what is now proposed. We have asked the Council at least to
justify what they want to do but they have declined to do so. So please take a
look at the plans for yourself and register your views on them. You can do this
through their online survey, but if you have more to say than the survey allows,
you can email johnsonl@ealing.gov.uk.
SEC encourages you to make your own mind up about the plans, but some areas that
concern us are listed
HERE
UPDATED 18th March 2019: Crossrail
and Ealing Broadway Station - latest information
The Crossrail
delays continue. Crossrail Ltd. still aren’t able to predict a new planned
opening date for the central London section of the service but have confirmed that it won't now open in 2019. The situation in
Ealing is even worse as they haven’t yet let a contract to start the
station building work. Previous dates of 19th December and
14th February have been and gone and all they can say now is
“early April”.
The design for
the canopy outside Ealing Broadway Station will be different from that shown on
their hoardings. The revised design will be simpler and deals with a number of
issues with the old one. The illustrations we have seen look broadly acceptable - see HERE .
There will have to be a new “Schedule 7” planning submission to cover this
change.
Ealing Council
have radically changed their previous ideas for the “public realm” outside the
station. We have fed back significant concerns with the new proposed design and
will see what changes have been made when it shortly comes out for public
consultation.
Crossrail were
to have introduced a 4 trains per hour stopping service to Heathrow in May 2018.
They still don’t have confidence that they can run a reliable service with their
new trains and signalling. This new service will now have to wait until December
2019 at the earliest.
MORE
and YET MORE ON THE VICTORIA HALL PROPOSALS
UPDATED 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.
UPDATED 4th February 2019: Crossrail
and Ealing Broadway Station - latest information
Crossrail delays at Ealing
Broadway station continue. Crossrail now doubt that the bridge can carry the
supports for the original canopy design, while complications have emerged with
the area outside Villiers House which is not in public ownership. This has
required a major re-design to the canopy over the front entrance which will have
to go back through Ealing Planning – see
HERE for their latest ideas.
We are promised a consultation
on these plans together with Ealing’s latest thinking on the public realm in
front of the station in the coming weeks. A key question will be disabled car
passengers set-down provision.
Ealing today has a very full
roundup of latest events HERE published on 24th January
.
Back in November last year, Crossrail also sent a letter to some local residents explaining
what is happening at Ealing Broadway Station and what is due to take
place in late December/early January when there are
road closures and hence bus diversions whilst they install some heavy machinery.
You can see the text of their letter
HERE
SEC notes generally that as spring 2018 turned into summer, then summer into
autumn and with winter now here, the long promised improvements to Ealing
Broadway station forecourt seem as distant as ever. Crossrail has been in the
headlines recently for its cost overruns and other delays but they continue to
hold out the prospect that the new Elizabeth Line service will be operational by
the end of next year. They admit however, the other improvements at Ealing
Broadway Station will be far from complete and their occupation of Haven Green
will drag on deep into 2020.
Crossrail say that the station is ‘under technical review
by Network Rail as part of the contract letting’ (whatever that means). With
this in mind we look forward to confirmation that it will be built according to
the 2014 approved designs. The forecourt and the space around it are LBE’s
responsibility and they promise that once the station itself is agreed they will
consult further on these public realm details, probably in the New
Year.
Since it got its green light back in 2008, Crossrail’s
works across the Borough as a whole have been quite a shambles. Unlike in the
central and eastern sections nobody has taken the lead in planning how it would
be implemented and how it can best fit into the existing environment. Promises
and deadlines have been broken repeatedly with the buck passing back and forth
between TFL, Crossrail and Network Rail, while LBE spectating from the
side-lines like the rest of us. When the Elizabeth Line finally opens expect
that 4 out of 5 Ealing stations (the exception is Hanwell) will prove poorly
designed and interface badly with the neighbourhoods they
serve.
SEC has written to the National Audit Office to suggest
that they examine the implementation of Crossrail in Ealing in its recently
announced investigation of the overall Crossrail Project
You can see the full text of this letter HERE
10th November 2018: Crossrail
and Ealing Broadway Station - yet more ongoing delays
Endless
Delays. Crossrail eventually admitted at the end of August that the new Elizabeth Line
service through central London wouldn’t be able to start until Autumn 2019.
However, these delays are nothing compared to what we have experienced on the
western surface section of the route, where the scale of the work is much
smaller.
The planned design for Ealing Broadway Station was approved in
summer 2014. Work near us eventually started in late summer 2015 and the eastern
“emergency escape” footbridge was put up a few months later. Work on the
platform extensions then continued slowly, but everything else seemed to slow
down to a snail’s pace. The same was true for the other west London stations on
the Crossrail route. We got the tale from Crossrail Ltd. that this was due to
the difficulties of working around an operational railway. However, work well
away from the tracks didn’t seem to be going on either.
Some concerned
residents in West Ealing prompted BBC London to run an article about the delays
in July 2017. This got Crossrail to admit that the contract for work on the
station buildings had been canceled because of increasing costs related to extra
design work. There was no explanation of why a construction contract had been
let before design work had been completed. We were told that a new (cheaper)
contract would be in place in December 2017, with the work to start shortly
afterwards. This whole process then suffered slippage after slippage. The
invitations to tender only went out in October 2017 and to date no new contract
appears to be have signed, although there are signs that a contractor may have
been chosen.
We were told in late 2017 that temporary contracts would be
used to advance some of the work that could only be done during “possessions" of
the railway, when no trains would be running. There were plans to replace the
staircase to platforms 2 and 3 at Ealing Broadway Station using such temporary
contracts at Christmas 2017 and at the early May bank holiday 2018. Both these
plans were called off at the last moment when they realised they may not work.
Attempt no. 3 at replacing the staircase (using contractor no. 3) is now
underway. Passengers now have walk all the way down the platforms and cross over
the “emergency escape” footbridge to get at these platforms. It is thought that
a new staircase will be installed over the Christmas break.
The
introduction of new services hasn’t fared much better on our section of the
route. Crossrail were to introduce a 4 trains per hour service to Heathrow
Terminal 4 in May 2018 using their new Elizabeth Line trains. They then found
that they couldn’t get the signalling to work with them in the tunnels to
Heathrow. Two of their new trains per hour now just run to Hayes &
Harlington, with 2 of the old (rebadged) Heathrow Connect trains every hour
running all the way to Heathrow. It is not clear when the 4 trains per hour
service will start, but it won’t be before May 2019 and perhaps not until
December 2019.
We await Crossrail’s next failure to deliver on time and
on budget.
Ealing Today also have an
item from August 2018 suggesting that the opening of the Western
Section of Crossrail will be delayed. You can read the item
HERE
They also have an item from September 2018 reporting that passengers
may be "At risk" from the continuing delays at Ealing Broadway Station
and calling for action. That item is also available
HERE
23rd July The SEC Summer 2018 Newsletter is now available for viewing.
This
edition contains the latest on the Town Hall sell-off and what SEC are
doing to try and prevent the loss of The Victoria Hall and a few other
parts to a hotel run by Mastcraft. There are also some items on the
recent abolition of the Borough Conservation Officer - which threatens
Ealing's heritage - and items of local interest.
You can read the full newsletter HERE
Our newsletter archive can be found via the menu on the left or directly HERE
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.