Today’s Gazette carries an exclusive report that Tesco is going to move into the Ealing Broadway Centre. The site vacated by Morrisons last July is the largest in the shopping centre and anchors the whole site. It is good news for Ealing that it is going to be re-occupied. Not everybody loves Tessa Cohen’s grocery store but with M&S and Tesco in Ealing Broadway and Waitrose and Sainsbury in West Ealing you can’t say we haven’t got a pretty good range of supermarkets.
Category: Ealing and Northfield
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Stacey responds to SEAL
Some Northfield residents have been upset by the proposed or actual replacement of Edwardian street lights with modern “hockey stick” columns by the Council. Northfield councillors have been receiving a number of e-mails from residents, especially those of Salisbury Road. There is even a group called Save Ealing’s Antique Lampposts (SEAL) apparently. This issue has been discussed by the Conservative group on the council and here is the latest from council leader, Jason Stacey:
We are trying to work through this issue as we speak but there are some complex technical issues as well as financial ones which we are trying to work through and to be frank these are not proving easy.
As you are probably aware, the previous administration entered into a PFI contract with EDF to modernise all street lighting in the borough. This contract is effectively coming to the end of the first year of a four year programme. For most roads in the borough this new street lighting will take the form of the ‘hockey stick’ style lighting but as part of the contract some roads were allocated the new ‘heritage style’ lighting. Needless to say upon reviewing this, this applies literally to only a few roads in the contract and does not cover many of the roads with the old style heritage lamps which exist at present.
The new administration has asked for the costs to be drawn up which would enable us in these roads to install the new heritage style lamps instead of the hockey style. The costings we have received back is that it will cost £800,000 per year over the life of the four year contract – a total of £3.2 million. There is undoubtedly therefore an issue with this cost as effectively £800,000 represents around 10% of our available total capital expenditure for the coming financial year.
Many residents have also suggested to us that the existing heritage lighting be retained; perhaps with some restoration work on them to bring them back to former glory. This seemed to me on the face of it a good option as we could maybe escape the costings set out above and set aside some budget for improvement work to the existing lighting stock.
Unfortunately, it seems upon further investigation that this too has problems. One of the reasons why the previous administration undertook this PFI contract was that our street lighting stock did not meet EU regulations surrounding the quality, height and strength of lighting that it supposed to be emitted. We are required as a council to conform with these regulations and one of the problems raised is that we cannot get the old style heritage lighting (whatever we do to modify it) to at the end of the process to conform to these EU regulations.
Work is still continuing on all of this, but I just wanted to highlight to you some of the issues we have been having with this and we are working on possible options on the way forward. It may be that after everything there is no way round this on contractual, financial and regulation grounds, but I know that this will not be welcomed by residents in some areas and, as you say, may take something away from the distinct character of the area. It is also possible, for example, that we move all affected roads to the end of the programme to enable us to gather the one off cost together to meet the cost of having heritage instead of hockey style lighting. I hope early in the New Year to give you a definitive answer on where we are going with this.
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Jason Stacey on Northfield
Council leader Jason Stacey visited the ward on 30th November to do one of his “Reality checks”. I was busy interviewing potential new headteachers for Little Ealing Primary School that day so I could not be there. The other two Northfield councillors, David Millican and Mark Reen were there along with council officers and representatives of ECT, the council’s refuse, recycling and street cleaning contractor.
Jason’s somments were published on the council’s website in the last day or two, see below:
Ealing Council needs to do more to tackle the issues of graffiti and dumped rubbish from streets in the borough’s Northfields ward.
Council Leader Jason Stacey visited the area for one of his Reality Checks recently and found a number of walls and street furniture covered in graffiti.
He found some shopkeepers and residents need to be educated about when and where they should leave their black bags.
However, he said overall the standards of street cleaning in the area by the council’s contractors ECT generally good.
The places he visited were: Midhurst Road, Mayfield Avenue, Ridley Avenue, Northcroft Road, Alley by number 47 Belsize Avenue/junction with Northcroft Road, Belsize Avenue, Derwent Yard, Derwent Road, Overdale Road, Weymouth Avenue, Airedale Road, South Ealing Road, North Road, Chandos Avenue, Little Ealing Lane, Niagara Avenue, Blondin Avenue and Cramner Avenue.
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Envirocrime walkabout
On Monday I spent an hour with Ricky Wright, our ward’s envirocrime prevention officer. We started off at Northfield tube and spent an hour in the southern part of the ward ending up at South Ealing tube station.
One issue that Ricky is trying to tackle is getting the shop keepers at the south end of South Ealing Road to make sure that they handle their waste properly. Some of then did not have commercial waste agreements until Ricky started chasing them. Some of those who have signed up with the council’s own trade waste service seem to be getting a poor service and if the council’s service is not really hot then it is too easy for traders to blame the council rather than make sure they look after their own waste properly.
The bottom line is that councils have not been responsible for trade waste for years. Businesses are responsible for storing their waste on their own premises and disposing of it properly. If you see a trader misbehaving then please challenge them or call the Ealing council customer services line – 020 8825 6000.
Outside South Ealing tube station a resident approached us to talk about the state of the little park just there. It appears it is being increasingly used by drinkers and drug takers – one bench was surrounded by cans and we even saw a syringe in a flower bed. Yuck! Ricky passed the info on to the Safer Neighbourhood Team.
On my way back to my car I spotted a fly tip of roofing material on Weymouth Avenue and called it in myself. Checking this morning it was still there so customer services got the Mr Angry treatment from me I am afraid. They are usually pretty good at moving these quickly so I was disappointed that this one was still there 2 days after I called it in. Hopefully it will be gone tomorrow. I’ll check.
In another example of the council being more pro-active and sorting Northfield’s environment out the council’s contractors moved onto the site at the corner of Fulmer Way and Ridley Avenue last Thursday.
The exercise was led by the Envirocrime protection team. You can see me chatting with David Stokes, one of the team leaders, below. As an ex-park ranger he finds it hard not to be hands on so the opportunity to tear into some undergrowth with a power tool was more than he could bear.
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The site had been used as a dumping ground so first of all a lorry load of sofas and the such-like had to be cleared away. Someone had dumped some old asbestos roofing – this is typically pretty safe but it still needs to be handled properly so a specialist Asbestos Consultants, was sent out to do this. If you’ve ever seen anyone safely dispose of an asbestos fence, then you know how much work is involved. The broken down fence was removed along with some of the larger shrubs. We left some of the budlea for the butterflies next summer. A new fence was then put up around the site to make it look smarter and to keep fly-tippers and drinkers out.
Ricky Wright, who is the Northfield Envirocrime Protection Officer, led the exercise. He reports to David. Ricky traced the owners of the land, wrote to them and served a notice under Section 80 of the Environmental Protection Act notice (this relates to abatement of nuisance). The notice was not complied with so he arranged for the council’s contractors to carry out the works in default. The council will now seek to collect its costs from the owners. Ultimately they will simply put a charge on the property so that costs are recovered when the owner gets around to selling it.
This kind of action takes meticulous work from officers and unfortunately it takes some time to jump through the legal hoops. You can see the almost finished result below. I talked to both of the immediately adjacent neighbours who were thrilled to see the work being done. Well done to all.
Writing in his weekly column today Ealing Council Leader, Jason Stacey, promises “to keep any increases as low as possible”.
One of the biggest risks to the council tax is the continuing greed and wastefulness of the London Mayor. As Jason says:
Whilst we will be showing restraint, we must remember that £288 of the council tax is totally out of the council’s control. This is the part that is determined by Ken Livingstone and the GLA. Last year Ken raised his part of the council tax by 13.5%, and he has more than doubled it since he became Mayor.
We will be doing everything we can to reduce the burden of any council tax increases for residents. I only hope Mayor Livingstone will show similar restraint!
Every time the Mayor tells you of some minor new freebie he is giving away just remember that in the seven years since the old regime started to be reformed to get ready for the London Mayor the precept has gone up 2.75 times.
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Gazette now online
The Ealing Gazette has joined the 21st century and gone on line. Well done! See link right.
I am not sure what their policy is with respect to keeping the online version up to-date. Today’s stories are not up on it yet.
They report that Andrew Slaughter is cutting and running from Ealing and going back to Hammersmith. He obviously does not fancy his chances of winning against Angie Bray in the new seat of Ealing Central and Acton. He won’t have much fun in the new Fulham and Chelsea seat where he will be up against the very successful Greg Hands.
Last night we had the 3rd Safer Neighbourhood Team focus meeting. Sgt Elam was there along with his PC, Stuart Hedley. There were 6 reps from residents and traders associations plus Ricky Wright, our envirocrime enforcement officer and Cllr Millican and myself.
The team of four promised by the Mayor by the end of April (see his press release) finally materialised at the end of November. Only 7 months late. Such are pre-election promises.
The good news is that a third PCSO is due to start today and another PC in January to bring us up to the full SNT team strength of 6 (1 sergeant, 2 PCs and 3 PCSOs).
The accommodation issue is not yet settled. The latest plan is a shared shop unit on South Ealing Road with the Ealing Common team. Sounds good to me.
We spent most of our time examining the three priorities set by the focus meeting.
Drugs
At the last meeting we set reducing the levels of drug activity as the first priority. Although there are 3 potential hot spots in the area the team have only found one person in possession since they started operating in April. They make about 30 stops per week so after stopping almost 1,000 people they have found 1 person. The police officers thought that the problem may be more one of perception than reality.
Vehicle crime
Motor vehicle crime is the biggest single category of crime in the ward. In Q2 there were 61 incidents, it went down to 35 in Q3 and back up to 48 in Q4. There is quite a mix with everything from key scratching to satnav thefts. There is a particular problem with one individual slashing car tyres. It is perhaps more prevalent in the south of the ward where it neighbours Brentford. Most victims are residents. The Police are actively educating owners to try to reduce the incidence of this crime. The team have not nabbed any villains for car crime.
Graffiti
Since the team started eight young offenders have been caught. Most have been let off with a caution as this is the first time they have come to the attention of the Police. One individual should be getting an ASBO on Thursday. There was general agreement that the new graffiti service combined with an effective envirocrime protection officer, Ricky, and this effective police work was having a marked effect on graffiti in the area.
CCTV
Linda Massey, from Boston Manor Residents Association, has been championing a new style of cheap CCTV system and has been working with the shops in Boston Manor Parade. This was of great interest to the Northfield Traders rep where they are having a problem with vandals scratching glass.
Burglaries
There was a big growth in burglaries in the last quarter to 24. More worrying there were 14 incidents in the last two weeks. Sneak thieves talking their way into the homes of the elderly are included in this category. Luckily there has been no violence but everyone is warned to check the id of callers. Apparently there is a pair of women going around claiming to be from Age Concern. If you are vulnerable trust no-one.
Priorities
We had a conversation about resetting priorities. The number one priority should be burglary, followed by motor vehicle crime, followed by more general criminal damage including graffiti.
The next meeting is provisionally scheduled for 7.30pm at room upstairs at the Harvester on Boston Manor Road on 13th February.
Call Sgt Elam on 07879 888989 if you have any local crime issues or if you would like to attend the next focus meeting.
Today the government’s Commission for Social Care Inspection announced that Ealing’s adult social services have been graded as two star, see Ealing Council press release.
This is quite an achievement. They have gone from no stars two years ago to one star last year and two stars this. This service will continue to improve under the new Conservative administration and will never again be allowed to fall into the poor state that it was in two years ago. To give you an idea of how bad things had got two years ago there were only 2 no star councils in the whole country that year and there are none today.
For the whole CSCI report follow link.
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Happy cardboard day
From today we can put out cardboard with our recycling. It is another example of how the new Conservative administration at the council is delivering on environmental pledges.
The council’s instructions on how to use the service are as follows:
Flattened boxes and household cardboard packaging, egg boxes and greeting cards will be accepted. Residents are asked to keep cardboard separate from paper using a carrier bag, to break up large items and remove any tape that may be stuck to the cardboard. Larger cardboard items may be collected by a different vehicle at a different time on the normal collection day.
Phil Taylor 