Category: Ealing and Northfield

A large part of the Northfield ward is out of bounds today due to a fire at a food outlet in South Ealing Road last night. This has caused pretty extensive road disruption but no casualties thankfully. A large exclusion/evacuation area was declared because of acetylene gas cylinders being found at the site. More details on the council’s website.

I approached the area along Pope’s Lane at around 2pm this afternoon. The police are letting traffic get right up to the tape and then directing you right into the Trees estate. This is really bad traffic management as it is going to send a lot of frustrated drivers racing around the estate trying to get out. I have called Ealing police station to be answered by someone in Hendon. The SNT team are also on voicemail. Hopefully the message will get through and they will start deflecting people a little earlier.

This morning at 10am I joined staff from the council to see them tackle 33 Creighton road. The resident here has effectively turned his home into a fortress piling up large amounts of building materials and rubbish in his front garden, the alleys to the side and rear and his rear garden. Although I was glad to see the council taking action I felt sorry for the chap having his home intruded on. We do have to consider the neighbours though who have had to put up with this eyesore for over a year.

The process has been somewhat long-winded. A planning enforcement notice was served at the end of March this year. What with legal notice periods and the time taken to co-ordinate various groups of people it has taken fully six months to get to this stage.

We can only hope that the resident will now stop pilling this material up. Whilst we would love to leave him alone he can be sure that we wil be back if he does start again.

In a letter to the Ealing Gazette last Friday a man called John Messer of Northolt called the current administration “this thieving Tory council”. We have more important things to do than get into legal fights with Messer and the Gazette but these people need to grow up a little and moderate their language. No wonder people get turned off politics.

The Northala Fields scheme is great and a credit to the previous administration. It looks like Phase 1 of the project will come in with a £690K surplus. The Labour group and the consultants involved, who perhaps are not as disinterested as they might be, would like to spend this surplus raising more cash to undertake an ambitious Phase 2. In doing so they would put at risk the surplus generated to-date in order to raise further cash. Whilst the speculate to accumulate spirit is admirable in some ways it is not prudent. Phase 2 is high risk and will cost the council £1.8 million in the best of all possible worlds and maybe £4.6 million in a worst case.

When Phase 1 ends the park will be left with some notable missing components such as loos, signs and a children’s playground. The Conservative council has prudently decided to take a bird in the hand approach. We have a surplus. Let’s spend it on delivering these missing components so that we can all enjoy the park next year. Sure it would be great to have a more ambitious project but the money ain’t coming from the Lottery in the run up to the Olympics so get real.

The council is taking a sensible approach and the scheme’s opponents are using half truths and scare tactics to get people excited. The council’s priorities are clear and splashed all over the website.

Labour may want to play double or quits with public money but we would rather bank the winnings for Ealing and get on with governing. When we have got the basics right we can afford to be a bit more ambitious. The reason Labour lost the last election was because they lost sight of the basics. The vision thing is fine but not if your street is strewn with rubbish and your mum can’t get help from social services.

If you want some more facts as opposed to smears see Jason Stacey’s statement on the council’s website.

The councillors and residents’ association representatives who attended last night’s Ealing Area Committee had to endure a three hour meeting last night. Whilst these sessions are very useful – we discussed everything from street lights, through bus lanes to cycle schemes, we just had too much ground to cover. There were 11 papers to discuss after we had spent the best part of an hour covering three issues raised by members of the public. The Town Hall’s Nelson Room added to the burden on the participants as sounds from the street come straight through the windows.

The star of the show was definitely a bus driver called Alvarez who wanted to raise the lack of enforcement of parking restrictions which get in the way of his doing his job. There was some feeling that the council’s parking function is quick to ticket somebody overstaying in a parking bay but people who clutter main roads at busy times, such as minicab drivers, are largely unmolested. A number of times during the evening Mr Alvarez was consulted on bus related issues and the Committee welcomed having an expert in attendance for once. Keith Townsend, the relevant executive director, went away with some things to think about.

The issue that caused the most resonance was our discussion of the EDF street lighting PFI. This is grinding slowly along. The previous Labour council decided to try to save money by limiting the number of “heritage” lampposts that would be used. Many Edwardian streets are going to be disfigured by tubular “hockey stick” lampposts that will be out of character. One lady present reported that our lamposts were being sold by EDF to Camden for refurbishment and re-use. I understand that the previous administration decided to reduce the overall cost of the PFI by £2 million over its lifetime by this decision. This is definitely something that the Conservative group need to re-assess now it is in power.

Julian Edmonds of the Central Ealing Resident’s Association got my wind bag of the evening award. He is never shy of using 10 words where one will suffice.

Flipping through the cabinet papers for the next meeting on 19th September I chanced upon a report from Joe Tavernier, Director of Street Environment, on the council’s new graffiti removal service. The new service provider, MPM, managed to clear 76% of the jobs assigned to it in August within 2 working days. This is against a target of 90% to be removed within 2 working days of notification. Although this does not sound like the 24 hour service the council has promised it is an improvement over the previous service which only managed to remove 57% in May. There is still a long way to go though.

One of the biggest impediments is that formally the council needs to get a disclaimer from private poperty owners, essentially saying the council is not liable for any damage caused. The officers are recommending a 4 month trial suspension of these disclaimers. It may mean the council gets chased by the odd private landowner for damages, eg where the council has painted over something it should not have. The upside is that we do not have to wait around for disclaimers and therefore we can get the service improved.