Forum Topic

police helicopter

Does anyone know what the emergency was last night that had the police helicopter hovering over Lionel Road North for half an hour at 2 in the morning? If there was no emergency, what exactly is the reason for waking everybody up and how come there's money available to spend on it?

Bela Cunha ● 3280d16 Comments

Another police helicopter over South Ealing probably around ten pm on Easter Sunday hovering over the Trees Estate, the Ascott Allotments and South Ealing itself. Again, my question is, what was the disturbance that is was called out to investigate, and most importantly where did the disturbance source from, was it the sane place as the previous police helicopter, and was it the same place that the South Ealing broken glass bottle incident sourced from? All good questions to which we will probably never know the answer to.

John Alan Peters ● 3270d

Sadly, you could not be more wring about Roddy's. My advice is don't go there. The owner (a local building contractor) is well aware of the problems but chooses to ignore the appalling things that go on there in spite of what it is doing to his reputation. Staff include a known prostitute and drug dealer and the establishment is well known to the local police (who leave it alone on the if you dont kick it it wont smell basis)No one in the local area will employ any tradesman that drinks in this place. It didn't used to be like this....

John Alan Peters ● 3270d

Colin, I don't doubt that you have a demanding job in a scenario where there is constant change and the goals are forever changing requiring an immediate response.... Your employer no doubt pushes the mantra of flexibility and adaptability constantly. What I have found is that this leads to stress, poor interaction with the people around you and little satisfaction, let alone happiness.What I try and do is to do whatever is put before me well. As well as I am able. That way I have satisfaction at least in something well done. The most important thing to make this work is to PRIORITISE the things that are undertaken. Your boss won't like that because s/he will want you to spend smaller and smaller slices of time on more things.In sitting down to write this post it is at the top of my list of priorities and so I expend my efforts on it until it has been addressed to a standard that I believe appropriate. Then I move onto the next thing (in my often changing list of priorities). One thing follows another....When forced to do something that is not high on your priority list a good way to get your boss off your back when handed a task or project is to ask: "How much time do you want me to spend on this task?" Once you have got a time do your best to address the task, when the time is concluded send it back to your boss (by e-mail) saying you have spent the required amount of time and this is the result.... Then await for further guidance.The other piece of advice is: stop wearing a wristwatch. Do things in order of your list of priority starting the next one when the first is concluded and feel better.Life is there to be lived, not divided up into ever-diminishing time slots in some corporate control game.

John Alan Peters ● 3274d

You can follow NPAS London on twitter, they often post details of what they're up tohttps://twitter.com/NPASLondon

Jim McCauley ● 3275d

I think that you might find that helicopters are rarely used for detecting ultraviolet grow lights of the sort favoured by urban drug farmers. They are overkill and very expensive. The usual approach I believe is to use a light aircraft and blanket photograph the area with hi-resolution ultraviolet senstive and thermal from several thousand feet. It is very quiet, much cheaper than helicopters, and easily outsourced. The ones doing the surveys are the really quiet ones that you sometimes don't hear.

John Alan Peters ● 3275d

I think that you are very right to ask what was happening that required the helicopter. Have you tried asking the ward police or a councillor? The Ealing Common and Northfields ward police seem to have merged on the South Ealing Road.

John Alan Peters ● 3275d

But UV lights would not be seen in the day time Bela.

Keith Iddon ● 3275d

I can't comment on bars and pubs I don't frequent, John, but the cemetery is well known as the drug dealing venue of choice. We all know it and the police are well aware of the fact. I myself reported a drug deal going on outside my front gate, even gave the car registration. Police resources have been cut to the bone; even if they attended, the perpetrators would be long gone by the time the police arrived. And the police say they can't chase the mopeds. This is why I doubt the helicopter was to do with drugs. It would be out all the time, every day, if that were the case.

Bela Cunha ● 3275d

Colin.... Thank you for that. You have given me a lot to think about in your post. You have ranged further afield than I had in my thinking though I have to admit that what I am saying is based on my observation. Venues go through phases and usually these phases are self-limiting. At the moment South Ealing is going through something of a down-swing which has not been helped by the fact that the council/police/cctv law enforcement camera positioned over the Co-op on the South Ealing Road has been powered down and in spite of input from the local ward councillors to the council to have it re-activated it remains so.While super-Mahfouz may argue that CCTV only moves the crime elesewhere I would be happy with elsewhere if there are no extra police resources to handle the extra criminality that arises from the lack of CCTV.The only point that I will amplify on is that I do not have a lot of time, however, I need to get this off my chest and to find validation (or correction where I am wrong) from people who may know more about what is going on (like you). And perhaps to feed into the collective consciousness of the Forum community to find ways to improve South Ealing.

John Alan Peters ● 3276d

John.... I dont intend to get involved in your posts as you obvioulsy are a very intelligent man with a load of time on your hands and I have a job where I'm paid to have rings run around me so dont need it in my down time, but...I'm just interested where these pubs and bars that are one step away from crack houses exactly are in South Ealing (I'll stretch that to Northfields as well).The Ealing Park Tavern? I doubt many dealers would want to be seen dead n there with a chilled glass of Rose and top priced mini gluten free burgersThe New Inn? See above but one step down, always found that quite a well run pubThe Rose & Crown maybe? Could be -- the Real Ale is rumoured to be chemical and the garden gives many a hiding place. Perhaps the Vicar from next door has "a bit of a problem" witht he sniff?The Castle - has to be?! That damn Thai kitchen in there was always liable to attract the wrong crowd!!How about W5 (formely The Gun)? I would imagine there's an abundance of Liquid Gold in there and other heady stuff allied to Amyl Nitrate but dealing? Dunno?The Plough? The Owl & Pussycat? Players Bar (with both it's current patrons)?So that leaves one place - Roddy's. Now Roddy's isn't my kind of place and it very much caters for the post work building mob. Fair play, every market needs a seller. I've been in there a few times and I would be amazed if this place is a drugs hotbed -- a Carlseburg frenzy maybe but nothing else! Your "haven for drug dealing" comment is no less than a slur on the pubs and bars of the area all of which are doing a great job in really testing times for the trade.I cannot argue with your point about moped hand offs and some dodgy streets; that is a sad fact.It's also a reflection of most of London.Enjoy X

Colin Goodman ● 3276d

Depends on the scale of the crime committed. The bars and pubs in the immediate area of South Ealing itself have become a haven for drug dealing and this sort of activity no matter how well 'controlled' in our new scheme of policing does spill out. Still, we only get to know or hear about a twentieth (if that) of what goes down. A walk through the South Ealing cemetery often includes the sighting of a drug hand-off between mopeds and pedestrians.I think that it is important that we know which establishments are tied into all this. So I echo your thoughts about wanting to know about why the helicopter was there, and more importantly which establishment was the call out tied in with. It will have started somewhere from a group of like-minded people.Likewise the "bottling" on Durham Road would probably have started somewhere in a local venue. Local media like Ealing Today could play a bigger role in community safety if it documented where these people had been before. As trends emerge publically the situation can be dealt with formerly (a change of manager here, a drug dealer arrest there) or informerly, that is, once people know what is happening there they will stop going there and the establishment will have to re-appraise its management approach or close.There is certainly one establishment in the area that could merit with a change of management, and ownership. Though the management would be a first step.The difference between the Norhtfields high street and the South Ealing Road and St Mary's Road area shows how much better things can be than they have become in South Ealing.

John Alan Peters ● 3276d

Lionel Road North is totally residential. The nearest bars  are in South Ealing. And do they really spend the money to scramble a helicopter to investigate a pub brawl? And at 2 o'clock in the morning?

Bela Cunha ● 3276d

What interests me Bela is whether the police helicopter was linked to anything connected to a venue (bar/pub etc.) in that area and whether the same venue was linked to the cut glass/bottle assualt on the night on Monday 10th close by?

John Alan Peters ● 3277d

If you say so John..

Keith Iddon ● 3279d

More likely someone made a politically-incorrect statement that was perceived to be harrassment because it came from someone with spiritual beliefs or from someone of the opposite gender in the nearby clip joint.

John Alan Peters ● 3280d

Looking for UV light coming from lofts?

Keith Iddon ● 3280d