Regarding the Twin Towers development proposals by West Ealing Station, which are grotesque, I wrote to Council Leader Julian Bell and his colleague Peter Mason. Below is the text of my email letter, sent today. Other representatives were copied in, including local MPs and Councillors from my ward. HASTINGS ROAD AND MANOR ROAD DEVELOPMENTSAs you may know there are proposals to erect two high rise complexes. This includes one complex with a 25 storey block on the corner of Hastings Road and Drayton Green Road (proposed by A2Dominion),and another 26 storey complex on the corner of Manor Road with Drayton Green Road where Argyle Road begins (proposed by Southern Grove...). This latter site known as 55west. They are diagonally opposite each other across the strategic railway line/CrossRail route with West Ealing station separating them.I write to you both in order to object to these developments. The Fire Brigade would have difficulty in fighting/extinguishing a fire at such high level developments. These proposed blocks are a fire liability, especially next to the CrossRail route.The existing Victorian and Edwardian architecture of the area should not be further compromised by a so-called contemporary twist of monolithic utilitarian Soviet Socialist style architecture. That already exists in the form of Sinclair and Dominion Houses, and Luminous City diagonally opposite it, across the rail line. The proposed architectural aesthetics are poor.There is a shortage of family housing, yet A2Dominion's proposal only has seven 3 bedroom homes(out of 183 flats), and the 55west site proposed development only has eight 3 bedroom homes(out of 150 flats). These overbearing and overdense fire liabilty blocks with little rabbit hutch flats would also seem to be there as a kind of "Council Tax yield farm" for privileged Council management nomenklatura. Will these proposals actually address the concerns of the homeless, including families within the L.B. of Ealing and reduce it's waiting list?As far as access and aesthetics are concerned, could not something more in keeping with the area be proposed? As an example, on Hastings Road, by the sharp bend on that road there is a "post war infill" block of flats - Hastings House, 42 flats on three storeys. It is certainly less of a fire hazard and is more accessible than the proposals from A2Dominion and Southern Grove. Lower rise and less dense housing developments would almost certainly be better appreciated by homeless families and their would be neighbours. It would also reduce concerns about overlooking. These proposed erections would not address problems of car use. It would simply "kick the can down the road".It seems that the development proposals are put forward by people who are just blinkered by money and meeting targets for their own supposedly virtuous egos, like some officious status and power hungry driven Komissar in the Soviet Socialist empire of Hitler's one time mass murdering ally in the Kremlin.These proposed erections will surely set out a further precedent for the "slow rape" of "the Queen of the Suburbs", Ealing. It seems L.B. of Ealing Planning Department is fond of doing this. They have already inflicted this around North Acton/Gypsy Corner. They seem fond of using Ealing Borough residents' tax money to destroy/infict environmental vandalism on the people of Ealing Borough.
Anthony Hawran ● 2411d