Forum Topic

Is the Ealing Gazette still being published?

A relative in another part of the country has told me that they no longer have a local newspaper as it has stopped publication due to the coronavirus risk. I haven't seen one for a long time but I'd be interested to know if it had stopped altogether. 

Gordon Southwell ● 1858d16 Comments

I don't think Ealing is particularly unusual in this regard. Across the country local authorities have taken advantage of a decline in the printed press in their area to make it ever harder for citizens to keep track of what they are up to.We do at least have a relatively active online media in Ealing but for much of the rest of the country, if their council is doing something underhand, the only chance of it being reported is if Private Eye mentions it in their Rotten Boroughs piece.All Councils may have to rethink the way the deal with the public once this crisis is over. There was never really any real readjustment after the financial crisis of 2008/9 when private sector pay fell and public sector pay remained stable. Now those in the private sector lucky enough to be still working are unlikely to see much income growth for the next few years and the taxman will be looking to claw back some of the money that has been doled out to reduce the effects of lockdown.Local Government workers received a 2% pay rise this month and furloughing is not something that happens in the public sector so all staff are still being paid their full salaries. Ealing, like other local authorities are facing a huge financial deficit but in the short term it is usually more expensive to lay off staff than it is to keep paying them. In normal times there would be some staff wastage as people left for other jobs but everyone with a job at the council is going to cling on for dear life as long as possible in current circumstances.Central government may provide some financial support but they have other calls on their resources including the health service therefore councils across the country will be forced to look to their own devices.This is likely to led to a Sheriff of Nottingham type government in which every opportunity to levy fees and charges from residents will be taking often by agents highly incentivised to maximise revenues even to the point of bending the rules. We may think we are there already but the chances are this sort of activity will intensify.For residents to stand any chance of not being constantly prey to unfair exactions from a cash desperate council an effective independent press is essential. That clearly won't be The Gazette.

Gordon Southwell ● 1824d

GordonEaling Council is well aware of the boundaries it can push on the ‘legality’ of its public notices. It does the bare minimum because a lot of its plans are deeply unpopular.Let me provide an example. It created a draft Local Implementation Plan a couple of years ago. This was to have drastic impacts on many people in Ealing, not least local businesses and shops already under financial pressure. It proposed scrapping free stop and shop parking (under the guise of environmental concerns - ie stop people driving to local shops), as well as huge spending on cycling infrastructure projects that were of debatable merit.There was a statutory duty to consult with the public on this plan but there was precious little information available and next to no publicity. Apart from the piss poor Ealing News Extra sure, which very few visit regularly, there was only a tiny mention of it anywhere else: a small paragraph in the December 2018 Around Ealing magazine, published three days before consultation closed. Even that was just a post directing readers to a n online link, ignoring those who have no easy internet access but who might want their say.Some key ‘stakeholders’ (whoever they might be) were contacted by email but many realised the paucity of proper information meant they could not comment accurately on the proposals. Even enlisting the help of local councillors failed to illuminate the murky wording and simple lack of clear information in the consultation document.In fact the only people encouraged to comment positively were cycling lobbyists who stood to gain the most from multi million pound investment in bike lanes dns other paraphernalia to which they would pay nothing.Around 480 responses were received by the council. Pretty poor considering the many millions earmarked for spending under this plan. Most Ealing residents were blissfully unaware of anything contained within it. The first they would know would be when their free 30 minute parking disappeared, shortly followed by the small shops they have occasionally frequent.This is the standard mode of operation by this council. It did the same with increasing CPZ permit charges, with many drivers discovering their costs had doubled with little warning. Again, there was a ‘consultation’, but blink and you missed it.As a nation we are deeply imperilled by the march towards shackling a free and independent press. Dissent is not tolerated by the political class at any level, and many media outlets are running scared of losing lucrative advertising from local and national administrations. Hence the relentless reprinting of press releases in the pages of the Gazette and other ‘papers’.As has been evidenced since time immemorial it is foolish to believe for one moment that our leaders are beyond questioning, investigation or reproach. The billions spent on PR campaigns - and the current health crisis is no exception - should not blind anyone to repeated and often dangerous mistakes.

Simon Hayes ● 1826d

There are probably over a hundred pieces of legislation which may require a local authority to publish a public notice in a newspaper. The intention of the law is that people should be informed of changes been implemented by the authority that may affect them. Usually the law will say something like an advertisement should be placed in 'a newspaper in general circulation'. It is hard to argue that in recent years that the Ealing Gazette has been in general circulation as it can't be found in large parts of the borough. The council has probably been willing to go along with the fiction that depositing a few copies in a central Ealing shopping centre satisfies the requirement of the law but it clearly doesn't. A spotlight has been thrown on this matter by coronavirus. Even if you could accept the idea that the current arrangement was compliant with the law, it is clearly wrong that a citizen wishing to inform him or herself of matters in the borough should be forced to travel to a potentially crowded spot to do so. The law doesn't specify that the newspaper used need be local just that it circulates in the area covered by the notice so the council could use the Daily Sport if it wanted to. However, national newspapers would charge too much for this to be viable. Another option is the Evening Standard. I don't know whether this is still being distributed from local stations. I did hear that they had started to distribute copies through people's letter boxes to make up for the 95% decline in their readership from public transport users. The Standard must be bleeding cash at the moment but, given what Ealing probably pay for the Gazette to publish notices they could probably charge the same. If they are getting the revenue from all 32 London boroughs all of a sudden the Standard might even become profitable. In this regard we should be mindful of Johnson's very close relationship with the Lebedevs who own the Standard. He has regularly holidayed at their Italian villa and they have backed him at every election he has fought. His visits there may have given the former KGB agent leverage over the Prime Minister which he might choose to use at this point. The government can't support every newspaper and the industry will consolidate in the next few months so it is just a question of who gets on the life raft. Johnson would not mourn the passing of the Mirror Group and might see the demise of the Express as an opportunity for his benefactor the Daily Telegraph. As these are both part of the same group that publishes the Gazette and their financial position has been compromised by phone hacking settlements, they can only really survive with undiluted government support which may not be forthcoming. Another option would be to go local. EalingToday undoubtedly meets the legal test of being 'in general circulation in the area' but you could question whether it qualifies as a newspaper. As far as I am aware the laws to not stipulate that the vehicle used to advertise notices has to be printed. This would be the best option for local people as we would at least have one surviving media covering local news but probably won't be something the council will opt for as they would prefer not to be reading articles about the leader's housing arrangements and cock ups by the parking department. The final option would be for the government to allow councils to place notices in their own publications and Ealing News Extra could become a weekly newspaper using the revenue from them. This would have the benefit of a widely circulating publication being available to spread public information messages. However, it would also mean that the council would own the local media at a time when their parlous financial position meant that this was the time residents most needed protection from an independent voice. Allowing this nationally would effectively end most non-state local news production. The likelihood is that, as this isn't an issue that is top of the agenda at the moment, it will be parked. Although the system is not working and probably not operating within the law there isn't really the process in place for it to be challenged. For instance, if you find your neighbour starting work on an intrusive loft extension and the council tell you that the placed a notice in the Gazette to inform you, your only course of action if you wanted the work to stop would be very expensive legal action. The only time a legal challenge to the way the council is carrying out its statutory duty to inform residents is likely to happen is for a major development which will have annoyed sufficient people for enough funding to be put together for a judicial review. Even then if they win their case it will only delay rather than prevent unwelcome development. The cost to the council will be significant particular if the developer deems them liable for any delays to a project.

Gordon Southwell ● 1826d

Andy, thank you for your informative explanation of what has happened to create "The Gazette", I was unaware of any of this

Mark Julian Raymond ● 1826d

I believe publication of notices means just that, if they are published somewhere, no matter how few people see it, then it will be deemed to have been published.The local newspaper scene has been contracting for years, seen as the easy option for cost cutting by senior executives to justify their big pay packets.

Simon Hayes ● 1826d

I think this may mean we have seen the last of the Ealing Gazette.The Gazette was the paper that was set up as part of the settlement between what was then Trinity Mirror and Hammersmith & Fulham Council. They had been in a bitter dispute about the council publishing their own newspaper and taking ad revenue from the commercially produced one. In the end the government came down in favour of the company and the council was told to get out of the newspaper business.They also had to give the contract to carry the public notices for the three councils that Hammersmith & Fulham was in a tri-party arrangement with at the time (this was when it was Tory). The Gazette therefore essentially became a vehicle for notices from H&F, K&C and Westminster. It was distributed as a paid weekly through local newsagents and made the occasional appearance on shelves in East Acton when it launched. I haven't seen it for years but it would used to have one or two stories and then pages and pages of notices on planning, licensing, traffic, goods vehicle licensing etc.It now looks like the Ealing Gazette has been rolled into this title so that it covers four boroughs rather than three as far as statutory notices go anyway. Plus it is now being given away free rather than being a paid for publication (I suspect a tiny number of people would have paid for it).I don't know whether Ealing Council are aware of the change but there has to be a big question mark as to whether it satisfies the legal requirements that they have to publicise these notices to residents. Then again even if we did have a real printed newspaper for Ealing it would be hard to distribute it effectively to residents at the moment.

Andy Jones ● 1827d

You got it.

Simon Hayes ● 1827d

Is the publication labeled 'THE Gazette' that I found in the newspaper distribution bins at the exit of the Tesco's in Ealing Broadway Shopping Centre what was once known as the 'Ealing Gazette'?The issue that I picked up was dated April 22, 2020, and had the Web Address of MyLondon.news and InYourArea.com. While it had some Ealing Council notices in it (planning applications, parking zones) it does not seem to be very Ealing-focused, in fact the strap across the top did not explicitly mention Ealing, rather 'West Ealing'. The strap read: 'West Ealing Hanwell Acton Greenford Northolt Southall Fulham Hammersmith Kensington Chelsea Westminster' seemingly anything BUT 'Ealing'. Is Ealing council actually paying to advertise in this thin anaemic rag that seems to major on anywhere but 'Ealing' itself?

Mark Julian Raymond ● 1827d

Are they letting people know where the collection points currently are?

Andy Jones ● 1853d

Some months ago the publication day changed from Friday to Wednesdays, so they have gone by the weekend.  The website is now - https://www.mylondon.news/news/west-london-news/

Fred Hunt ● 1856d

Even in their heyday it was only the sports coverage that was the best thing about the local paper. Yann Tear was excellent and I am surprised not to have seen his name on reports for a national title. It is very disappointing to see the total collapse of local newspapers across the country during this crisis just when they were needed most. However the rot seems to have set in long ago and the Gazette, as far as I am aware hasn't had anyone based in the borough for years. It has to be acknowledged that Ealing council have done a good job in sending out public information messages during this crisis. However, the credibility and acceptance of what the state is telling us is very much reinforced by having a balanced and professional media to ask questions and criticise if necessary. Given what must be limited resources Annemarie and her team at EalingToday.co.uk do a creditable job and, by all accounts, she has been fairly fearless in calling out both Labour and Conservative politicians in the borough when they have fallen below standards their constituents should be entitled to expect. While the web site has clearly been a better source of news that the Gazette for at least five years, it isn't as good as the newspaper used to be 15 years or so ago. In an information age we have gone backwards in terms of local news. One thing the Covid-19 crisis has shown as what an unreliable filter social media is for information and it is the source of so much really bad advice at the moment, even if much of it is well-intentioned. Ealing Council should recognise that the way we consume news in the borough has changed and start putting their public notices on EalingToday as opposed to the Gazette. They will need to be making drastic cuts when this is all over because the tax base is disappearing so the significant amount of money spend on the council magazine and news service will have to be devoted to other departments. There are difficult times ahead and communicating with the public will remain critical so the council need to consider carefully how they will do this with far less money to spend than they used to have.

Gordon Southwell ● 1856d

Tim is gutted as he was a lifelong Bees fan but, wife and two kids come first.
The commitment to local reporting died years ago with the closure of the local offices then a move to Uxbridge, then Chertsey and then, I believe Guildford.

N V Brooks ● 1858d

I bet Tim is annoyed he’s not covering Brentford any more but better to have a job.As ever, it’s a self-fulfilling prophecy with local papers. Nothing in there to read means nobody picks it up, distribution drops, ad revenues fall, cuts made to editorial staff, even less local content. So it goes on...It’s criminal how we’ve allowed proper journalism to wither away in this country. It’s all PR now (cf every utterance by Johnson, B. Or Bell, J).

Simon Hayes ● 1858d

Thanks Simon
I hadn't realised that the Chronny had merged as the Chronny dropped it relationship with the audit bureau a few years ago. The Informer allegedly still distributes almost 17,000 copies weekly but their website now points to the generic getwestlondon site.
I know that it was struggling as a family friend (Tim Street) was Sports Editor and now works on regional press in Cambridgeshire where the local paper is still thriving.

N V Brooks ● 1858d

Reach (formerly the Mirror Group) still publishes the Chronicle and Informer (a misnomer if ever there was one). It’s available at Tesco in Osterley and Morrison’s in Brentford and probably other locations, available on Wednesdays. The Ealing Gazette has very limited distribution and may well have bitten the dust.The C&I carries ‘news’ from all over West London including Ealing , although most of its council related stories seem to be the usual press release reprints. As a former local newspaper reporter it makes me despair.However, after I complained last year to Reach, it now carries details of planning applications in Ealing (which had been omitted in the past) as well as some roadwork information in the classifieds section. It’s not much but it’s something.

Simon Hayes ● 1858d

To be honest Gordon the last time I saw a copy of The Ealing Gazette was about three months ago in the 'dump bins' at Adsa, Park Royal.
The last 'local' office for the paper was in Chertsey of all places with absolutely no local presence.

The Gazette has been on its last legs for ages and people not being able to pick it up will doubtless finish it off in the short-term.
The Hounslow Chronicle has gone already.
Shame as there were some good reporters on The Gazette holding the council to account (notably Polly Manser) and Yann tear was a ruddy good sports reporter.

N V Brooks ● 1858d