I like the area and I agree, and I walk there several times a week. I too never drive. But that isn't realistic for everybody. A lot of shops have gone, and we have many empties, short-lease charity shops, betting shops, pound shops, fast food shops. The mix is now unbalanced, and you will be obliged to travel elsewhere for some goods that used to be available locally.In 30 years I've lived here, W. Ealing is a barometer of the economy, and each of 3 recessions has hit it hard. I've talked to many of the shopkeepers over the years including some who have closed down and left. They have all said the same thing: that they were aggrieved at the way their business rates had been spent on sucking trade out of the area and into central Ealing; that parking restrictions had strangled trade; that the tram scheme had been a protracted blight on the whole area as nobody dared invest; and that landlords had increased lease & rent costs as if none of this had happened. And before the resident bitter-and-twisted posters get going and start blaming immigration for W.Ealing decline, I have never heard a shopkeeper complain about the changing demography, nor attribute anything negative to it. It has got a larger population now of relatively poorer people, with all the associated problems, but that is the UK in general, the poor have got poorer, the rich richer. W. Ealing has always had a very racially mixed population since I've lived here, and personally I think that's one of its better points that it seems to resist becoming a monocultural ghetto. I have great neighbours who include Sikhs, Iraqis, Irish, Poles, W.Indians, Hindus, Turkish Cypriot Muslims and White English, and count myself lucky.
Tony Sleep ● 4759d