An appeal to our Council Leader
I’ve just finished reading this week’s Gazette and, having taken stock of the many awful events in store for Ealing, I find that I am furious with what this Labour council has allowed to take place. I can’t remember a time when so many bad things were on the cards.I’m going to list the issues here. Most of them have already been condemned on this forum but I want to show what cluster of rotten stuff is being allowed to happen. The A&E closure is out of the control of the council but the majority is directly approved by Ealing. So I ask how Julian Bell can justify these moves with his Labour supporting electors.The front page of the Gazette is dominated by some weird people supposedly typical of those protesting against the closure of Ealing Hospital A&E. I’m surprised that some on the forum support this on the basis that the existing service is unpopular. Surely this calls for improvements there rather than closure. Our prospect is for casualties being driven seven miles through traffic to Northwick Park or Hillingdon while maybe dying on the way. ‘Putting patients at the centre of the NHS’. Julian Bell has called these ‘weasel words’ and rightly so. The Conservative party didn’t achieve a majority in the general election but they are getting to put into action all their wicked policies. Will any of our institutions survive this coalition?The Oaks Development, Acton has been approved by this council. Come on, you’ve already vandalised the lovely Victorian swimming pool we had there. Is it your intention to kill Acton by leaving the legacy of this oversized monster in Acton High Street? Okay, some version of the inevitable flats/car park/supermarket that will mainly benefit rich investors you’d probably get away with, but this thing is an insult to us.Incinerator, North Acton. This one has yet to be approved. Let’s see who Julian puts first in this. I know we all throw stuff away but not enough is being done to make people reduce their black bag habit. Some families in our street must be buying, opening, chucking away consumables 24/7 because they leave up to four or five bags outside their house every week. Mass consumerism and the packaging that comes with it mainly benefits big businesses so they must be made to deal with rubbish in a way that doesn’t force harmful ‘nanoparticles, sulphur dioxide, benzene and noisy polluting lorries’ down the throats of those in a two mile radius.Arcadia Shopping Centre. A private equity real estate investor has got planning consent to plonk this cathedral to evil slap bang in the centre of our high street. In a more prominent position than Christ the Saviour on the opposite corner – a building dedicated to the unselfish, benevolent values we used to revere – a grossly branded monument to the destruction of nature and human health is to be erected. Instead of a McDonald’s we’d probably be better off with a diabetes drop in centre. Does Counsellor Julian Bell not worry about what people’s first impressions are when they arrive in Ealing? If you arrive by rail you’re greeted with a grotty terminal where the old and sick are forced to struggle up a mountain of stairs, above which is a hoarding for money lenders, and you are spewed out of the narrow doorway where lorries park on the small pavement and fly by night shysters wheel clamp the unwary. Nice.‘A new charity shop created by celebrity retail expert Mary Portas’ - a woman who has made herself famous by pointing rudely at all the things she doesn’t like - opened on The Green this weekend. The ‘business guru’ wants ‘local artists, crafts people, designers, cake bakers’ to come and give stuff to the shop. I’m sure she does. For her this is the perfect business model for self-promotion. It costs her nothing and makes her look like the saviour of its beneficiaries, Save the Children, and at the same time creating the impression that this self-styled ‘Queen of Shops’ has graced the people of Ealing with a little of her royal brilliance. Does she think we’re stupid? Her PR company is paid to promote and advise shopping mall giant Westfield, something you could argue has harmed Ealing directly. So come on Julian Bell. If you really are Labour don’t you think we should eject this phony woman from Ealing? Shouldn’t our tax money go to help poor children instead of bailing out the Post Office pension scheme to sweeten the gift of our Royal Mail to JP Morgan and other blood-sucking behemoths? How many more betting shops and fried chicken outlets are you going to dump on us?‘HS2 tunnel will cut disruption for neighbours.’ Not doing at all would be even better? A recent poll shows that 6 out of 10 would prefer rail management to be overhauled. We don’t trust any of the decisions being made in our name. Knock it on the head!No mention at all over the past two weeks about Warren Farm. Did you know if you take a short walk over the flight of locks near The Fox in Hanwell you arrive in a beautiful 61 acre meadow that used to be used by schools for galas and sport competitions? The organisers of the Mela wanted to hold their event there two years ago but were refused. I wonder why? Could it be that the council want us to forget about it so they can give it away? I wonder why 61 acres of the best drained playing fields in Ealing is being leased to QPR for a peppercorn rent for 200 years? We’ll never have the freedom to enjoy it the way we do now ever again. It doesn’t even make sense from an expedient business point of view. Does Hanwell really need drunk, chanting men traipsing through it every home game like there are now in Shepherd’s Bush?None of these events are in the spirit of what I understand to be Labour’s beliefs. There obviously were enough supporters to elect the Labour council in Ealing. Those within the party have just let everyone down. If this is the best they can manage then the party must need more active people with greater courage and conviction of the right kind. So come on the new blood, get in there! You can’t be any worse than what we’ve got. We must ensure that we see the appalling governance of this Bell end.
Alan Anderson ● 4531d0 Comments