8 Treasures

Listen up folks: just opposite Ealing Broadway tube station is a Chinese restaurant called "8 Treasures". Let me tell you, the quality of the food in there is really top drawer. I don't know who it is they've got in the kitchen, but it's as good as any Chinese food I've tasted anywhere in London. But every time I go into the place -- and I've been in maybe half a dozen times in the last few months -- it's virtually empty.

I'm not sure what the problem is, but the previous occupants of that retail unit, Chandler's freehouse, also didn't do much as much trade as might be expected for such a prime location, and eventually had to close their doors.

Anyway, I know times are hard, but please folks, reach for your chopsticks and get going to 8 Treasures for a really special Oriental treat -- the food is gorgeous. Use it, or lose it!

Here's the website:

http://www.8treasures.co.uk/

Pip pip.

Election 2010 -- Ealing Results

If I get a moment I'll put up a detailed table of results, but the main news from Ealing is that Ealing Central and Acton has turned blue. Notionally this new seat was very marginal, and as of last night it wasn't altogether clear which way it was going to go. But at 8:25 this morning it was declared for Angie Bray, former Tory leader of the London Assembly, with 17,944 votes on a high turnout of 67%. Labour's Bassam Mahfouz came in second with 14,228 votes. Jon Ball of the Lib Dems came a close third with 13,041 votes. This represented a swing of 5% to the Tories.

Elsewhere, Steve Pound, in spite of a spirited campaign from Tory Ian Gibb, comfortably held Ealing North with 50% of the vote, and no swing to the Conservatives.

As expected, in Ealing Southall, Virendra Sharma held his safe Labour seat in spite of a heavy swing to the Tories of of 8.3%. He polled 22,024 votes with the Conservatives coming second with 12,733.

The council election vote is currently being counted.

UPDATE: for Council election results, click here

Montys on High Street: no more

Monty's restaurants are an institution around Ealing, and until the end of last month there were four of them. Sadly Dipendra Karki's Nepalese curry house on the west side of the Broadway Centre in High Street is now gone. Blaming prohibitive rent and rates, the restaurant closed its doors for the last time and is relocating to West Hounslow. As if to add insult to injury, it will be replaced by Poundland -- an unfortunate sign of the times, and a blow to Ealing.

Decades ago there was just one Montys restaurant with three chefs. Soon the three went their own way, each taking with them entitlement to use the Monty's name and brand. One of those was Bishnu Karki whose Northfield Avenue premises is still thriving. It was this restaurant I used to frequent most, until I discovered that his son, Dipendra, was running an outlet on High Street. I've eaten at all the Ealing Montys, and as I discovered, Dipendra was definitely serving the tastiest food -- making it all the more unpalletable that this is now the one to go.

...Saturday evenings will just never be the same again. Ho hum.

Ealing Arcadia Centre Development: Rejected

Good news for Ealing: John Denham, Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, has rejected the Arcadia redevelopment proposal for Ealing Broadway, previously rubber stamped by Conservative-run Ealing Council and London Mayor, Boris Johnson.

Denham's decision, which follows last summer's public enquiry, is a victory for common sense and will come as some considerable relief to those of us who live or work nearby. Politicians come and go, and London is littered with evidence of their bad planning decisions. Long after the politicians are gone, it's ordinary folk like you and me who have to live with the awful consequences. This proposal was a monumentally dumb one from the get-go. Ealing Council's unremitting stubbornness over the issue has bordered on the unforgiveable. It's as if they learnt nothing from the previous Labour group's experience who pushed an equally dumb West London tram scheme proposal, running roughshod over the wishes of local people: and were unceremoniously kicked out of power as a direct result. We won't have to wait long to see if a similar fate awaits the Tories.

Councillor Phil Taylor calls for Censorship

There were fun and games on Ealing Today's community forum last week. One upset resident is claiming that Ealing's parking enforcement is turning a blind eye to parents who park illegally at a primary school near where he lives. The resident pointed out that the local ward councillor is also a member of the school's board of governors, and has previously expressed her indifference to the residents' concerns. He asserts that her membership of the board of governors is a significant conflict of interest with her duties and responsibilities as an elected representative of that area.

Now, whether or not any of this is a credible analysis of the facts has become slightly beside the point, (for now). What was astonishing however, was Councillor Taylor's reply. It wasn't so much the pompous, preachy tone that we've now all become accustomed to, but after making his point he finishes off by writing:

"I will ask the site editor to remove your comment as I believe that it is unacceptable."

I have to say, it was very generous of Mr. Taylor to confess to this authoritarian instinct of his. Whereas most reasonable people would prefer to discuss the relative merits and truth of a comment according to evidence, and within a free and open discussion, Taylor just wants to "remove" unwelcome or inconvenient opinions without properly addressing them.

To silence people according to some dumb concept of acceptability that exists among Phil Taylor's beliefs is, quite simply, political censorship -- and nobody needs it. Happily however, it seems the site editor in this case has not found it necessary to remove the offending comment, and all is still well in the free world. There you go Phil: omniscient, ubiquitous (certainly), but not quite omnipotent...

Another new hotel for Central Ealing

This time last month I mentioned that planning permission had been granted for a new hotel in Bond Street, in Central Ealing. Well, like the buses, you wait for ages, and then two come along at the same time!

As reported in the Ealing Gazette recently, Travelodge is planning to build a ninety-nine room hotel, complete with cafe and bar at 77 Uxbridge Road, previously the offices of Prince Evans solicitors. No expected date of completion was noted.

Located at X on map

New hotel for Ealing town centre

The next meeting of Ealing Council's planning committee is scheduled for tomorrow, Sept 2nd. I don't see anything of note on the agenda this time, but in case you missed it, at August's meeting they granted planning permission for a brand new hotel to be developed in Bond Street, right in the centre of Ealing town. The intention is to transform four storeys of the empty Swiftcall office block, (26-42 Bond Street -- adjacent to Ealing Green and above the now defunct Old Orleans restaurant), into a fifty bedroom hotel. Under the plans, Old Orleans would become the hotel's reception, lobby and hotel restaurant.

On the face of it, this looks like good news. To me, the west side of Bond Street near the Green has never looked right, and now looks more bedraggled than ever. Why we've never had a large modern hotel in central Ealing is something I've never understood -- so this is long overdue. Unlike the Arcadia nightmare, it looks like a positive step in the town's regeneration, and for once we can all look forward to seeing the arrival of the builders. The application was submitted in May, so I expect the negative impacts of the current economic climate have already been factored into the development's financial planning.

The Polish Community in Ealing

With a population of 305,300 (and growing), Ealing has the third largest population of the thirty-two London boroughs, (behind Croydon and Barnet). Recently the numbers have been bolstered by an influx from Eastern Europe, but in particular from Poland. Since Poland’s accession to the EU in 2004, some 21,000 Polish nationals, newly resident in Ealing, were issued with national insurance numbers. This means Ealing has received more Polish folk, than any other local authority in the UK.

It’s no coincidence of course – Poles have been coming to Ealing for decades. Prior to EU accession, the most significant periods of migration occurred as a consequence of the two world wars, and especially the second. Fleeing the ravages of Nazism and to support the Allied war effort, thousands of Poles made their way to Britain’s shores. When eventually the Nazis were defeated, Poland fell captive to a new Soviet empire and a new era of occupation. So it was that thousands of displaced Polish servicemen (and in some cases their families too) were unable or indeed unwilling to return home. Of those, a great many settled in West London, and in particular in Hammersmith and Ealing.

Not surprisingly then we can find plenty of signs of Polish life dotted around the borough – like the Polish (and very busy) Catholic Church near the Broadway, (“Our Lady Mother of the Church”), the restaurants, cafes, and many delicatessens, the Polish Centre in West Ealing, the group “Zywiec” (a local folk song and dance group), and of course, last but not least: the people themselves.

There’s no doubt that for a long time the Polish have contributed much to life in Ealing, as they do today. In celebration of this, a lottery grant was recently provided to support the “Polish Lives in Ealing” project:

“This project will underline the important role that Polish residents have played in the local community for nearly 70 years. It will preserve the memories of the earliest settlers as well as spanning the generations between those who arrived in the 1930s, those who were born here, and the most recent arrivals.”

The project is headed up by local historian and writer Jonathan Oates, a very knowledgeable fellow based at Ealing Central Library.

And finally, my absolute favourite Polish connection in Ealing, and a gem in the blogosphere, is Michael Dembinski’s beautifully written blog account of growing up here in the sixties – “Grey Jumper'd Childhood”. Michael, who returned with his family to Warsaw in the late nineties, records with striking clarity, recollections and details from his childhood that will resonate with anyone of his generation. If he’s reading this now, I just wish he would write more!

European Election: votes in Ealing borough

This table shows the breakdown of the Euro election 2009 vote in the borough of Ealing:



Compared to 2004 the Labour vote has dropped by just over 6%. Without wishing to over-simplify matters, this is roughly the same as the vote share received by the pro-Tamil candidate Jan Jananayagam. Perhaps if she hadn't appeared on the ballot paper, Labour might have fared better.

My conclusion is that the Conservative vote has held up strongly, but I see nothing in the data to suggest anything other than a very tight contest at the next general election, especially in Central Ealing.

Closure of Ealing Hospital Stroke Unit

Virendra Sharma, Labour MP for Ealing Southall, has tabled an Early Day Motion in opposition to a proposed closure of Ealing Hospital's stroke unit. So why exactly has Stephen Pound, his party colleague and fellow MP for Ealing North, declined to sign it?




Stephen Pound (and friends)