Following the clearance given in October by London Mayor Boris Johnson, Ealing Council has announced that they have completed negotiations with developers St. George and the final agreement has been signed.

The Council Cabinet has had to accept that the site is no longer worth what it was. St George will now take over the land for less than they had agreed to pay a year ago, and the payments will be phased rather than being made up front.

Details have not been released, but SEC believes that the difference is significant, and the Council will get much less than it originally planned. However, we understand there have been no changes to the S.106 agreements (for payments to be paid by St. George to mitigate some of the effects of the development) that were part of the scheme accepted by the Planning Committee.

SEC Chairman Will French said "The outcome is not a surprise, but it remains a matter of great regret than our Council has pressed ahead with a scheme which is opposed by so many local residents. The development crams far too much onto a very constrained space in a Conservation Area, and fails to respect Ealing's best historic buildings as well as missing the chance of providing community facilities which would have provided a real attraction for people to come into the town centre.

"Morover, we still believe the proper processes were not followed and we now have to consider how we could test the situation further."

Work is scheduled to begin in March, after a three-month period to allow for a possible judicial review.