SUMMARY
SEC believes Arts and Culture will help revitalise the town centre. Cramming Ealing broadway town centre with thousands of residents and additional shopping will not improve our lives. Ealing Broadway lacks interest as a centre of social activity. It lacks attraction as a town centre. It offers one cinema, one amateur theatre, some restaurants and many pubs and clubs.
Currently the town centre is shunned in the evenings by many youngsters and local residents who don't enjoy the alcohol and drug fuelled behaviour.
SEC believes there is potential to involve a great many people in activities in the town centre.
SEC proposes that Ealing needs and EALING CENTRE of ARTS and LEISURE facility. We propose turning Ealing's town centre into an exciting place of activities that will attract young and old from around the borough.
SEC demands a town plan to incorporate both acceptable redevelopments and provision for culture, arts and leisure. All combined, they will develop our lives and build our community.
Introduction
Two major redevelopments in the heart of Ealing Broadway are currently under the spotlight. Together with other possible smaller proposals and the recent construction of several blocks of flats along the Uxbridge Road, they will have a major impact on the life of our town centre. However, if questions of social cohesion through a rounded policy for culture, leisure and sport are not addressed, the impact could be problematic.
Over the last decade Ealing Broadway has failed to develop in a way that will improve the quality of life of Ealing residents, or to encourage people from beyond the Borough’s boundaries to visit and spend their money here.
Indeed, Ealing was highlighted in a GLA consultation document “Late-night London” (2002) as being one of the 10 London crime “hotspots”. The main reason for this is the predominant provision of alcohol in the numerous pubs and clubs, plus other drugs, leading to the street crime. The document recommends, as one of the ways of resolving this problem, “encouraging the diversification of the evening and light-night economies so that they are not so dominated by young people and by alcohol and other drugs”…”There are plenty of avenues to explore” such as “shops, cafes, galleries, libraries museums and other cultural venues”. (Our emphasis)
The consultation document further states that “in much of Europe [there] was a completely different state of affairs, which was plain for any visitor to see. City centres were lively, attractive places, full of people and with a wide range of things to do throughout the day and into the evening. They did not become empty and threatening after dark, as concerted efforts had been made to keep them alive by promoting restaurants, bars, theatres, cinemas and other cultural facilities (4). The idea of ‘cultural and entertainment led urban regeneration’ had been first advocated in Europe in the late 1970s and was put into practice at that time in such cities as Rome.
The town centre in 2008
Ealing is a large town and all roads lead into its centre, literally. It needs an identity, it needs to bring people into its heart and to be a place to meet and do interesting things in. This will not be achieved by retail but can be achieved by arts and leisure.
During the day, the poor retail mix, combined with a growing number of empty shops, do not attract a wide variety of shoppers. The centre has some restaurants and from time to time there are art exhibitions in Pitzhanger Manor Gallery. In the evening there is a plethora of licensed drinking venues and clubs which notably attract the young. Other evening entertainments include the alternative comedy acts at Ealing studios and some large pubs, watching films in the rather unattractive and uncomfortable cinema, , or going to our highly-vaunted amateur theatre, The Questors, which goes from strength to strength on its own steam.
The town centre also hosts the Ealing & West London College, Ealing Studios and Thames Valley University. Currently these institutions do not have an active programme of cultural activities for the general public.
The Council has initiated the summer Comedy and Jazz festivals and other summer events in Walpole Park which have been immensely successful, suggesting that there is a hunger for a wider scope of cultural activity.
Walpole Park and Haven Green are areas of repose which already lend themselves to interesting seasonal activities. More use can be made of these spaces.
There is an abundance of architecturally beautiful churches, many pubs and some sporting venues that have space and could be used to better effect.
At the human level we have a unique, untapped strength in our huge wealth of multi-interest, multi-race amateur and professional groups that form part of LB Ealing’s society and that would benefit from better facilities and public exposure.
We need a well thought-out plan to merge and extend the disparate facilities that already exist and that, unified, could make Ealing one of the most enviable places in London. We have the opportunity to pull this together under an Ealing Arts and Culture umbrella and to market it to the rest of London.
Scope
The Tibbalds report (2008) clearly identifies the need for a cultural quarter, east of The Questors theatre.
They possibly have in mind the cinema and the land south of it. We agree that an arts and leisure centre could be built there, especially if the “Ha Ha” property could be acquired. Such a development would then link naturally with the Ealing College, Ealing Studios and TVU, all of which could be encouraged to develop public cultural activities.
Alternatively, the Town Hall building has enormous potential for restructuring internally. Advice needs to be sought about the relative cost of the two projects.
To a lesser extent Dickens Yard might provide some auxiliary features, such as a youth centre either in an enlarged “Community Hall” building or in unrentable shops units (!) The use of the fire station and stables could be more in line with the craft studios originally proposed by St George.
Ideas can be explored to include Walpole Park area into the scope of interesting activities.
Purpose of a cultural strategy for the town centre
There is a dire need to engage young people in more meaningful activities – and young people themselves say this. Currently the Council is running a survey among young people through its Connexions youth service called “How I would spend £1m in Ealing”. The results of the survey should be included in a cultural plan for the town centre.
It should be noted that there will be several hundred more children and teenagers living along the Uxbridge Rd and in the town centre in the near future and absolutely no thought has been given to their social needs let alone those of the rest of young people of the Borough
Older people too might just be interested in facilities which an arts and leisure centre can provide. The once highly popular evening and day classes could make a come back, bringing these people into the town centre alongside the youngsters.
Provision
Whether we have one or more buildings is not critical. What is critical is to have a focus and a vision. An independent and professional management would harmonise all the facilities, working from a central hub, publicising and stimulating activities, ensuring the correct provision, which would reflect itself in successful uptake of facilities and programmes. Quite a challenge, but possible, especially in Ealing.
New facilities that are needed are:
· a multi-purpose, fully equipped, flexible performance space seating about 400. Users of this space would primarily be users of the studios (below), along with local societies (drama, opera, orchestras, choirs, etc).
· studios (music, dance, video, photography, IT arts, etc).
· rooms for evening and day classes
· Indoor sports rooms (5 a-side football, badminton, table tennis, etc)
The performance space could be let out for conferences and weddings. It should also be suitable for letting to professional performers. Rooms could be let as meeting rooms.
Costing of facilities can vary according to the user group, with special, affordable prices for registered “member” groups – a system that is operated at the Priory Centre, Acton.
But hire charges must be accessible to young people and the less wealthy.
Opportunity
Ealing now has an opportunity to revitalise its town centre and to attract a greater number of people with cultural and leisure activities. Currently two developers wish to redevelop the Dickens Yard site (St George) and the Arcadia site (Glenkerrin). Neither of their plans makes any meaningful reference or contribution to developing cultural and leisure facilities in the town centre. However, and ironically, their developments will be ensured success if Ealing town centre contains a popular and socially productive culture and leisure centre. It is not flats that makes areas “buzz”, but interesting activities.
Funding
The opportunity exists to identify an arts and leisure project which will need to be specifically funded and for which specific money can be raised from developers, other businesses and possibly from grants. It was felt that this was the best approach because the general pool of S106 monies would hardly produce the requisite amount.
The new facilities should strive to be self funding but they may well qualify for funding, especially if there is strong youth provision.
Conclusion
We are of the opinion that introducing several thousand more residents into the heart of Ealing without planning carefully for a more worthwhile area of culture, entertainment and sport in the centre may serve to exacerbate the social problem that the town centre already has. Efforts have been made by residents over many years to persuade Councils to take this social problem seriously.
Now our scarce, available land is about to be developed. The prospect of Crossrail trains stopping in Ealing Broadway will make it even more accessible. Housing and retail developments must go hand in hand with a culture and leisure programme if our town is to successfully revitalise itself and not remain an undesirable “hotspot”.