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Socio-economic assessment

Introduction

The Dickens Yard planning application is supported by a socio-economic impact assessment of the development (Chapter 7 of the ES) which concludes that ‘overall the Proposed Development will have a moderate beneficial effect on the socio economic conditions within the LBE’. 

SEC disputes this conclusion and has strong reservations about the quality of the study. We find it deficient in its understanding of Ealing UDP policy and its various SPGs/SPDs, it is poorly researched,  and selective in the way its findings are reported.

We think that this Development, together with others planned and in the pipeline, raise serious questions about the capacity of local services to cope with the increased demands that are being made of them.  In this respect the proposals fail in our view to satisfy UDP Policy 5.5 - 

‘of great importance, is the consideration of the social and economic infrastructure serving the residential area.’


Our main areas of concern are as follows:

  1. Increase in the Residential Population

The socio-economic study predicts that development alone would increase the population of Ealing Broadway ward by some 10% which it suggests, but doesn’t say why, would be a major benefit of the development. 

As we demonstrate below there is considerable evidence that local services are already operating at or in excess of their existing capacity.   698 new homes in Dickens Yard will create further demands on these services and new investment in them is necessary before they can be accommodated.

 

  1. Cumulative impacts

The situation is exacerbated by the large number of other residential developments within the Town Centre planned and underway. These have seen no significant commensurate investment in social infrastructure to support them. 

The Council’s 2002 Town Centre Improvement Strategy provides for just 600 new housing units over the 10 years to 2012. Since 2004 at least 736 new flats have been built or are under construction in the Town Centre – including those in Cavalier House, Daniel Quarter, Dominion Plaza, Glenpark Court, Hyde House, Lido House, Luminoscity,  Pershore House and Rosemore House.

We note that the Borough has a strategic target of constructing 9750 new homes by 2017. At the current rate of construction we are concerned that the Town Centre is being required to deliver a disproportionate share of these homes even though no additional infrastructure to support incoming residents is being provided.  The very unfortunate delays in the LDF process mean that Ealing has no coherent policies for the spatial distribution of the housing it is committed to provide, but in its absence SEC believes that the guidelines set out in the 2002 Strategy must remain in effect.

 

  1. Employment

While the development will provide some additional employment floorspace, this cannot be described as the socio economic study does as having ‘a major beneficial effect’. The forecast number of new jobs is overstated as they take no account of the floor space and hence the unquantified number of jobs that will be lost through the demolition of Nos 2-12 New Broadway and the seven storey office block   More fundamentally, unemployment in Ealing is lower than in London or the UK as a whole, while job vacancies, qualifications and skill levels are all higher.

In short, the provision of some relatively low paid retail jobs is not so vital to the well being of the Borough that they can be described as being a major benefit of the development. We suggest that the additional jobs can at best be described as having a minor beneficial effect.

 

  1. Education Provision

The base data on education provision is very poorly researched. There is no information at all about secondary school provision while the study says that information about vacancies at some primary schools is unavailable.  Information on vacancies for both primary and secondary school places is published on a weekly basis on the Council’s Ealing Grid for Learning website and it shows that both primary and secondary school places are already at a premium.

The study’s forecasts of the additional demand that the development will place on school places do not follow the procedures set out in the Council’s SPD on community facilities and they are unjustified and unconvincing. It quite arbitrarily reduces the number of new spaces required from 205 to ‘at most’ 77. While it may be reasonable to assume that the 73 units for elderly residents may demand few (but probably not no) new spaces, other reductions have no justification. For example the suggestion that most of the 226 affordable units will be taken by residents moving from elsewhere in the Borough whose children are likely to already attend school ignores the fact that the homes those families are vacating will most probably be taken by new families with their own children who will require school spaces of their own. There is absolutely no justification to support the suggestion that children in the new development would be educated outside the borough or privately.

The closest high schools to Dickens Yard are Ellen Wilkinson and Twyford in Acton and Drayton Manor School Hanwell. Demand for places in all three schools is intense and all three are consistently oversubscribed.  None of the three schools had any vacancies for the week ending 6th June 2008. The new homes will inevitably intensify this competition and further reduce the opportunities for existing residents to obtain access to them.

The situation is very similar for primary school places.  The EGFL website shows that for the week ending 23rd May 2008 there were just 124 vacancies for all year groups in the entire Ealing and Hanwell area.  The existing developments planned and in the pipeline will more than exhaust them.

Taking all these points together SEC strongly disputes the socio-economic impact study’s suggestion that the development will have a minor adverse impact on the demand just for primary school places, and that this can be mitigated by a commuted payment ‘if required’.  To the contrary, there is already severe pressure on school places on Ealing and a residential development of the scale proposed will seriously compound this.   SEC’s view is that the development will have a seriously adverse impact on education services in Ealing. 

 

  1. Healthcare

Ealing’s GP services are over subscribed. A recent report by the Council’s Director of Public Health noted that Ealing’s average GP list size in Ealing is already high – 20% above the national average.  30% of GP premises in Ealing fall below the national minimum standards for facilities such as waiting areas. This is primarily because, historically, there has been poor investment in our health care buildings so that many GP surgeries and community health buildings now need to be replaced

But the Socio-economic impact study makes no provision for additional services.  Having identified that 3 nearby GP services have an unspecified number capacity for new patients it concludes that the incoming population of 1,536 people will have a negligible impact on those services.  This view is dangerously complacent and appears to have been reached without reference to the Council’s Director of Public Health. A far fuller analysis is required to ensure that the quality of GP service for both existing and incoming residents is not compromised.

Similarly there is no consideration of the impact on hospital services of the increased population. Ealing Hospital is closes to the site and serious questions surround its capacity to cope with existing patient numbers.  In May 2008 Ealing Hospital was voted the worst in England.  Without further investment in the hospital the additional numbers will make things worse.

In summary therefore SEC considers that the development will have a moderately adverse impact on health facilities in Ealing

 

  1. Open Space, and Recreation facilities

The UPD correctly affirms that outdoor recreation is essential for all age groups, and that it plays a large role in providing facilities and positive activities for young people. The UDP notes how inadequate provision of safe play spaces can restrict children’s activities and affect their physical and mental development. It explains how a lack of children’s play space can also have an undesirable social impact, because children will find places to play which may be dangerous to them, or cause annoyance to residents. For teenagers, kick-about areas, and/or general areas for socialising, are also important for similar reasons and the UDP says that young people should be involved in the design of such facilities.

The proposals fail quite dismally to respond to these ideals.  While the new areas of public space – the Town Square and Heritage Court – may make a contribution to the public realm, the kind of facilities envisaged by the UDP will not be provided and the minimal areas of private space – the balconies and roof terraces - are quite inadequate for the very large number of new homes created. There is no on-site provision for children at all – no on-site nursery, no play equipment or designated external play areas in the residents’ terraces on the first floor. Without such facilities young people will find places to play that may be dangerous to them or cause nuisance to others.  Their best option will be to make use of nearby existing open spaces at Haven Green and Walpole Park both of which are already used quite intensively for both active and passive recreation purposes. 

The new residents will therefore add to the pressures on existing facilities. At best this will mean the impact of the development will be moderately adverse in so far as recreation facilities are concerned.

 

Conclusion

In summary we fully support the UDP view that the consideration of the social and economic infrastructure serving the residential area is a matter of great importance. 

We agree that ‘a sustainable residential community is one in which the population is properly provided for, not only in terms of good residential quality, but in the provision of enough school places, good local health services, shops etc and access to jobs. Additional residential development in an area will be constrained where there is a shortage of community facilities or the existing facilities are poor quality, and where a residential development would create an additional demand for facilities which must be provided on a not-for-profit basis. In such cases, particularly if a development would provide more than twenty-five units, the developer would be expected to propose a planning obligation so that the social infrastructure can be improved.’

SEC believes that the present proposals pay far too little consideration of the UDP in this regard.  It is very disappointing that these proposals for a site that is owned by the Council and one in which LBE has played such a significant role in working up should pay so little concern to the additional social and economic infrastructure to support the new residents, let alone to the need to relieve the overstretched facilities that now exist and which existing Ealing residents are required to make do with.