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PCA Newsletter 36 - March 2009 |
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PCA To
Give £3,000 to Hospice
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Your committee is pleased to announce a
substantial donation to Meadow House Hospice. It’s in
appreciation of the efforts of Pitshanger traders in raising
money for the PCA at Light Up The Lane: individuals such as
Aspet at Village Pantry and John and Maria at Aristocat each
raise hundreds of pounds every year. Although the PCA has given
money to Meadow House before, this is our largest donation yet.
As the traders have long been associated with the hospice
(attached to Ealing Hospital), and used to give them the
proceeds of Light Up The Lane before the PCA took over running
the event, we feel this is a suitable way of expressing our
thanks. |
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Streets
for People Scheme Delayed
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You may have noticed the absence of this story from
the Newsletter recently. The plan to revamp
Pitshanger Lane is very much alive and well, but the
engineering design, expected in the autumn of 2008,
is still not finished.
We heard recently that the Council’s Highways
Department was considering a new variant of the
design with a wider carriageway and consequently
deeper insets to the pavements (particularly on the
north pavement) than had been previously agreed.
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However, the results of the PCA
consultation exercise a year ago told us clearly
that both the loss of pavement width and the
potential increase in traffic speed from a widened
carriageway are very sensitive issues for PCA
members, so we’re relieved to be able to report that
this design variant has now been abandoned, thanks
to pressure from the Cleveland Ward Councillors and
others.
Instead, a new set of engineering
drawings is being produced that should be rather
more faithful to the outline design agreed in March
2008. Councillor John Popham commented: “It is
important that we remember this is Streets for
People and not streets for buses. The aim is to
widen the Lane so that buses can pass one another
comfortably. We are not going to widen it so that
they can pass each other at 30 mph”. The Councillors
are proposing to hold an extra meeting of the
Cleveland Ward Forum “before our next meeting on 9th
July” at which the completed engineering drawings
will be available for inspection by the general
public. As ever, we will keep PCA members fully
informed of progress.
The PCA Streets for People resource
page can be found here. |
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Fun Run
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Pitshanger Centenary
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We now have a firm date for this
year’s event – Sunday 10th May, starting at
11 a.m. – and can reveal the identity of the mystery
footballer and TV presenter who’ll be firing the
starting pistol: ex Arsenal and England striker Ian
Wright. He’s a pal of Fit For Sport director (and
Fun Run organiser) Dean Horridge, so expect the
usual lively Fit For Sport atmosphere with added
banter. Entry details will be available shortly.
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A calendar of events is now available
on the website
here. Look at what’s going on to celebrate one
hundred years of Pitshanger Lane. It’s a moveable
feast and events are being added to the calendar all
the time – it’s not listed yet but we hear a loud
whisper that the ferrets will be back in the autumn.
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School Expansion
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The formal planning application for the proposed
expansion of North Ealing School has now been
submitted to the Council, under reference
P/2009/0576. The application covers “…demolition of
reception, nursery and caretaker's store buildings
and erection of part single and two storey building
with canopies to provide 11 classrooms (2 for
nursery), hall and ancillary accommodation, erection
of single storey 2 classroom temporary building
etc…”. Full details are available on the Council web
site
here, together with an on-line form for
submitting comments. The public consultation period
runs until 10th April.
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Down On
The Street
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White Lies
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John Wilkinson, proprietor of Ray’s
Fruit Bowl and one of the Lane’s true ‘characters’,
is retiring and handing the business over to a
member of the family that runs Blue Ocean. We wish
John a long and happy retirement, and all success to
the new owner. Meanwhile, Pizza Organic is under new
ownership and hosted an opening event attended by
several of your committee, local councillors, and
our MP, Steve Pound, pursuing his other career as a
raconteur and all-round bon viveur. The pizza was
well cooked and your editor particularly liked the
taramasalata.
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No sooner do we discover that England
cricket captain Andrew Strauss’s fine form is down
to the Pitshanger Effect than we find it can also
get you to number one in the music charts. Former
North Ealing School pupils Jack Brown (drums) and
Charles Cave (bass), whose families still live in
the area, hit the top spot in January with their
‘alternative rock’ band White Lies and debut album
‘To Lose My Life’. Nominated as Best New Band of the
year at the recent NME awards, they’ve been likened
to 80’s cult favourites Joy Division. We wish them
every success and a long and glittering career.
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PCA
Annual Quiz
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Brentham
Street Lamps
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Following last year's exciting tie
break final we’re all looking forward to this year’s
event. It’s on Friday 8th May at 7:30pm in the
Brentham Club. Tickets are £11 per head, including a
sausage & mash supper, and there will be a full bar
available. Tables of up to eight people, but if you
can't get a full table, no problem: we will arrange
smaller groups to be placed with like-minded
participants. Tickets from Karen Jacks on 07711
014331 or
karen.jacks@pitshanger.org.uk. Book early as
last year was a sellout!
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Fret ye not, Brentham residents! Those
rather odd new streetlights currently being
installed won’t stay a mixture of old and new – an
old-style column topped by a new-style light – but
will be updated with a more appropriate “swan-neck
pendant fitting” when these become available.
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Cafe
Culture Springs Into Life
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To celebrate the arrival of better weather, Oscar's
Coffee Lounge is the first cafe on the Lane to take
advantage of the Council's new street trading policy
which, after years of restricting street trading
pitches to a single metre, has at last conceded 2
metre licences for cafes. The PCA committee lobbied
actively for this relaxation in the street trading
rules when it was under consideration by Council
committees during 2007, and has always stressed the
importance of café culture in the development of the
Streets for People scheme (here).
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Street
Wars
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As part of the Pitshanger 100 celebrations, Tina
Moonen has organised a quiz series between local streets. All
Pitshanger residents are eligible, whether or not they are PCA
members. The quizzes will be held at St. Barnabas Church Hall
later in the year and sixteen teams of eight people each are
required. Teams will compete against each other twice (on
Saturday 17th October and Saturday 24th October) and the ten
teams with the highest aggregate scores will go through to the
final to be held on Saturday 21st November where we’ll discover
the most knowledgeable Pitshanger street. To cover the hire of
the hall there will be a one-off charge of £8 per person for the
whole series, and this will include nibbles. Bottles of wine,
beer and soft drinks will be on sale. If you’d like to organise
a team from your street, would like to be put in touch with
other quizzers in your street or would simply like more
information, please contact Tina on 8991 9824 or at
tina.moonen@pitshanger.org.uk. Meanwhile, PCA
representatives gave a good account of themselves in last
month’s Rotary Quiz Night at the Brentham Club, the “Village
Idiots” putting in an “inspired” performance to finish fifth out
of thirteen, while “The Magnificent Seven (and Tim)”, although
burdened with several PCA committee members, rode into the
sunset in a glorious first place after donating their £200 prize
to the night’s charity, Vinjeru, to promote education in Malawi. |
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News From The Front Line
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Neighbourhood Watch
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This year’s Membership Campaign is
well and truly underway. From her underground
bunker, membership secretary Barbara Boyle is once
again leading the 1st Battalion of Envelope Stuffers
and Deliverers into battle.
Despite the force for good that is the
PCA – think Party In The Park, Light Up The Lane,
Fun Run, Ferret Racing, Newsletter (no, don’t! –
Ed.) – sometimes the dark forces win the occasional
skirmish and membership applications don’t get
through. If you haven’t had yours please contact
Barbara at
membership@pitshanger.org.uk.
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A new group has been set up for the
eastern part of the Brentham Estate. It will meet
three or four times a year to deal with local crime
issues and to discuss concerns, and any resident is
welcome to come along. For more details (or a
sticker for your window) please email Andy, the
co-ordinator, at
andy2286@hotmail.co.uk, or call PCSO Geoff Fox
from the Hanger Hill Ward Police Team on 8721 2947
or email
Geoffrey.Fox@met.police.uk.
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What A
Mess
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Parents continue to complain about the state of the
surface in the playground, which has caused several
accidents to children. The February snows,
meanwhile, caused flooding in the park and have led
to further serious erosion of the tarmac paths and
the loss of the top layer of the so-called ‘flood
proof’ hoggin path. Our country affairs adviser, Old
John, tells us the hoggin “bain’t be enough clay in
‘im!” and indications he might be right come in an
email from the Council stating that the hoggin used
is “the most effective to install and repair”
because “it does not
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involve sourcing large amounts of
funding”. Translation: it’s cheap. Repairs to the
hoggin path will commence shortly and the old tarmac
paths will probably be replaced by hoggin as well.
Now, we’ll give the Council a slap as soon as look
at them, but some people are just more generous and
member Lucy Baruch is one of those. It’s not the
first time she’s emailed with a Council success
story, and this time she tells us that after
reporting that the new lampposts along the path
through the golf course had been ‘tagged’, the
graffiti clean-up team had it removed the very next
day. The graffiti removal service can be reached on
8825 6000 or on the Council web site
here. |
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