Forum Topic

North Acton "Square" and Garage CPO Should Be Spent Elsewhere in Acton

On Tuesday the Labour Cabinet agreed the need to spend millions of pounds of public money on creating a "public square" in Acton by North Acton tube station.  To create this "square" the council will be consolidating a signficant sum of section 106 money providede for the benefit of Acton residents and largely dedicated towards open space commitments.If the plans presented are be believed the "square" will amount to little more than a Paternoster-style windswept plaza - despite the cafe society style impression provided by the regeneration team at the meeting.The millions of council capital and millions of section 106 money generated by development in Acton should be spent in Acton - but to put local taxpayers money into a compulsory purchase of the Esso garage on the site could in the current funding climate be regarded as another project (like the Southall carpark) for which the money could be put to far better uses.For example the total capital budget for the parks service is less than £1m.  The money to buy an Esso garage could bring every park in Acton upto the standards of the best as could the accumulated s106 money.  Alternatively the millions indicated could be used to generate some genuine (and green) open space for the residents of Acton.This is a council spending millions on a "regeneration" that could be funded by developers.The money allocated to this scheme should be used not to fund the vanities of the regeneration team but put to uses that improve the environment of the people of Acton today. Cllr Mark Reen

Mark Reen ● 5450d23 Comments

Nicola Howard ● 5450d

...I'm sure the students who will soon be populating the new build high rises opposite will appreciate the concrete vista'd walkways...with a fountain a la Kings Street Hammersmith to boot why not! I cannot fathom it for the life of me and its not even April Fools! As plans go this is ridiculous. As a daily user of N. Acton station all I really need is clear visibility up the long path to see if the 266 Hammersmith bound is in view! When will they co-ordinate tube and bus transport?!?

T Beme ● 5450d

...or indeed doubling the number of 266s, and making sure they don't all just congregate at Hammersmith/Brent Cross whilst the drivers have a good natter before all leaving together. I like the idea of a 'square' at North Acton, but I don't think it should be funded by the Council. I can't quite see it becoming a place for meet-ups and coffee.

Andy Heeps ● 5450d

The money (is it by any chance some of the missing 106 money for Park Royal?) would be far better spent moving the station slightly to the east, creating an interchange with London Overground and thereby making the area more accessible for employment.  The allocated £5.6m would not be enough but with money from TFL, Park Royal Partnership and other sources it could be done.  Perhaps elected members and our transport officers could take a look at this.

Libby Kemp ● 5450d

I feel sorry for the petrol station owners - they've put up with a lot from Ealing Council so am not surprised they haven't been negotiating.They've been shafted by Ealing Council for years.  They were almost ruined by the council diverting traffic and making that stretch of road only accessible from one end but at least they had their grocery business to keep them ticking along without petrol sales.... until Tesco turned up.  I'm surprised they're still in business. The reason the cost is so high (come on, £5,6m to put in a measily town square?!) is because removing petrol stations is very difficult because of the storage tanks underneath the ground.  This is why disused petrol stations often remain and get used for car washes, because nothing can be built on them until all the tanks have been physically removed and the ground decontaminated.

Sarah Harris ● 5449d

Removing tanks and decontaminating the ground is an additional cost but not a huge one. I have not seen the plans for the square so will not comment but regenerating Park Royal and it's approaches has been a priority for previous and current administrations. With the recent flats and soon to be student homes it makes sense to improve access to the station. The tory councillor who raised this on the Ealing site presented it as Labour mispending, conveniently forgetting his parties prior involvement and displaying his woeful ignorance as to how S106 money is strictly allocated in the legal agreement with the developer and cannot be diverted to other cost centres, no matter how worthy. He also presented north Acton as some far away place of little interest to central Ealing residents. A bit of embarrassment for the opposition methinks......

Iain Muir ● 5448d

Politics doesn't come in to it for me.  I live in the area and use the garage and station regularly.  The nearest garage to this area is on Horn Lane so more traffic will go that way to find a petrol station.The station access as it is now actually works well.  The station isn't big enough to cope with the numbers of people so having the two walk-ways down to the station slows down the flow of passengers.  If you remove these everyone will arrive at the station at once and cause even longer queues at the two barriers.I also don't understand the reasoning behind it. That money could be spent elsewhere to greater effect.

Sarah Harris ● 5448d

To say that S106 is strictly allocated is to over-simplify the matter. Each S106 agreement is bespoke. Some state quite specifically in what location and on what sort of projects the money can be spent; the wording of others is so general that the money could be spent anywhere in the borough on any kind of project.  The last Council made great efforts to collate all S106 agreements and identify how much money was available by area (for this purpose Park Royal was considered a separate area from Acton). So someone in the Council should be able to say exactly what else the £1.9m of S106 allocated for this project could be spent on other than purchase of the petrol station site.

Vlod Barchuk ● 5448d

I agree this plan is a waste of money.Is there a petition against it?

Chris Lucy ● 5447d

The figure of £5.6m has been quoted on this forum but no one has given the source of this figure. In a search of the various documents on the Ealing Council website I cannot find any mention of £5.6m. The amount of money allocated appears to be much smaller. What I did find though was that the scheme was initially approved and S106 funds allocated back in September 2009 - when the Conservatives were in control of the Council. They obviously didn't think it was a waste of money then or have any better ideas of what to spend it on.

Phil Conran ● 5447d

Well, the station does need SOME sort of "opening out" and improvement. Whilst the current idea/s may not arguably be the "best", SOMETHING needs to be done to improve the current pokey, hidden entrances.Surely?

Rosco White ● 5447d

Phil I couldn't find any figure of £5.6m either except that item 17 in the report states "appendix 3 - Financial information - Confidential", so maybe councillors know more than they can say.What I did read was that: para 4.3 says £2,171,000 is secured and further contributions for another planning application being considered, ie £2,171,000 not enough.Para 4.5 "that remaining funding to deliver the station square can be achieved in short term" ie £2,171,000 plus what is being considered in para 4.3 is still a shortfall of what is needed.para 4.7 "should CPO be unsuccessful then Council would need to write off costs of commission to revenue" ie to Council tax directly.Hm, I wonder if £5.6m will be the final figure?

Barbara Yerolemou ● 5446d

Oh good.Another 'town square'.With any luck it will be as warm and inviting as the one outside Morrison's. Which has done so much to improve Acton's centre with its Lenin's tomb and chopped down trees. Can anyone explain to me why Ealing Council is trying to turn Acton into an unappealing collection of featureless, expensive squares? I agree something needs to be done about the entrance to the tube, but North Acton is quite the wrong place for another 'piazza'.

Clare Gittins ● 5446d

Clare said "I agree something needs to be done about the entrance to the tube, but North Acton is quite the wrong place for another 'piazza'"I think piazza is architect speak for a public area which will be combined with improving access to the tube, hopefully step free so Clare is slightly confused.....Good to see Barbara posting again, tories must need to bring out the old guard to amend for the follies of current councillors......Has anyone seen actual plans of what is proposed, I have not seen them online anywhere......

Iain Muir ● 5446d

Barbara Yerolemou refers us to item 17 in the report which states "appendix 3 - Financial information - CONFIDENTIAL.It would appear that Councillor Colm Costello has blabbed confidential information of a commercially sensitive nature on a public forum!Any contractors bidding for this work will now know exactly how high to pitch their bids!What a colossal twerp!

Dave Ferguson ● 5446d

Iain - What a cheek!  "Wheeled out"!  "old guard"!  As they say, speak for yourself!  You old geezer, you.  Were you less suspicious when you were younger? :)I expect the confidential information is about the detail of the breakdown of how much it is hoped will be raised in each stage, through planning gain etc.  That's where the negotiations are and not on an overall amount. The point has been made that the contract ought to go out to tender and the Council is legally bound to take the best offer. After all the Council is quite happy to announce what it intends to spend on improving Walpole Park because, again I only suspect, it knows where it's getting the money.When I was on the Council, Councillors (and Phil Portwood was good at this) often quarrelled with the legal department about what was confidential.  Officers tend to put everything in confidential when often it need only be a paragraph.

Barbara Yerolemou ● 5445d

Since I retired, I dont often have time to log into these fora but I was interested in what people had to say about the riots and somehow got sucked into other threads too!  Sigh.  Life is too short

Barbara Yerolemou ● 5445d

Yes Barbara, you're correct to say that the contract ought to go out to tender and the council is legally bound to take the best offer.The problem is that Cllr Costello has compromised that process by potentially letting contractors know that the council is willing to pay £5.6m for the contract. That is likely to impact negatively on the council and therefore on council tax payers.The financial information is confidential for good reason and is not up to Cllr Costello to decide he can just break rules of confidentiality when he feels like it. It's even worse to broadcast it on a public forum and try and use it as political amunition.I think this is a serious breach and a serious matter.

Dave Ferguson ● 5445d

It’s not at all clear how the £5.6m has been arrived at. Quoting the figures can hardly compromise the Council’s position; any work will be award after competitive tender, so bidders gain nothing by knowing how much money is available. In fact, it’s good practice to give bidders an affordability ceiling so they don’t quote silly prices – competition then assures best value is obtained.As to the history of this scheme, when money was set aside for a public square in September 2009, only £1.2m was assigned; the cost has gone up considerably, so a re-appraisal of the project is sensible. The original justification for the square is that it would create commercial/retail space, now it is being sold as improving station access – sounds like a project in search of a justification. How on earth could this square create stepless access to the station? Given the difference in levels between the train and petrol stations one needs a steep slope to achieve this. 

Vlod Barchuk ● 5445d

My apologies Barbara, I should have said 'more experienced'......

Iain Muir ● 5445d

There is a large area of scrub land to the left of the garage, is this to be used for the 'square'?My understanding is that drug dealing is taking place on or near to the station - can the local PSCO's give us an update please?

Dee Cook ● 5444d

That land has nothing to do with the petrol station does it? Always thought that was part of the old Landis & Gyr site.

Ellie Rose ● 5444d

Well, with a bit of imagination, that could have been used for some open space instead of the petrol station.  Why does the station need 2 entrances?

Dee Cook ● 5444d