Day 3 of the Public Inquiry into the Compulsory Purchase Order of The Green, Southall saw Eleanor Young from Ealing Council present the “Acquiring authority's justification for the CPO”.

We had at least three Councillors at today’s inquiry. Newly elected Councillor John Martin (Norwood Green) paid two visits. Councillor Kamaljit Dhindsa (Southall Green) and Councillor Shital Manro (Cabinet Member for Good Growth) also dropped in.

Eleanor Young is the Strategic Regeneration Manager at Ealing Council with 20 years experience in planning and regeneration. She is employed by Ealing Council via her consultancy company. “I have worked in Southall for 9 years.” she said.

---

How it started?
There was Interest from external developers, the Council had lost 60% in government grants, there were some redundancies, were under financial pressure and the question was “Are we making best use of” our assets?”.

We were approached by a land speculator. He wanted us to sell the car park.

In 2016 Ealing Council had meeting with local businesses and carried out surveys. We found that businesses on the Dilloway Industrial Estate, who had been around for 50 years wanted to retire and not grow their businesses. [Not what the businesses are saying]

Four options for development were put to cabinet in May 2017. They opted for the current scheme.

The process to select a partner in open market was started and 12 interested parties came forward. This was shortlisted to 5 and then to the final two.

A large professional team (from different Ealing Council departments) assessed the bids and Peabody was the winner. Peabody was an affordable housing provider. Whereas mainstream developers build it, sell it and go. Peabody offers longer time commitment.

We made significant efforts to reach the community but did not reach everybody. Southall Green is one of the most deprived areas in Southall, also Ealing and also London.

There were a lot complaints from angry and affected people, who tend to speak out. But the silent majority were in favour. We have to take their view into consideration.

---

The benefits are that over 12 thousand people are on the housing list and genuinely affordable family sized homes will be built.

The GLA wanted no parking but Ealing Councillors understand the demand for parking.

The economic benefits of the development can be seen by the size of the size of the investment.

“Development should not be about wiping out” the existing community/businesses [Two large banqueting/wedding venues are not needed as they are underused, according to whom? Have you tried to book a wedding hall?]

Failure to get CPO approved will result in a fragmented land and project will not proceed. Enormous resource and time have been put into it by Peabody. No one else will come forward in the future.

The Equality impact assessment

We are constantly updating these. We had 3 snapshots of these at different stages. The first full quality assessment meeting was in June 2018. The third assessment was in November 2021.

We focussed on negative impacts and mitigated the affects. Overall, there no negative affect on any group. This process will continue. It’s a live process.

Religion and race?

Need to ensure that changes should not affect religious worship but are reducing car parking affects the church and gurdwara worshippers.

Asian women are not keen on cycling, so why the push for cycling and cycle lanes?

True, Southall women cycle less but they do love cycling, was the response from Eleanor Young. She also said Southall is "difficult place to cycle". Why is that? Is that due to lack of provision?

People are not against the 200 bikes that were given for free or another 2300 to be given away for free in the next 2 years. They just want to be consulted on what the money should be spent on.

South Road bridge widening [infrastructure]

The widening of the South Road bridge was a requirement of Section 106 money in 2010. Why is that not happening and why are you spending that money on cycling?

The project costs have trebled and there are risks involved. It also involves disruption of 18 months due to one way traffic on the road.

[These were conditions of the Southall Waterside development. The risks and the disruption were surely known at that time.]

Eleanor Young said that Ealing Youth services decides to move services away from the YAC (Young Adult Centre) in Southall but we later decided against it.

[It was designated a development site by Regeneration. That means demolishing everything on the site, so Youth services were FORCED to find alternative premises. The decision was only changed at the last minute after by local people began to challenge that decision and were prepared to do so in court.]

Mr Dale Harris for IWA said that Ealing Councils documents show that a key concern of local residents was about change to the Southall identity. Eleanor Young agreed.

He pointed out that taking average parking spaces being used was not a good guide to parking needs. The usage is different for different times of the year. The usage in summer is high. The usage for evening when wedding takes place or religious festival take place is high. There is no data for peak times. The data also excludes blue badge holders.

Response from Eleanor Young was parking need will be lower once the Monsoon is closed for good.

This will be updated with more information later.