I'm now not sure if even the Leaf will save Ealing from it's current decline - I was hugely optimistic that it might create the necessary buzz to help regenerate Ealing Centre - but it may be too late, as traders seem to have steadily lost confidence in Ealing. It will take a very great amount of regeneration. More shops have closed in the last few weeks, and I hear on the grapevine that there are at least five more shops planning to close. In the past few years we have lost most of the middle market shops, Benetton, Stefanel, Kaliko, Russell & Bromley, Laura Ashley and of course Beales among them. Miss Selfridge closed a few weeks ago, so even the teenage shoppers are going elsewhere. The very downmarket Primark opening on the Beales site is the death knell to many of the existing smaller traders. I was talking to an acquaintance who, until recently, had a shop in the town centre and she said that the large influx of state aided refugees has knocked the stuffing out of the shops in Ealing, as they have little money to spend in the shops but do a lot of "window shopping" and sitting around workless and bored in the square, so the local "well heeled" are now voting with their feet and shopping in more upmarket areas. If true, it is depressing and sad, and needs to be addressed at a government level so that instead of dumping a large group of penniless people of a particular nationality all in one area they could be spread out in several towns in order to better integrate in each locality and give them a chance in terms of work, schools etc to become a valued part of a community.
S. D. Brock ● 6841d