Battle of the Bulbs shows locals are switching on to people power

Battle of the Bulbs shows locals are switching on to people power

The local press call it the 'Battle of the Bulbs' but, frankly, it's more like an Ealing comedy: local authority workers deployed to remove 55 antique Victorian lampposts from four roads around Hanwell in west London were forced to down tools this month following a peaceful protest by 50 incensed locals.

The police were called in to, as the Ealing Gazette put it, 'calm the crowd'. 'They sent three policewomen from Acton in anti-stab vests to deal with a bunch of middle-class conservationists over antique lampposts,' says Carolyn Brown, a member of the local Lawns Residents Association (who went armed only with hot coffee for the workers).

If the residents were upset when Ealing Council announced they were to lose their 100-year-old lampposts as part of an upgrade of street lighting without (they claim) public consultation, they were livid when they found out that, in fact, the council wasn't going to scrap the swan-necked Victorian lights but relocate them - to a different and posher part of the borough.

The plan is that their lampposts are to be moved from Hanwell (ironically, a conservation area) to the area around Ealing Studios. That area has just been designated a 'heritage quarter' so that the council can, as Conservative council leader Jason Stacey puts it, 'create an area, close to the borough's main attractions, which can properly replicate the heritage of our borough'.

'The council never told us that they were moving our lights,'.....continued below

Advertisement starts

---

---

Advertisement ends

says Lauren Wall, who lives on Manor Court Road, one of the roads which is to lose its lampposts. 'They simply announced that they were making a heritage quarter and as part of that they would be refurbishing old lights.'

It only transpired later that the old lighting, so representative of Ealing, was actually their own. In return, Hanwell locals would receive 'heritage' lights (in other words, replicas of old ones). 'People move into this area because it has a particular Victorian and Edwardian feel to it,' says Wall. 'We appreciate heritage and if it's valued by people who want to keep it and valued by those who want to take it, then why isn't Ealing Council talking to both groups? You'd think that they would find out what the majority of people want and would be fair to everybody. We all pay our council tax and we all expect to be represented.'

An argument about lampposts may seem trivial, but 'it illustrates a growing gap between the government's rhetoric of "listening" to communities and people's experience on the ground', says Hugh Ellis, head of planning at Friends of the Earth. 'National and local government find it hard to listen to communities and the truth is that they too often regard people as a problem.'

Next week there are local elections up and down the country. It is the perfect opportunity for campaigners concerned by local issues such as fast-food restaurants opening up opposite schools, the bulldozing of much-loved playgrounds, and the seemingly unstoppable homogenisation of our high streets as a result of the spread of chains such as McDonald's, Starbucks, Tesco et al.

'If you can say you represent 200 people in your ward, you'll see councillors jump up and down and get very worried. It's a fantastic time for lobbying,' says Nancy Astley, deputy director of Planning Aid for London, which gives free town planning advice to individuals and groups.