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'Any real and substantive ITK information would have to be as a result of a Planning Council meeting to be accurate and would therefore come as a public announcement....IMO the application will go through but there is no start date to put a spade in the ground...should be considered as stuck on Amber/Yellow rather than Green.'
Exactly, so we are in the exact same place we were already and nothing has changed.
'Any real and substantive ITK information would have to be as a result of a Planning Council meeting to be accurate and would therefore come as a public announcement....IMO the application will go through but there is no start date to put a spade in the ground...should be considered as stuck on Amber/Yellow rather than Green.'
Exactly, so we are in the exact same place we were already and nothing has changed.
No, we aren't as it happens.
Still, have it how you want.
No more from me on it, I know how much you hate ITK crap.
Interesting discussion. If anyone has any questions, shall try to answer honestly and with factual information.
Will the locals benefit from an improved facility paid for by a private company with no burden on the local Council Tax payers? Sure, not the whole site will have public access, after all it's not a community centre, but the Club will make part of the facilities open to the local community so surely this can only be a benefit over the current facilities.
Who uses the facilities at the moment?
Can anyone honestly say this is a nice place to be in, in its current state?
Interesting discussion. If anyone has any questions, shall try to answer honestly and with factual information.
What do you want built there (if you had a choice)and why? Do you think there are any positives in QPR's planning proposals? What football team do you support?
So 306 people have signed a petition? Wooohoooooo!!!! 306!! Is that supposed to be impressive? Is that supposed to represent a majority of the 340,000 people who live in Ealing. Actually it represents less than one tenth of one percent of the population of Ealing. It is a meaningless minority. A drop in the bucket. Come back when you have 50% of the population signed up to your stupid little petition! 306 means that 99.9% of the residents of Ealing have NOT agreed to sign your petition.
We should start a petition and get 306 QPR fans to sign a petition urging the Council to approve the development.
Interesting discussion. If anyone has any questions, shall try to answer honestly and with factual information.
You keep on about "no community benifits" on the website, have you actually looked into the work that QPR do within the community? I'll give you a link just encase, and bear in mind they have done all this with limited resources up until now.
I also don't understand how you think a council that has let the place get into the state it is in will suddenly be able to afford to renovate the site whilst experiencing budget cuts. The investment from QPR will give you less space but better facilities such as the indoors pitch and the astroturf as well as indoor spaces. These will all be available to the community. Even if the council found the money to provide these facilities do you honestly believe they would be able to afford the maintain and staff the facilities themselves? Personally I think they wouldn't and you'd end up with nothing to show for the investment after a while.
Interesting discussion. If anyone has any questions, shall try to answer honestly and with factual information.
Obviously a troll. But where from? Not Chelsea because they've spelt three words correctly and not Southampton because the post was made after their 8pm bedtime. Maybe it's Konk, he's conspicuous by his absence but I think that's more just down to him spending some quality time with his new statue at home.
Trying to respond, as promised, tackling lots together.
Firstly, this isn't about QPR. It's about Warren Farm, Ealing Council's appalling management of the site and leasing process, and current users being ignored in both their views and suggestions. QPR are a great team, good manager (shame to see McClaren go) and with great vision for the future. Football is a great individual and team sport. There are many QPR fans in Ealing (my team is not really relevant). And many of them oppose the plans when they realise what is actually happening. It's a 200 year lease and in the first draft there was no mention of community or public access in the lease. These are facts, and the basis of what we should talk about.
Why save what is 'one step up from a cess pit'? No one is suggesting saving the facilities shown in the photo. Most of the site is untouched green fields. The facilities were excellent at one time, and could be again. What is left is due to Ealing's mismanagement. Ealing should be managing the site, not offloading. It is a resource that should be managed not given away for peanuts. If you live in Ealing, it's your resource the Council are giving away. It could be a great community facility that maintains free and open access to the space. Before suggesting money is tight, Ealing have just announced plans to spend £5.4 million on Walpole Park - see http://bit.ly/1fI7EqB. The rest of the field is used for far more than weekend football. Baseball, rounders, cricket, tennis, kite flying, model airplanes, picnics, running, jogging, primary school sports days, community events from Southall and across West London, and good old just messing around. And yes dog walkers (some of you may have dogs that need exercise).
Will locals benefit? Some, possibly, probably. Let's be honest here. The proposed tenants run a football club. That is their primary interest. QPR in the Community Trust is great and does great work, but the primary focus is success for the club and first team. No other elite academy shares with the community because sharing doesn't work. Yes, community may visit from time to time, but that isn't sharing. The QPR COO Donnelly has said as much because it is true (see - http://www.stadiumdesignsummit.com/speaker-preview-project-qa-with-mark-donnelly
Who uses it, lots of people, as said earlier. They just don't play football in a structured way.
What would be ok there? Good facilities, supporting wide range of sports, well managed and maintained. It'd be a fraction of the £5.4mn going to Walpole Park. Closer to the £2.5 mn Ealing just spent on a car park in Southall.
Petitions 306 may not seem many, but then our resources don't match those of Ealing Council. And actual details were released at the very last possible moment. They have committed many errors which won't be covered here, some of them hilarious. In summary, Ealing shared a great community vision. The reality is that people will only be able to access less than one third of the current space and then only with security permission.
Good things about the proposal From the QPR perspective, many. They get the asset at no cash cost. A 200 year lease that is unbelievably vague, and a landlord that has a proven track record of poorly managing service level agreements. Even better is that they're getting land worth up to £66mn for an assigned value of £1.8-2.5mn. That is a bargain. It's appalling value for money for Ealing residents and council tax payers,
One of our concerns is that in 20-30 years time, pressure for development would have increased and the fields will be built on. Football is unlikely to be able to sustain current levels of interest; everything goes through phases.
Got to go now. Hopefully that gives some perspective. Hopefully you can understand some of the objections. Hopefully sympathise, maybe even agree.
Whatever your view, Warren Farm is used and the loss of open access will be a great loss for many, many people.
Hence the wish to save warren farm.
Please don't give this posting a kicking just because you don't like it. Simply trying to share information.
Cheers.
Looking for a good deal for Warren Farm - for locals and users
What makes me dubious about the incentives of such protesters is why now? Why has it taken a proposal by QPR for this lot to suddenly start making a noise when now doubt the vast majority of the 306 who have signed up neve gave a toss about Warren Farm over the last 20 years whilst it went into rack and ruin. And as far as lack of resource to raise a decent sized petition. That is bullshit. All it takes is a few dedicated individuals with clipboards and A4 paper to start knocking on doors around the area. The fact is the vast, vast majority of Ealing residents don't give a toss about Warren Farm and I suspect in direct contridiction to 'savewarrenfarm's post QPR supporting residents would more than likely be pro the development. A typical, nothing to do but cause trouble, individual who needs to get a life, quickly.
Will the locals benefit from an improved facility paid for by a private company with no burden on the local Council Tax payers? Sure, not the whole site will have public access, after all it's not a community centre, but the Club will make part of the facilities open to the local community so surely this can only be a benefit over the current facilities.
Who uses the facilities at the moment?
Can anyone honestly say this is a nice place to be in, in its current state?
They tried to put up our matchday fee saying the facilities were.....Class A when they looked like that!
We moved to Lord Halisbury's(sp) windiest pitches in West London and wonky pitches on Google (pen areas different alignment to pitch markings.) Very useful excuse for poor distribution.
[Post edited 3 Oct 2013 11:14]
Beer and Beef has made us what we are - The Prince Regent
I agree with DWQPR with regards to the why now. I’ve read that the council were looking for external funding since 2011 and in that time nobody arranged funding for anything different. The reply from savewarrenfarm suggests at better ideas for the site but not who’s going to pay the initial fee and ongoing maintenance of the site.
Anyway the price of land in London must have rocketed in the last few months, in the open letter from Nic Ferriday he’s unjustified valuation was a mere £35m, now it’s gone up to £66m. I say unjustified because if the council did try to sell the land for commercial use it would probably get a larger petition than 300 people. Our “corporate headquarters” as they like to depict it is going to mainly be sporting facilities, so fields not offices. One of the largest buildings would be an indoors pitch, which would be available to the community anyway. So seeing as it can’t be used for commercial/industrial use it’s not worth £35m or £66m.
“It's a 200 year lease and in the first draft there was no mention of community or public access in the lease. These are facts, and the basis of what we should talk about.” In the first draft, so not the current draft? So there is mention of public access? I accept the point about preferring not to share with the community, but it’s a compromise I’m sure the club are willing to make to ensure they get the facilities we need.
“Will locals benefit? Some, possibly, probably.” So that’s a yes then. You may end up with less pitches but the use of Astroturf and the indoors pitch as well as the other facilities available to the public will mean that it’s a more functional facility for the community.
Anyway I won’t go on too much (even though this kind of thing really winds me up) because I’m sure savewarrenfarm won’t be back, and if he is I doubt anything I could say would change his mind.
re funding, Savewarrenfarm's argument is that were Ealing council to invest a fraction of the money they waste elsewhere then the community could have something far greater than what QPR are offering in conditional compromise.
I would suggest that Savewarrenfarm takes a short trip across west London to view the community facilities that Barnet FC have, and this does now include their first team ground. These facilities have been built in conjunction with Harrow Council and are of a benefit to the community and also to youth footballers in general. The proposal at Warren Farm is very similar to the one at Barnet/ Harrow. So your point about QPR just wanting it for the first team and with no benefit to the community is not valid.
Talking about funding, have just had a look at the website and in particular the epetition which now stands at a whopping 320. Of this number mysteriously 47 have chosen to be anonymous. The epetition has been going since February this year, so on average they get around 40 'signatures' a month. Looking at other parts of the site, particularly the community opinion/poll page, there is just one opinion posted there , which happens to be that of the one man ego trip that is Nic Ferriday, and the poll doesn't exist, no doubt concerned with what happened with the Radio 4 man of the millennium poll! But back to the funding. The site states that in order to get a judicial review they will have to raise £12-14,000. Which as a worse case scenario for those signatures is a contribution of just £43.75 each. Not much at all, if they were really that bothered. I suspect that this will get nowhere near a review as when it comes to donating, peoples views begin to alter.
From what I can gather, the issue for those opposed is about the erosion of green space. Ealing Council's neglect of the site is no excuse for giving the land away. The choice between dilapidation and a QPR takeover is a false one.
While I have no doubt that QPR are jolly decent folk, they are a private company who legitimately look after their own stakeholders but not the interests of the wider community. The fear is that - as London becomes ever more developed - green space that is vital for everyone's wellbeing is sacrificed to private interests.
The petition is thin on the ground indeed, but many would say that people don't know what they have until it's gone...
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