Pedestrianisation in Central Ealing 'Off the Table'

Other traffic calming measures being considered for Town Centre

An aerial view of central Ealing. Picture: Ealing Council

December 14, 2022

Ealing Council has ruled out plans to pedestrianise three key streets in the town centre. Instead, Ealing town centre might be subject to other traffic calming measures including wider pavements, timed restrictions, or bus and taxi-only routes, depending on feedback from the public.

This comes after pedestrianisation was included alongside a number of traffic calming proposals in a transport topic paper presented at the Local Development Plan Advisory Committee meeting on 22 November. In the paper, it was suggested that a number of measures, like pedestrianisation, might be implemented on Bond Street, High Street, and Springbridge Road.

At the full council meeting on Tuesday, 13 December, Liberal Democrat Councillor Jon Ball asked Deputy Leader and Cabinet Member for Climate Action, Councillor Deirdre Costigan if any consultation had been completed about the potential for pedestrianisation. In response, the deputy leader confirmed that pedestrianisation of Ealing town centre was “off the table”.

She said, “There’s no plans for pedestrianisation of Bond Street, High Street, and Springbridge Road so therefore we have done no work on it. It was an old idea that is no longer a policy.

“The transport topic paper is a lot of ideas that people might look at, including the ‘pedestrianisation of high streets’ as a potential for transport interventions in the future.

“This was one potential transport intervention discussed out of many options including traffic calming, reducing the number of lanes, widening pavements, timed restrictions, restrictions on general traffic, bus and taxi-only routes and full pedestrianisation.”

Closing High Street in Ealing no longer being considered. Picture: Google Streetview

Cllr Costigan further added that an old bid was submitted to Transport for London for a ‘liveable neighbourhood’ for Ealing town centre. This included plans to improve the pedestrian experience in West Ealing town centre and Ealing Broadway town centre.

She continued, “The Ealing central one is off the table, it’s not in any of our plans it wasn’t in our manifesto. It’s not something that TfL have ever agreed to either.

“We have now consulted on travel in our Ealing charter which means what we do now is, we go to local people and we ask them for their ideas, and what their ideas are in the local area and we work with them to co-produce our schemes and interventions that will make a difference to air quality and to travel in our borough.”

Ealing Council’s draft local plan is currently under public consultation and residents are invited to express their thoughts until January 25. The proposals can be found here.

Megan Stanley - Local Democracy Reporter