Overheard at the LFGSS golf club bar

Should still be a park, but pretending it would be like Stratford is fanciful.

Pretty much what my response to the consultation is. It's like they've never even been there.

There's a whole strip of land from Hanger hill to Greenford that, in some insane future, could be 'transformed' into something like Stratford. I wonder if that's Ealing's long game.

Argh, this is why I don't watch news. The world is stupid.

At least tell me most of it is community football and not megabucks bullshit.

Fair point. Guess I'll wait and see what happens. Let me know if they propose something stupid so I can vote against it.

I wonder if that's Ealing's long game.

They're probably looking on at the Nine Elms site and how the dense housing has proven to be extremely lucrative for the council as it's a younger population, densely packed, high council tax revenue, but the density means a cheaper provision of services.

I do kinda agree, directionally, that the West and North West of London could do with rejuvenation and a new centre to things with better planning... but I don't think that will be what Ealing deliver.

At least tell me most of it is community football and not megabucks bullshit.

Don't read up on Hounslow Council and the massive losses taken on to enable Brentford to have their new stadium.

I don't know what was before Olympic park but I'd rather be in a place with a velodrome and no golfers.

It was a scruffy low rent industrial area that allowed people to open up scruffy low rent businesses the kind of thing every city actually needs both to function and to provide future jobs.
The welders, carpenters, locksmiths and heating engineers were Socio-Economically cleansed to provide investment opportunities for the already rich.

welders, carpenters, locksmiths and heating engineers

No one needs those, you only need big offices.
At least that's what's happening in Berlin on a massive scale.

Coincidentally there's a thing in the Guardian about golf courses in London. Some nuggets:

"Forty-three of the city’s courses are owned by public bodies, totalling an area greater than the borough of Hammersmith & Fulham."

"About a quarter of Europe’s golf courses are in the UK...a similar amount of land here is dedicated to golf as domestic buildings."

"In London there are nearly 100 golf courses, together taking up more land than the boroughs of Tower Hamlets and Hackney combined."

"At maximum capacity, an 18-hole course can hold 72 players in groups of four simultaneously. London’s 4,331 hectares of golf courses can provide recreation space for about 13,472 players over a very long mid-summer day – fewer than the average number of visitors to the 86-hectare Victoria Park"

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/nov/28/building-houses-britain-golf-courses-makes-sense

The Uxbridge Road from the Broadway to West Ealing is LBEaling's 'Stratford'.
A previous Tory council connived eith an enabling Housing Secretary, (apologies cannot remember which one), to have this stretch rezoned as an 'Inner City' allowing taller blocks than for an outer London borough.

Drop in on a Wests sometime in the Spring, we can show you the new North Acton, with the ImpCol residential campus.

At maximum capacity, an 18-hole course can hold 72 players in groups of four simultaneously.

Written by someone who has never played golf.

Don't read up on Hounslow Council and the massive losses taken on to enable Brentford to have their new stadium.

I had a quick google on this and couldn't spot anything. I was at the new Brentford stadium the other week and was amazed by how many flats were going up there, it's a really dense development.

I suspect a lot of the money subsidised with football clubs (and I have no idea how much is actually going to the football side rather than community projects side) probably shows returns in attracting a lot of people to the area and the ancillary spending and employment (plus the community benefits).

Hounslow Council had bailed out Brentford in the old stadium and had heavily funded that, and then on the sale of it had split the revenue with Brentford (a further subsidy given the bailout), and then sold the land for the new stadium at a below market rate (another subsidy), as well as investing in the new stadium on the basis of area renewal (a further subsidy). The figures for this go into tens of millions. Private Eye were running cartoons and comments on this for many years before ground broke on the new stadium, and living on Green Dragon Lane as I did we heard a lot directly from people involved in Brentford club and local politicians and other things.

It was a shocking amount of money, given that they were failing to invest in a lot of local services adequately.

kept at his summer house in France.

getting new boots on the motor

No surprise it’s from the watch wanker thread

I don't know what was before Olympic park but I'd rather be in a place with a velodrome and no golfers.

Eastway road cycling circuit, CX/MTB circuits and a BMX track among other things. No golf.

There were some good parties round there too

Lol this was I was about to say. Lots of excellent raves had on and around carpenter’s lane.

Indeed. Wax, to name one.

I took the Brighton train to Canary Warf the next morning, and that was quite pleasant sitting in 1st doing work.

.... 🎩
👋🧐👋

Written by someone who has never played golf.

Or 'wigs' as my petrol head brother would say.

We should go and get the rest of the Parthenon

As someone who generally votes Tory