Monday 28 January 2019

ALARUMS AND EXCURSIONS

Alarms

Last Friday evening the Vicarage phone rang at quarter past seven. My heart sank; mid evening calls are usually from people with a problem at St Peter's, requiring me to go up there and sort it out. This, however, was from Jacqui, our Lunch Club mastermind, so I felt immediately relieved. The relief, though, was short-lived, as Jacqui reported that she was preparing for Lunch Club at St Peter's and the fire alarm was going off. She said that she had checked, and could find no fire, and asked whether I knew how to turn it off. In twelve years the alarm has never gone off, or, to my knowledge, been serviced, so I had no idea. I said I thought it would stop by itself, as surely they are required to do (after twenty minutes, I think) but she then told me that it had been sounding for an hour and a half.

So, I got my bike out and went up to St Peter's, expecting to be assailed by lots of angry residents from the old people's flats next door, who were surely being disturbed. When I arrived I could hear nothing, so I was confused, but when I went down to the church and hall it became audible. In the lobby the bell was audible, but not intolerable, and the same was clearly true of the hall, where Jacqui's volunteers were peeling potatoes. It was only when I went out into the outer foyer that the noise became intolerably loud, and it became clear that it was barely noticeable outside the building. I fetched a stepladder, and with the aid of pliers, screwdriver and blu-tac, silenced the bell.

I then started wondering how useful this system actually is. The bell is meant to be activated by smashing a glass panel (there are no smoke or heat alarms). There are three panels: one immediately under the bell, in the foyer; a second in the church, beside the organ (on the back of the same wall as the first one); the third in the hall, at the far side, beside the fire escape. It is impossible to imagine a situation in which someone walking around shouting, "Fire! Fire!" would not be just as effective as trying to activate this alarm. It's a fairly small space, and a few steps enable you to see it all, and certainly shouting would be effective. There are also plenty of ways out. I had always assumed that our system was a branch of the system in the flats above us, but evidently not, as they did not have an alarm on Friday evening. So, if it had been a fire, the flats above the church, who did need to know, wouldn't have been alerted anyway. We have lots of extinguishers (which are serviced regularly) and plenty of fire exits; I think we have just demonstrated that the alarm adds nothing to our well-being. A conversation with our inspecting architect is required.


Coach Trip

The big story of last week was the public meeting over the TfL proposal to site a coach station at Royal Oak. The Bayswater councillors organised a meeting, expecting a couple of dozen to turn up, but over a hundred people did. Emily Payne (a fellow governor) chaired it, and the excellent Graham King, from the City Council, explained the proposal. It appears that the lease on Victoria Coach Station will come up in a few years, and the Grosvenor Estate wants it back, so as to build more lucrative housing. TfL unimaginatively wants to provide a new coach station and would prefer to do so on land it already owns, hence its interest in the area north of Royal Oak station platform. This slice of land (in St Mary Magdalene's parish) used to contain the sidings leading to Paddington Goods Station, which were removed prior to the digging of Crossrail underneath it. It is at the level of the rail tracks, and so perhaps thirty feet below the level of Lord Hill's Bridge to the west, Ranelagh Bridge to the east, and the Harrow Road (itself beneath the Westway) to the north. Just describing those levels makes it clear how unsuitable this would be. Apparently, Ranelagh Bridge would be removed to make this possible, and so we would lose our access to the A40. Of course it would also be necessary to close Royal Oak station at least while the work was done, and quite possibly permanently, which would hardly be to our benefit. In order to fund the scheme, TfL would build shops, offices and housing in a block over the top of the coach station. What a lovely place to live, alongside the Westway, with the Great Western mainline on the other side.

Of course, this is only one of a number of sites TfL are considering. It is manifestly foolish, even without considering issues of traffic, pollution, infrastructure and so on (which are damning), but my point is that this is a futile exercise. In civilized cities (and actually lots of pretty uncivilized ones too) coach stations are on the edge of the urban sprawl, at suitable transport nodes, where passengers can transfer to rapid urban transport while the coaches go swiftly on their way without having to battle through urban traffic. Lots of British cities do this already, (though admittedly some without necessarily providing the public transport connections) and it has to make sense. No-one would build Victoria Coach Station where it is today, and it is only because it is there already that there is any feeling that it should be replaced by something equally central; if we were starting from scratch we would build it on the periphery, since London has excellent public transport.

There are petitions against the proposal from both the Labour Party and the Conservative Party, and Nicky Hessenberg, who has been helping with our fundraising for the Project, is co-ordinating opposition, so I think TfL have a fight on their hands.        


Global Food

Another thing that brought the local community together last week was the Westbourne Global Food Festival, organised by the Westbourne Forum, and held in the Stowe Centre on Saturday afternoon. We had arranged for an array of local restaurants to bring samples of their food, which when combined made a decent plate, which locals could have for free. Then several groups provided entertainment. We ended up having to turn people away, as the hall was just too full. A very good use of the councillors' ward budget. Fish and chips was available alongside Greek, middle eastern, Asian and African food, and the entertainment included African, Bollywood and Albanian dancing, as well as zumba (done by people I can only describe as Londoners). All wonderfully various, and very good humoured.

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