Projects

Pavements and trees

Back in November, the GPG’s Newsletter announced that, grateful as we are for the belated fixing of the pothole-ridden streets in Grove Park, the state of our pavements is still a cause for concern. We therefore proposed a new Safe Pavement Patrol initiative with the co-operation of local Councillors and the Strand on the Green Association, aiming to record areas of concern, including uneven pavements and overgrown pavement trees. We now have an interactive map (see below), which includes a photo of each problem site with its position, to facilitate improvement. The Strand on the Green Association have also produced a comprehensive Word Document report on the state of their streets.

You can help: please photograph any parts of local pavements of concern, and send to: photo@groveparkgroup.co.uk, together with a note of the closest house number and street name.  We will add your photo to the map.

You can click and drag to move the map, and zoom in to see a photo of individual problem sites. Try it!

The footbridge over the railway at Deans Close

Let There Be Light

If you want a quick way to get to cross the railway line from the north-west part of Grove Park to get to the river, you would use the Dean’s Close / Deans Close / Ernest Gardens railway footbridge. Its lack of illumination has been a longstanding source of anxiety, so on 24th October 2015, there was a site meeting with Ruth Cadbury MP, local Councillors, residents and the GPG. Having followed this up for 5 years, the GPG saw Hounslow pay for the lights, and install them on 21st September, with them becoming operational on Thursday 24 Sept., 2020.

The October 2019 consultation on the South Chiswick Liveable Neighbourhood added the following: ‘Further consideration will be given to improving the access to the bridge once this scheme is completed.’ The GPG will continue to monitor the bridge, which is in rather poor condition, and liaise with the council re: ongoing works.

Shops to the south of Chiswick Station

Regenerating the Grove Park Shops

It has been a longstanding aim for the GPG to improve the environment of the very large space in front of the Grove Park Road shops, ideally to create an Italian-style ‘piazza’. This is to allow shoppers to dally in a more comfortable space, while at the same time curbing the excessive number of the motor vehicles that constantly zip to and from Bolton Road.

Before the Covid-19 crisis, the GPG had raised contributions to the total redesign via crowdfunding and we were on course to be part of the London-wide Liveable Neighbourhood scheme. Liveable Neighbourhoods was the Mayor of London’s £2.3 Billion fund to create Healthy Streets across the capital, which has of course now been affected greatly by the global pandemic.

However, we are still liaising with the Council over some more modest proposals which would still involve creating more space for pedestrians, bicycle racks and table areas while adding trees, but maintain vehicle access to the shopaping space.

Watch out for new designs, to be presented to residents and retailers later in the year for reactions and feedback.

Roses in the Trough

On Burlington Lane, just outside the main Station entrance, can be found the disused horse trough, which has been continually planted with flowers by the Grove Park Group since 2011, entirely with efforts from the Committee and funded by the Group. As the trough itself attests, it was established by the Metropolitan Drinking Fountain and Cattle Trough Association, an organisation set up in Samuel Gurney, an MP and philanthropist, and barrister Edward Thomas Wakefield, in 1859 to provide free drinking water. The association survives as the Drinking Fountain Association and received a National Lottery grant to build more fountains in 2000, and to restore existing ones.

We organise regular replantings and are currently discussing reconnecting the water supply to further assist in keeping the plantings watered. See our Quarterly Newsletter for updated photos.