A recording of our online talk exploring William De Morgan’s life, career and the Arts and Crafts tiles he designed for Bedford Park is now available. The talk took place on 13 April.

To access the recording, you will need to purchase a £5 ticket.

Please contact us on: information@bedfordpark.org.uk for details of how to pay and see the recording.

Speaker: Sarah Hardy, De Morgan Foundation Curator-Manager. 

See below for details of this fascinating talk.

William De Morgan Arts and Crafts tiles in Bedford Park

William De Morgan was the premier ceramic designer of the Arts and Crafts movement.

He began his artistic career at the Royal Academy, before meeting William Morris and embarking on design, first with stained glass and then ceramics. 

One of his earliest commissions was from Architect Richard Norman Shaw for Bedford Park, and his tiles can still be found in houses and the Tabard pub today.

Sarah Hardy will discuss his life and his links to Bedford Park, and is happy to take any questions on the night.

The talk including questions lasts an hour.

Speaker: Sarah Hardy BA (Hons) (Dunelm), MA Manchester, DipLCM

Sarah studied Art History at Durham University before obtaining her masters degree in the subject at the University of Manchester. Sarah is a Victorian Arts & Crafts specialist, having researched and written widely on the subject, including William Morris’s revival of embroidery, William Blake’s influence on the Pre-Raphaelites, Bookbinding and the Kelmscott Press and, most recently, William De Morgan’s use of mathematics in his ceramic designs for the De Morgan Foundation’s successful touring exhibition, Sublime Symmetry. 

Sarah began her museum career in the education department at the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge, before working on interpretation at Helmshore Mills Textile Museum, Lady Lever Art Gallery, and Two Temple Place. Sarah then worked extensively on loans and exhibitions at the National Gallery and the British Library, where she completed the Institute of Art and Law Diploma on Law and Collections Management, before joining the De Morgan Foundation in 2018. Sarah is Curator-Manager of the De Morgan Foundation.

Images of the Bedford Park Daisy tile and the portrait of William De Morgan by Evelyn De Morgan: copyright the De Morgan Foundation.

Experimental traffic schemes

The temporary road closures affecting Chiswick and Bedford Park continue to provoke very mixed reactions from pedestrians, cyclists, motorists and local businesses. The changes include the trial road closures of Turnham Green Terrace, Devonshire Road and Fisher’s Lane; restriction on motor vehicles entering Duke Road from the High Road and road closures at the junctions of Wellesley Road and Stile Hall Gardens with the South Circular (A205).

There continues to be heated debate about the traffic trial schemes with issues further complicated by the closure in November of Acton Lane for the Thames Water emergency works.

We remain committed to working on behalf of the Society’s members and local residents to try to ensure a positive outcome from the trials, which would ideally provide improved access to Chiswick High Road, Turnham Green Terrace and Devonshire Road for cyclists and pedestrians, while at the same time minimising — to the greatest extent possible —  any adverse effect on the free flow of public transport, and commercial and private vehicles in the area.

We are concentrating our efforts on ensuring that any permanent proposals that emerge from the current temporary schemes provide for an appropriate balance of interests amongst all road users — pedestrians, cyclists, motorists and local businesses. To this end, we are building on the effective lines of communication we have established with local councillors to encourage them to work together to propose a constructive way forward for Ealing and Hounslow. We are also establishing what criteria the councils are planning to use as a test for the success of the measures currently being trialled to ensure all stakeholder interests are represented, in particular those of local residents. 

Information on Hounslow’s Streetscape programme can be found on the Hounslow website.

Turnham Green Terrace reopened

When Thames Water extended their emergency works on Acton Lane into late November, Hounslow Council suspended access restrictions for Turnham Green Terrace and this continues for the time being. 

As a result of the temporary suspension of through traffic, enforcement of the restrictions and issuing of PCNs has ceased (with restriction signage removed) but the experimental parking restrictions remain in place and will continue to be enforced.

The loading/unloading and blue badge parking bays replacing the previous pay and display bays are clearly marked. The “loading” bays may be used by all vehicle users who are picking up or dropping off items at businesses and not just those traditionally classified as “goods” vehicles. Loading/unloading is limited to a maximum stay of 20 minutes.

Improving the Terrace

A report, prepared by leading transport engineers Urban Movement, suggests a range of improvements for Turnham Green Terrace — including a piazza outside Turnham Green Tube Station, more zebra crossings, public spaces and widened pavements, whilst retaining some parking, as well as through traffic.
 
The proposals are the result of a community workshop organised by group of local architects and planners. You can read the press release, full report and find out how to send your views here. 
 
The deadline to submit comments was 4 January. All the comments received are to be included in the submission of the group’s recommendations to Hounslow Council.

Fisher’s Lane closed

Ealing Council have implemented the temporary closure of the Fisher’s Lane underpass to all traffic except buses, cycles and emergency vehicles.

Ealing Council have now promised an interim report rather than waiting for the completion of the six-month period of the trial although terms of reference and criteria are not yet known.

The councils state that a number of these changes are being introduced as Experimental Traffic Orders (therefore not requiring consultation) and that feedback will be reviewed to determine whether they should be continued beyond the trial period. If the councils decide to take any of the schemes forward on a permanent basis, they will have to launch a formal consultation at that point and residents will have an opportunity to make their views known.

Hounslow Council have announced that following the completion of an interim (3-4 months) and a final (7-8 months) review by an independent consultant into the temporary traffic schemes, all Hounslow residents will receive notification of a link to the reports. 

Feedback will be accepted up to the end of the trial and residents asked for final comments on the schemes in early January.

As mentioned above, Ealing Council have now promised an interim report rather than waiting for the completion of the six-month period of the trial although terms of reference and criteria are not yet known.

It’s important to make your views known directly to the relevant local authority:

• To provide feedback on the Hounslow schemes, you should complete the consultation feedback form and/or email: traffic@hounslow.gov.uk   
• For further information or to make comments on the Fisher’s Lane scheme, email: COVIDtransport@ealing.gov.uk

We’ve also been asked to let you know about a local initiative — a petition organised by a resident who is concerned about a number of issues relating to the road closures. You can find details here.

Temporary Cycleway

A temporary version of the Cycleway 9 affecting the way traffic is managed between the junctions with Heathfield Terrace and Goldhawk Road has now opened.

Unlike the original plans for the segregated cycleway, there is no use of pavement space or removal of trees but the designs introduce a bi-directional cycle lane taking over existing bus lanes and restricting motor traffic to a single lane each way for much of the length of Chiswick High Road.

You can see a summary of the changes and the design for the scheme on ChiswickW4.com.

In addition to traffic congestion during the building of the cycle lane, there have been many comments made about the temporary scheme, including some concerns about potential safety issues for both cyclists and pedestrians, such as the complicated junctions, revised zebra crossings and bus stops, and changes to the way vehicles enter/exit side roads. TfL have said that once the works and Thames Water repairs have been completed, traffic flow “will settle and improve.” 

They have asked for continued feedback from residents on the project and state that they have already made changes in response to issues raised, including removing incorrectly installed signage at Dukes Avenue and introducing new loading bays along the High Road.

To submit your views, including raising any safety concerns:

• Hounslow: complete the feedback form and 
• Transport for London: email streetspacelondon@tfl.gov.uk or fill in the survey.  

The closing date for the Department for Transport’s Part 2 consultation on night time flights has been extended from 31 May to September 2021. This follows requests for more time for respondents to incorporate additional evidence, in particular the results of a Survey of Noise Attitudes for Night, expected to be available within the next three months.

As a result, if you haven’t already submitted your comments, we suggest that you might want to wait until we can update the guidance later this year. 

The consultation covers night flights restrictions at Heathrow, Gatwick and Stansted airports beyond 2024, plus national night flight policy. The findings from this consultation will be used to inform policy options as the basis of firm proposals for the designated airports beyond 2024 — to be included in a consultation planned for 2022.

While this process relates to the designated airports in their current operational form and does not consider airport expansion proposals, any easing of night flight restrictions would have a significant effect on Bedford Park and Chiswick residents.

The consultation and many of the questions are complex and technical. We are extremely grateful to have been able to use draft responses prepared by the No 3rd Runway Coalition and HACAN (Heathrow Association for the Control of Airport Noise) to help provide guidance in completing the survey.

You can find information here on the simplest way to respond:

Part 2 suggested responses

Supreme Court overruled verdict on Third Runway

Third Runway threatens everyone in Chiswick

Heathrow’s proposals will cause major disturbance to all Chiswick residents with more flights, more noise and more pollution, possibly even if the Third Runway does not go ahead.

• Heathrow are proposing options that would result in 29 flights directly over Bedford Park and Chiswick between 06.00 and 07.00am – one plane every 2.4 minutes – at very high decibel levels, likely to wake people up. Up to 40 overhead flights per day are proposed at this stage, before implementation of the new runway.
• If the Third Runway is built, we would be even more significantly affected with incoming low-flying aircraft (at 2,000 – 3,000ft), 47 flights per hour (one every 1.5 minutes) and with all of the flights above the key 65-decibel level. There will be 17 departing flights per hour (one every 3.5 minutes), all above 65 decibels. 

Our work to challenge the development

We continue to monitor developments, supporting the work of CHATR (Chiswick Against the Third Runway), keeping in touch with the No Third Runway Coalition, and taking action when necessary. We remain committed to supporting any further efforts to challenge this development, which represents such a significant threat to Bedford Park and Chiswick. 

Many questions are still unanswered, such as safety; reconciliation with air pollution limits; binding Climate Change targets; the economics of the project, including creating access to the airport, and the adequacy of the government’s proposed compensation scheme.

We have continued to encourage members to respond to Heathrow Airport’s Airspace consultations, which will influence its proposals to the CAA for the development of the airspace of Chiswick and Bedford Park. We contacted members, summarising the key points and providing responses that the Society and CHATR suggested should be made to make the strongest case, and also submitted formal responses from the Society. 

We attended a meeting with the Aviation Minister where CHATR emphasised the noise disruption which would be caused by the flight path passing over Chiswick and Bedford Park.

Guidance provided for responding to consultations

We have urged everyone to submit a response to each consultation.

For September 2019, we provided two suggested responses depending on whether you live in Bedford Park or the wider Chiswick area:

• Click here for the responses for Chiswick.

• Click here to find our suggested responses for Bedford Park residents.

We are grateful for input from the No 3rd Runway Coalition in compiling the responses.

The March 2019 consultation

The majority of this consultation was about airspace change, noise, respite, directional preference and night flights, which will follow the construction of the third runway, and full details are available online.

The Society’s response is available here.

Previous consultation in 2018

The Society submitted a formal response and encouraged everyone to submit an individual objection.

The Society’s response is available here.

The original full proposal produced by the Government can be seen online. 

More detailed facts and figures are also available on the No 3rd Runway Coalition’s website.

As well as producing suggested responses and information on how to submit responses for members, we work with CHATR to help publicise the importance of responding to all Chiswick residents.  Our efforts have been appreciated by members and residents alike.