Hanwell Square! Oh yeah!

So, what was once Wickes is to be called Hanwell Square. A few weeks ago some very smart graphics appeared on the hoarding around the massive building site where we used to buy our DIY stuff. According to Fabrica’s website, Hanwell Square will be “a new west London community where new apartments, shops and businesses come together, centred around a beautifully designed village square and landscaped courtyards”. Ealing Green Party calls it part of “the current wave of aggressive development in Hanwell”.

It’s good to see familiar Hanwell shops, cafés and pubs featured in the montage. Let’s hope they will all still be in business when things get back to sort of normal.

Hanwell evoked

Whatever the reality of the development itself, the graphics on the hoarding really are smart, with a clever and well-designed montage of things Hanwell and things London in general. Alongside are images relating to the development itself; they pique the curiosity. The vaguely defined shops and cafés look warm and inviting. A slim, trim-bearded young professional stands in a rooftop garden sipping a cocktail while gazing in the direction of Lidl’s car park. Tantalising advertising.

Building work commences…

At first, once Wickes had been demolished, you couldn’t see much of what was going on behind the hoarding, except from the top deck of an E8 bus, which showed vast mounds of earth and aggregate being moved around by big boys’ toys – diggers, trucks and cranes. Quite impressive. And it’s a lot easier to see building progress now that there are several storeys of its steadily rising concrete bastions.

Before the new slick Hanwell Square imagery arrived, for a long time the hoarding hosted street art images, probably without the permission of the developers. These images were interesting to look at, though hard to make sense of. Maybe I’m not the target audience.

Precariat point of view

One of these images was a poster containing a 620-word statement. The type was quite small, the prose dense and repetitive, so it wasn’t easy to read, even close up. But I got there in the end. It was a protest against a development in the East End, and presumably whoever put it up feels the same concerns apply here. In summary…

At a time when many locals are already experiencing precarity because of the pandemic, what the community really needs is greater support – more social housing and workspaces. What we don’t need is the hastened gentrification and social cleansing that will likely occur when rent increases price working class locals out and big business moves in. The unique history and character of the Brick Lane area has long been under threat from expansion by the City and this proposal only exacerbates that. We are also angry and frustrated at the lack of a planning brief or any meaningful consultation.

So long, farewell…

It is sad that we’ve had to say goodbye to so many old friends in such a short space of time. Not just Wickes; there’s also the Peugeot car showroom, the Horseshoe Café and the oddly charming rickety second-hand car place opposite the Little Wonder, among others dotted around Hanwell. One old friend I won’t miss so much is the White Hart up in north Hanwell, a pub that took some getting used to.

Seven months later and the Nissan Westway car dealership next to the old Wickes is also being pulled down, to be replaced by yet more flats. Though I won’t miss the traffic jams caused by manoeuvring car transporters, even if they were my favourite childhood toy…

All change! All change please!

Because Hanwell station will soon be a stop on Crossrail, there is likely to be a great demand for housing in the area. Our old friends have been knocked down to make way for flats, flats and more flats, in some cases crammed into small spaces, in many cases priced out of reach of most first-time buyers, or to be sold as buy to let. And where will the newcomers put their cars? Many people I know are worried about the strain this will put on available parking spaces: ‘Nom, nom, nom, nom, nom’ (not on my street).

I hope I’m proved wrong but I’m not sure how beneficial Crossrail will really be to Hanwell. With so many new residents arriving, some of them might get a bit cross if they find they can’t even get onto the London-bound platform in the morning rush hour. Some of them might also get cross that Crossrail still isn’t complete, though to be fair that’s partly because of the pandemic.

It’s not all bad, the relocated prefab social housing for those made homeless by the pandemic is nearby in Lambourn Close, and is considered a three-storey success story. And sure, you can’t stop progress, and people do need somewhere to live. It’s just an awful lot of change in what is so far a short space of time. It’s also a serious disruption to the familiar warm cardigan of Hanwell’s psychogeography, to its vistas and friendly places. We’re like pet cats getting used to a much-changed home.

I still miss Wickes, and the burger van in the car park.