Thursday's Acton Regeneration meeting in Acton Library

Tonight there was an interesting meeting about the future of Acton - the Pool, the Priory Centre, the Town Hall to name a few parts of the regeneration.

Of course we need to improve Acton to lead the way so that we can reverse the trend of people not shopping in Acton High street. It is v sad to see shops where a company has gone broke. This has been happening more so over the past few years.

The overall scheme will improve Acton but there are concerns:

• Less community space
• The Pool being closed earlier than many residents think reasonable before a planning application has been lodged
•  Many user groups of the Priory Community Centre look like they may not get any suitable accommodation in Acton and so will either have to shut down their activities or find space potentially a long way away (which is not suitable for many types of groups) 
• There will not be a cafe. It appears to save money they are removing the cafe from the plans as well as reducing the office space for Council staff and the size of the gym by about 20%.
• There is a reference to the current library (which will be replaced by a new library of the same size) being used as a restaurant or a pub! There are a lot of pubs in Acton already. Another one makes no sense.

Towards the end of the meeting a number of residents were able to ask the Council officers questions and two issues seemed to consistently rattle residents - 1) user groups being left with nowhere to go and 2) whether the rents for space or gym use will be too pricey.

As with most projects of this type the details are crucial. The Council needs to re-double its efforts to ensure the Priory Community Centre users are found suitable accommodation.