Our activities

Our activities

We aim to stop environmental and architectural degradation in the Mill Hill Park area: streets, houses, street furniture, trees and open spaces.

Planning and licensing

We screen planning and licensing applications so that we can respond to Ealing Borough Council about inappropriate proposals early on.  Go to Planning for details of the approach we take to commenting on planning proposals. In 2016, we submitted comments on the Licensing Act 2003 in response to the House of Lords Select Committee call for evidence.

Improving Acton Town Centre

The MHPRA worked with Churchfield Community Association (CCA) and Ealing Council in 2014-15 to bid for funding from the Mayor’s High Street Regeneration Fund, matched by the Council. The bid was successful in bringing the total regeneration budget for Acton to £800,000.

Three MHPRA committee members joined the Acton Town Team, established in April 2016 by Ealing Council’s economic regeneration team to help improve Acton Town Centre.

Keeping our area clean

In September 2019, we launched a litter picking initiative to keep our local streets and green spaces clean.

New signs for Mill Hill Park

In 2015, new signs for the MIll Hill Park Conservation Area were installed at both ends of Avenue and Mill Hill Roads, showing a windmill and a green oak tree (symbol of Acton). The aim was to raise awareness of the Conservation Area.  In  2017, replacement street signs, in the style standard for all of Ealing’s Conservation Areas, were installed.  We requested and obtained funding for both the Conservation Area and street signs through the South Acton Ward Forum.

Enhancing our green spaces

We lobbied for improvements to be made to the entrance of Mill Hill Gardens, which the Ealing Council agreed to.  We were consulted about the redesign, which includes some new beds, replanting and an ornamental entrance arch.  The proposal received planning permission in April 2020 and the new entrance and arch were installed in September.

We heard, in 2016, that Heathfield Nature Garden had been awarded a Green Flag, a national quality mark for parks and green spaces. This followed several years of hard work by the MHPRA, amongst others, to achieve improvements to the park.

In October 2014 we replanted the Crown Street Pocket Gardenafter having submitted a successful bid for funding from South Acton Ward Forum to redesign the garden.

Commemorating Mill Hill Park’s history

We are interested in the history of the Mill Hill Park Estate and its former residents.  We commissioned and erected three commemorative plaques and published a short history of the Estate and an illustrated catalogue of original house names for all five streets in the Conservation Area.