the building to deliver specific services but also for related staff involved in more general activities. The so-called, “Horizons Centre”, was created by converting semi-derelict former depot buildings in Hanwell in concert with a programme of disposal of inadequate existing premises that generated nearly £2M. Staff quickly adapted to the demands of working part of the time at Perceval House and part at Horizons. The advantages of being able to integrate their advice and activity sessions into a fully effective office working environment became apparent in the clients’ feedback to the EPT. The ‘touchdown’ nature of the workspace provision permitted a wide range of specialists to inhabit the building simultaneously. The reported benefits of this co-location were more productive relationships with young people through the ability to deliver a greater number of services from a single site and synergies created between staff that generated new and unanticipated programmes. The combination of this degree of flexibility and “24/7” functionality led the EPT to promote the Horizons Centre within the Council as a new type of “superbuilding” which was described by the RICS as “extraordinary” in its award of ‘London Project of the Year 2008’.


Nearing completion (in October 2011) is a further development of the ‘superbuilding’ concept, again for Ealing’s Youth Service and funded by a central government. The “Westside Centre” will provide a support base for young people from all over the Borough bringing advanced programmes dealing with health, education, sport and fitness, careers, training, life skills and professional-standard creative activities into a single location. Supporting the service’s staff in delivering such an ambitious project is an office environment that encompasses all of the most successful features of the BWoW model. Described by the EPT as “ealingspace” it is an example of the benefits of the ‘thin-client’ ICT, flexible and touchdown working modes of Perceval House applied to a multi-functional service building that allows a seamless integration, in workspace terms, between the two locations. As the new ICT systems roll-out across all of the Council’s corporate buildings, the opportunity to replicate “ealingspace”


throughout the Borough will


increase remote working away from Perceval House and allow the Council to embed its delivery of services firmly within the heart of the communities it serves.


identified the range of municipal buildings essential for a “corporate town”. Of his list, the “first and second class baths” are long gone and the “free library” updated, most recently, by the “Ideas Store”. The others; public meeting halls, municipal offices and the depot remain despite a period of one hundred years separating Jones’ world and our own. During this time and through the manifold restructurings of local government that have been implemented, the Council’s ‘office portfolio’ rose from a small suite of rooms in the old Town Hall to a peak of eleven buildings with a total operational floor area of nearly 550,000 square feet. By contrast, in only ten years the EPT, supported by the innovation and enthusiasm of Ealing’s staff, have presented the Council with the opportunity to provide all of its conventional office accommodation at a single location; Perceval House. Of the other types of building on Jones’ list, the (Ealing) Town Hall is increasing its offer of space for hire to the community (most recently a multi-purpose dance studio in the Telfer Room; Jones’ original drawing office). The depot is now largely populated by private companies delivering outsourced services and the Business Support Centre located at its centre will progressively reduce its operational scale as paper files replaced by electronically-stored documents and post by e-mail. Even Perceval House will experience reduced demand for Ealing Council office accommodation due to the impact of remote working in the ‘superbuildings’, allowing surplus space to be taken up by partner organisations.


The various regeneration initiatives that drove discussions regarding future supply of office accommodation and from which the BWoW strategy emerged are now well underway – a major mixed-use development is rising on land behind the Town Hall made available by more effective use of Perceval House (which accommodated 1115 staff in 2002 and which will provide workspace for 2500 staff at the completion of the ‘final’ BWoW roll-out). Capital receipts and cash- savings made possible through the BWoW accommodation strategy are approaching £50M so far and the expansion of ‘superbuildings’ and ‘ealingspace’ across the Borough should consign the perennial and resource-hungry “centralization vs. decentralization” debate to history.


As noted above, the EPT have retained, overall, the lead role throughout this transformation process but also as noted (and aside from the selective involvement of a range of external consultants) the innovation to achieve the objectives set out in the original BWoW strategy have, in the main, come from staff within Ealing’s service departments themselves.


This


suggests that should any local authority seek to follow Ealing’s example, it is perfectly possible, by challenging its staff to identify and implement radical change, that similar results can be achieved.


Mixed use development on site of former offices (rear of Town Hall)


Conclusion


In his memoirs, Charles Jones (1830 – 1913), Borough Surveyor at Ealing for fifty years overseeing the transformation of a small village into the so-called “Queen of the Suburbs”,


THE TERRIER - Autumn 2011 13


Returning to the “Likely Lads” of the opening remarks, the EPT can, in its dotage, look back wistfully upon opportunities missed (a franchised gym and restaurant on the roof of Perceval House?) but take considerable satisfaction from the discharging of its responsibilities to make Ealing’s office accommodation a better and more effective environment in which to work.


Gavin Leonard


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