HOUSING
Doing the home work
Ealing Council, as the borough’s
biggest landlord, is stepping up
to the challenge of increasing
the supply of affordable
housing while rents and house
prices rise across London. We
spoke to a family in one of the
new homes built as part of a
project setting new standards.
L
ike other councils, Ealing is
responding to the aftermath of the
financial crisis, along with some of
the most radical changes to welfare
reform and national housing policy in recent
history. It makes transforming the borough’s
ageing housing stock, getting new
homes built and creating well-designed,
affordable and safer neighbourhoods a
significant but important task.
The council is now actively engaged in
building new homes on a reasonably large
scale for the first time in more than 30 years
– and having to do so in a creative and
entrepreneurial way, as a project at Copley
Close in Hanwell illustrates.
Copley is a leading part of the
council’s ambitious programme of
modernising and remodelling our old
estates. It will play a role in the ongoing
work to supply more affordable housing.
Between 2014-18, 540 new council homes
will have been built or will be being built
across the borough; and a further 1,167
affordable homes will be created by
housing associations.
30
around ealing
Autumn 2016
‘It is amazing quality’: Charlotte Laws and
her family, including baby Annabelle and
sister Cara, moved into Copley in May