HOUSING
THE HOMEMAKERS
Ealing Council provides tenancy, leasehold and sheltered housing services to about 18,000 council
homes. Demand far exceeds supply – particularly in the aftermath of the national financial crisis,
which has affected so many families.
T
he council has been using a range
of initiatives to help boost housing
supply and find accommodation
for people in need. This includes
construction schemes, new hostel spaces, the
use of vacated flats on housing estates awaiting
regeneration, conversion of empty shops to
homes, erection of pre-fabricated (‘modular’)
homes on vacant council land, purchase of
property on the open market and rehousing
people outside of London.
Councillor Jasbir Anand, the council’s
cabinet member for housing, said: “With the
increasingly overheated London housing market
a constant challenge, and the ongoing effects
of the financial crisis meaning more households
looking to the council for help, we are working
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Winter 2014/15
very hard to provide as many housing and
accommodation options as possible.”
Building more council homes
After years of no new council housing stock
being built, nationally, it was decided in Ealing
to take advantage of a change in rules – and
begin a programme of identifying sites and then
building new homes.
In the last three years, 80 new council homes
have opened in the borough and another 309 are
steadily opening over the course of the next two
years under the council’s New Build programme.
This is seeing £22.7million being spent on the
construction of new properties across the borough
by the end of 2016.
For example, more than £4million has been
allocated across three New Build projects
currently under way in Northolt, Greenford and
Southall, with the Greater London Authority
contributing over £450,000 in grant funding.
They should be finished in spring. The homes in
Greenford are one- and two- bedroom flats on
the site of former council bedsits in Allenby Road.
The homes in Northolt are three-bedroom family
houses in Wincanton Crescent; and the Southall
homes are three-, four- and five- bedroom houses
on the site of the old Disraeli Nursery.
Other new-build homes, in Hoylake Road, East
Acton; Epsom Close, Northolt; and Carlyle Road,
South Ealing; opened earlier this year.
Councillor Anand said: “The council’s New
Build programme is working to provide much
needed additional affordable homes for rent