Creating community is at the heart of everything that we do as a council, and putting communities in control of their town is how we do it.
It comes from a very basic belief that the people who live and experience their local neighbourhoods are the very best people to understand how and why the places we cherish should improve. My job as leader, and our job as a council, is to do everything we can to deliver on your agenda.
Groups of friends, family, good neighbours and community networks are the glue that sticks us together, and it is through these relationships that we build a sense of common pride and identity and ownership over the spaces we live, work and play.
Everyone faces tough choices and decisions in our daily lives. Be they the worries of family life and managing the household budget, juggling the stresses of work-life balance and the tricky calls you take at work each day – the same is true, too, for the council. And, for us, in dealing with the whole of the borough’s budget; the pressures and demands caused by people who need help; and the money we get to deliver.
It is why we now spend so much of our time out in communities, engaging, listening and acting. Whether through the Your Voice, Your Town initiative or the network of Community Champions, what we do, and, importantly, what we change as a council on your behalf, must be because of what you want and need from us.
Housing crisis
Usually, we are all too aware that keeping our young people safe from harm, providing them with a great education and a chance to move forward in life is incredibly important. So, too, is ensuring that everyone can grow old, happy and healthy, with the right support and the care from families, carers and the NHS when its required.
The new and biggest threat to us all as a community is the rocketing levels of households facing homelessness. The council does everything it can to address the need for families who fall on hard times and are evicted, to get emergency and temporary accommodation that’s safe and secure.
This huge need is being driven both by the cost of living crisis, and the wider challenges about the lack of
genuinely affordable homes in a city as big and complex as London.
Earlier this year, councils across London were collectively spending around £3million every day on temporary accommodation. This has risen nearly 40% from the year before. And it is estimated that 1-in-50 Londoners is currently homeless and living in temporary accommodation.
New house building in recent years has halved, with ever more people struggling to pay for increased
mortgages or being prevented from getting on to the housing ladder because of the cost of housing, and
with developers failing to build the homes they get permission to construct.
We will do everything we can. For example, prudently and carefully investing £150million in new council-owned temporary accommodation, to provide homes people desperately need, whilst also ensuring that the council stays financially secure.
Just as we always have done, we are not letting the wider financial challenges we and other councils face supress our desire, or our ability, to deliver for communities in new and better ways. For example, our record level of transport investment of £28million continues improving our pavement and road network to ensure that we are creating safe and pleasant ways for everyone to walk, cycle and actively travel throughout our borough.
In the latest edition of Around Ealing, I’m sure you will see other examples that demonstrate we continue to have great ambitions for our borough. We are holding on to hope that, as our economy improves, so too will our ability to invest and deliver more on your behalf.
Very warm and hopeful wishes to everyone celebrating something special this winter. Have a very happy Christmas and, hopefully, a great new year ahead.
