I am delighted to remain leader of your council. It is an incredible honour and privilege to serve the people of Ealing. More than 40% of the electorate voted in the local elections in May and I am pleased so many people engaged with the local issues.

You can see here our administration’s core priorities captured in three simple statements. They will be the council’s guiding principles for the next four years:

• More genuinely affordable housing for all, which means working with landlords to improve renting in the borough, as well as continuing our house building and estate regeneration programmes. It also means demanding that homes in the borough are of a good quality and safe to live in, and helping to tackle homelessness. In addition we want sustainable transport on our roads, to help our homes and streets breathe easier and tackle congestion – that involves encouraging cycling and walking
• More opportunities and living incomes for all, which means continuing to find ways to attract investment and jobs by maximising regeneration opportunities such as Crossrail, as well as helping young people reach their potential. We want tohave even more schools rated ‘good’ or ‘excellent’ by Ofsted; and we will continue creating more chances to find training, apprenticeships and achieve ‘up-skilling’; it also means encouraging businesses to adopt the London Living Wage and helping those on benefit to secure a better income
• Working to make our borough a healthy and great place for all – which means working with residents to build strong, fair communities and to keep the borough a clean, safe and attractive place to live. That includes keeping people physically active, well and independent; helping those who need care to live better lives; encouraging sport and leisure; and striving to improve our air quality and reduce crime. It also means working with others to maintain the excellence of our parks and open spaces, and the streets we live in.

But that is not all. There is lots more we need to do to support those priorities.

We introduced Future Ealing to you in previous editions of Around Ealing but now the council wants to talk to you about it, and how it might be shaped.

It is about making the borough a better place to live, despite the financial challenges and government funding cuts we are facing.

Please read more on pages 19-22 of the June edition of Around Ealing magazine when you receive it, and get involved. We can do so much more by working together.

The cabinet team around me that will be closely supporting our work on all of the above was announced this week. You can read more about who they are here.