Ealing Council’s homebuilding plans have been given a further boost with new grant funding for housing from the Greater London Authority (GLA).  

The council has been awarded almost £550,000 from the GLA’s Homebuilding Capacity Fund, which aims to accelerate the delivery of a new generation of council homes by helping local authorities acquire the skills and expertise they need.

Genuinely affordable

This is in addition to the almost £100 million the council won from the GLA last October for its homebuilding programme, which is already the biggest in London. The 2,500 new homes that Ealing will deliver around the borough by March 2022 will all be genuinely affordable for local middle and low-income households.

The new funding was awarded for four bid proposals:

• A borough-wide residential character study to help inform design guidelines for small-site housing developments, feeding into Ealing’s emerging Local Plan.
• Detailed feasibility work around council-owned assets and land to determine their suitability to be redeveloped for genuinely affordable housing. 
• The development of a long-term planning policy for Northolt to enable significant housing growth and an action plan to deliver it. Northolt has previously been identified as having the capacity to accommodate 13,000 new homes.
• Creation of an older adults housing strategic brief, which will set out a coordinated approach to the redevelopment of several underutilised council sites with a view to providing a new generation of housing more suitable to the needs of our ageing population.

“The most ambitious building programme in London”

Councillor Peter Mason is Ealing Council’s lead member for housing, planning and transformation. He said: “With the most ambitious council home building programme in London, we are well on our way to building the next generation of genuinely affordable homes.

“In Ealing we are already delivering major schemes ourselves, and as we look forward to new and innovative ideas, we know we can deliver even more.

“Our ambition is only limited by the land, money and skills we have available, and this funding will be a big help toward building healthy homes.”