Ealing Council’s cabinet has approved a 50-year, multi-million-pound investment in more affordable homes for the borough.
The council has given the go ahead to a £390million business plan for BLRP, a subsidiary of its wholly owned housing development company, Broadway Living. Along with the £99million grant that the council secured from the Greater London Authority in 2018, the investment will be used to build at least 1,300 affordable homes within the next six years.
In total, the plan will see BLRP build 1,513 homes, with the sale and let of some of the homes subsidising the development of more homes for affordable let.
The scheme is projected to pay for itself over the course of half a century by recouping the initial investment through sales and rents. It is not expected to put any pressure on the council’s day-to-day budget.
Ealing is already running one of the biggest council homebuilding schemes in the country. Delivering the business plan will help the council meet its target of delivering 2,500 new genuinely affordable homes in the borough by April 2022, all of which will be let at rents priced to suit the budgets of local people on low to moderate incomes. The remainder of the 2,500 homes target will be met through the council’s planning system at private and housing association developments in the borough.
This business plan will help the council meet the urgent need for more affordable housing by investing in homebuilding long into the future. As well as the 1,300 homes initially planned, Broadway Living has access to land which could support thousands more in the longer term.
Councillor Mik Sabiers, Ealing Council’s portfolio holder-designate for housing, planning and transformation said: “One of this administration’s key pledges is to deliver more of the good quality, genuinely affordable homes the borough so desperately needs. Although we have made extraordinary progress in the last few years, with almost 1,500 new genuinely affordable homes delivered since April 2018, we know this is just the start. Thousands of residents are struggling to afford to live in the neighbourhoods that they grew up in, so it is essential that we continue building new homes in the long term.
“This plan, which will ultimately pay for itself, will create a supply of sustainable, high-quality, energy-efficient, affordable homes for Ealing for decades to come. One serious concern which has been drawn into sharp focus by the coronavirus pandemic is the impact that poor housing has on health. These new homes will make a real difference to the quality of life of the people who live in them.”