£150million reward for homes in West London

This week I was very excited to read that the London Borough of Ealing in the Wild West of London has launched a programme to buy £150million worth of homes to meet their housing need. Now, as you know Councils have a statutory responsibility to provide housing for people who become homeless… and this is a very expensive exercise. The councils end up competing with the private rented market and due to the demand, private landlords can hike their prices… The highest bidder gets the home and when you have a statutory duty to get that home, you pay top rate to secure it.

A few months ago I wrote an open letter to Councillors to drive home the message: “If you don’t allow homes to be built, you are going to bankrupt yourself with your ever increasing bills for rented accommodation at inflated market prices”.

Ealing has done the sums… Councillor Shital Manro (Cabinet Member for Planning, major projects, council property, regeneration strategy, new homes) told a meeting of the council's cabinet the number of homeless people was threatening to overwhelm the authority's budget if swift and decisive action was not taken.

He said: "The cost of homelessness is massive, for instance, using hotel rooms costs us £4,000 a month plus, that's £50,000 a year, and we are currently using 169." They are also currently using 389 B&Bs as temporary housing, costing £1,300 at a time every month. All of this amounts to a £5million per year overspend on their budget.

The Leader of the London Borough of Ealing, Cllr Peter Mason praised the plan and cited the council's similar previous decision to purchase Aspect House (a new private development) for £7.5m, which provided 31 housing units.

This is real pioneering thinking and it is a very clever move by Ealing. If you own the property, you can service your own debt rather than helping someone else to service their debt. It is easy to see how the millions of pounds spent on temporary accommodation will be ploughed back into Ealing and secure housing stock for many years to come.

I sincerely hope that other Councils wake up to this. There are numerous developers out there who would be very happy to do a back-to-back deal with the Council and sell their new developments to the Council. It is a quick cash injection for the developers and they can get on and build the next one. More jobs, more homes… What is not to like about it?

Working hand-in-hand we beat the housing crisis… But Councillor, please remember; Vote FOR the planning applications!

Until next week,

Henry