Is High Rise the Way Forward for Ealing Borough?
Councillor Gary Busuttil considers the options to deal with the housing crisis
Cllr Busuttil in front of the tall towers in North Acton
May 25, 2023
For many years we have heard that there is a housing crisis here in London. Election after election we hear about how bad housing waiting list are, the number of families in temporary accommodation, and promises to tackle the housing crisis with building x number of dwellings.
Targets are set and never achieved. Currently, London needs roughly 83,000 new homes a year to but manages to achieve less than half that according to National Residential Landlords Association. The housing crisis is a crisis in affordable rental homes where the demand is the greatest. Affordable, in Ealing Council terms, is rent that should cost no more than a third of your income.
It is no secret that land values in London are some of the most expensive in the country and space is at a premium, so to make the best use of limited space is to build up. One of the arguments about increasing the supply of much needed homes is to build taller.
However, is building taller really necessary or even the best way to achieve the much-needed homes, particularly affordable homes, that we require? According to The Economist, apparently not.
To build the required homes we need in London will mean increasing the density of our city. Density in itself is no bad thing. After all, London is a low density city in comparison to New York, Seoul or even some cities on continental Europe. A report in The Guardian even suggested London could sustain more people living in it. However, it seems that increasing density, hence our need for housing, means building higher.
According to Centre for Cities, a think tank, if 5% of London matched Maida Vale’s density with mid-rise mansion blocks, it is estimated we could accommodate 1.2 million homes. Not only does well designed and built mansion blocks achieve the required homes we need, but it is also plus on an environmental and sustainability point of view.
In recent years there has been many campaign groups that have sprung up in Ealing to campaign against the rising number of tall buildings. It has featured as an issue in the last two local elections here in Ealing and is creating animosity amongst residents. It seems that we can achieve a win-win situation if look at different methods to increasing the shortage of housing, such as the greater use of low-rise mansion blocks, like those on the Green Man estate and Acton Gardens and residents dislike for tall buildings.
Councillor Gary Busuttil
Deputy Leader, Group Whip & Opposition Spokesperson on Finance and Resources for the Liberal Democrats
Like Reading Articles Like This? Help Us Produce More This site remains committed to providing local community news and public interest journalism. Articles such as the one above are integral to what we do. We aim to feature as much as possible on local societies, charities based in the area, fundraising efforts by residents, community-based initiatives and even helping people find missing pets. We’ve always done that and won’t be changing, in fact we’d like to do more. However, the readership that these stories generates is often below that needed to cover the cost of producing them. Our financial resources are limited and the local media environment is intensely competitive so there is a constraint on what we can do. We are therefore asking our readers to consider offering financial support to these efforts. Any money given will help support community and public interest news and the expansion of our coverage in this area. A suggested monthly payment is £8 but we would be grateful for any amount for instance if you think this site offers the equivalent value of a subscription to a daily printed newspaper you may wish to consider £20 per month. If neither of these amounts is suitable for you then contact info@neighbournet.com and we can set up an alternative. All payments are made through a secure web site. One-off donations are also appreciated. Choose The Amount You Wish To Contribute. If you do support us in this way we’d be interested to hear what kind of articles you would like to see more of on the site – send your suggestions to the editor. For businesses we offer the chance to be a corporate sponsor of community content on the site. For £30 plus VAT per month you will be the designated sponsor of at least one article a month with your logo appearing if supplied. If there is a specific community group or initiative you’d like to support we can make sure your sponsorship is featured on related content for a one off payment of £50 plus VAT. All payments are made through a secure web site. |