Ealing Council has agreed to a wide-ranging review of its property portfolio, aiming to make best use of the space available in order to both deliver high quality services and, where possible, free up land for more genuinely affordable housing.

The decision, approved by the council’s cabinet on Tuesday 10 July, includes:

• Looking at the feasibility of placing more than one council service on a single site in three neighbourhoods. This is being considered in Greenford, Hanwell and Perivale and aims to save on running costs while providing hubs for service delivery and freeing land suitable for housing. £600,000 has been signed off to cover the cost of this work.
• Considering relocating services currently delivered at 17 sites elsewhere in the borough which have the potential to provide affordable housing.
• Agreeing to sell Cornucopia in Southall, Verona Terrace car park in Southall and 15 Florence Road in Ealing – a building formerly used as a children’s home – on the open market.
• In December the lease for Pitshanger Library is due to run out. The council is looking at options to provide a community library services elsewhere.

Councillor Julian Bell, the leader of Ealing Council, said: “We have a severe housing crisis in the borough and we need to take rapid action to deliver more genuinely affordable homes in Ealing.

“Even though we’ve built over 500 new council homes since 2014, the biggest issue that Ealing currently faces is a chronic shortage of genuinely affordable homes.

“To address this problem, we need to create space. The council owns a large, valuable portfolio of property which could be used to create new homes or sold to fund construction.

“We want to make best use of our property portfolio by using one building to deliver services, which will deliver better value for money and new homes for Ealing residents.”