Over the summer, the new leadership at Ealing Council set out our priorities for the coming year. We set out three key themes: Creating good jobs, tackling the climate crisis and fighting inequality. You will see more of this in the weeks and months to come.

We are also going to be putting together a blueprint for shaping the future of the borough for the next 15-20 years and I’d encourage you to find out more about the Ealing Local Plan and how you can get involved and have your say later this month via the consultations pages of the council’s website. Keep an eye open for more details.

The end of the COVID-19 pandemic is in sight. With rising rates of vaccination and lockdown conditions easing, it is important to remember that, whilst we are emerging from a health crisis, we are still facing a climate emergency, and there is so much more for us to do.

CLIMATE CRISIS

With global temperatures rising, and with extreme changes of weather more common than ever before, we face some difficult challenges that we can only solve if each and every one of us plays our part.

In Ealing, we’re leading the way. With over 37,000 trees planted since 2018, so many more of our streets have tree canopy cover, helping to reduce temperatures on the roads and make them that bit more pleasant hotter weather.

Many of you will have experienced the vibrant wildflowers that we let spring up across the borough during the summer months, which helped to support greater numbers of bees and butterflies.

We’re rapidly expanding our cycling network across the borough to make active travel easier and safer by installing segregated cycle lanes and more protected junctions.

We’re closing off the streets immediately surrounding many of our schools to ensure that polluting vehicles don’t damage the safety and health of our children.

We’re also working up plans to re-wild so much more of our great parks and greenspaces, as well as tackle air pollution and smells from our most polluting industries.

We’re getting even more support in place for residents to retrofit homes with better insulation and renewable energy and rolling out even more electric vehicle charging points.

In the coming months we’re also going to be setting out some even more ambitious standards to ensure that the development that happens in our borough delivers better public spaces and meets the highest energy and environmental standards.

To create lasting, sustainable change and save our environment, we need billions and billions of acts of kindness and conservation.

We can only do so much as a council on our own, but together as a borough we can achieve so much more. If each and every local resident plays their part – recycling, retrofitting, re-wilding, running, cycling and walking – we’ll be able to make a greener, more sustainable Ealing.