BACKGROUND

With the coming of the railways, Ealing grew up as a dormitory town for London. This has been one of its main roles ever since. Its key attraction is that it is easy to get to most of central London using public transport and it is also easy to get to Heathrow. This attractiveness will further increase once Crossrail has been completed.

There are a number of things people aim for when choosing their home. The main ones are probably

·        the match between their needs/wishes and what the accommodation provides in terms of size, number of rooms etc

·        the attractiveness of the property and the area in which it is situated

·        for families with young children, to be within the catchment areas for certain schools

·        the location of the property with respect to the main places to which its occupants want to travel. This generally means the shorter the travel time, the better.

The prices fetched by particular types/locations of homes then vary according to the supply/demand balance within each category.  Over recent years there have been varying but substantial rises in the prices fetched by all categories of residential property. This has partly been caused by an increase in the number of households coupled with a low rate of home building. This has meant that home building can be highly profitable. Current prices would suggest that a major factor for demand is proximity to Ealing Broadway station.

There are a several issues with this wish to locate close to the station.

·        It could displace other buildings that could be put closer to the station to reduce travel times, such as office blocks.

·        It could change the nature of the town from a civic and cultural centre to something more akin to a housing estate.

·        It could crowd out other things that would ideally be put in the centre of a town, such as leisure, community, event and conference facilities.

·        There isn’t enough available land to fit in other things that should be fairly close to homes, such as primary schools and open space.

·        The centre of Ealing is rather noisy and may require homes to have closed windows and forced ventilation.

·        Too high a concentration of homes may produce crowding issues that make the area less attractive. There can also be social and environmental problems, especially if the buildings are too tall.

·        Unlike commercial properties, once substantial residential areas have been built they are generally there for at least several generations.

OPTIONS

There are a number of possible alternatives. The obvious ones are listed below.

1. Maximum residential

This would be to pack out the centre of Ealing with as many new homes as could be fitted in.

This strategy should have a good chance of commercial success. It should also provide large receipts for Ealing Council. It would provide a large contribution to London’s housing needs, but would also create big knock-on problems from additional housing in this area. These include the pressure on infrastructure and especially the difficulty in providing appropriate facilities for children.

2. Substantial sympathetic residential

This would be a scaled down version of the previous option, something like the Haven Green Court courtyard style on new development sites. Flats would be larger than the current average size in the centre of Ealing. This would fill a gap in the market that is creating a significant premium for the few flats of this size. It would be a move away from current “rabbit hutch” standard that has been common in Britain. The architectural style would also be sympathetic to the rest of the centre of Ealing.

This strategy should have a reasonable chance of commercial success, although the current premium for flats of this size would reduce if extra flats saturated this segment of the market.

3. Homes above commercial property

This is nearer to the “home above the shop” approach.  “Commercial” could be anything from retail to office, community or leisure facilities at ground and perhaps first floor levels. The homes could reflect aspects of the courtyard scale and style.

The success of this strategy would largely be dependent on the economics of the “commercial” aspects. If they were viable in their own right, then the overall situation would be similar to the “substantial sympathetic residential” one. There is also a longer term consideration for this scheme. The commercial parts would be physically locked down by the residential above. They couldn’t be demolished if they were a commercial failure, although they could be turned over to other uses.

4. Sheltered Housing

With an ageing population, there is an increasing need for sheltered accommodation (although lifetime homes standards could lessen this increase). The centre of Ealing is an appropriate location for these, as the residents make less use of cars. Shops and other facilities are within easy walking distance, and any carers can come by public transport. The external style of such housing could follow the courtyard model, although some of the internal arrangements would be different. There is also the opportunity to mix sheltered accommodation in amongst other flats and to open up facilities such as laundries and perhaps common rooms to all residents. This could help create a much greater sense of community.

The viability of this scheme would be influenced by the split between private and publicly funded parts, and whether there is enough demand for all the space that could be made available.

5. No residential at all

This would reserve the centre of Ealing for commercial and leisure uses. This could be any mixture of shops, offices, hotel, event/conference centre, cultural, community and some sports. All these would then be readily accessible to others within the borough and beyond, within the limits of public transport. The style and scale of these uses would be a “best fit” with the current surrounding architecture.

This viability of this strategy would depend on the strength of (profitable) demand for any aspect that was built. This would in turn be influenced by any improvements in transport that would enable greater numbers of people to reach the location. The economics of additional retail look marginal, and the position on community and cultural is less clear. This suggests that offices and leisure would be the most likely candidates.

AIMS

SEC’s preferred option is to see the heart of Ealing town centre used for the civic, cultural and leisure facilities that would be expected to be found there, rather than being turned into a major housing estate. At the same time, we accept that that there could be some residential above other uses and that there could be residential intensive developments a little further from the station. Essentially, this could include any of the previously listed options apart from “maximum residential” and “no residential”.

PROPOSALS

1. Locations

The suggested locations for residential developments are set out in the table below.

Table 6.1

2. Planning guidelines for residential

Whichever of the options is pursued, there are a number of planning guidelines that could be introduced to limit the adverse effects that residential could cause in terms of visual effect, traffic, amenity space, play space, schooling, sustainability etc. These have been listed below.

Table 6.2

Appendix 1  -  LBE’s formula for the number of children per flat

Studio flats and those allocated to the elderly are assumed not to have any children.

For example, a development of 25 two-bedroom private flats would on average have about six children. One with 25 two-bedroom affordable flats would on average have about 19 children.