At a recent Ealing Council meeting (15 October 2024), Ealing Liberal Democrats councillors have challenged Labour-run Ealing Council over its claims that it is delivering for residents and businesses in the borough.
During the full council meeting, the opposition party councillors highlighted a number of areas including housing and street cleaning which it says the council has not been performing and letting down locals.
In a statement, LibDems said: “Ealing Labour are persistently failing to effectively house vulnerable residents. They have promised new homes but are presiding on paused or partially built sites across the borough. The Liberal Democrat budget, in Spring 2024, uncovered over £1.5m of savings in the council budget which could have been used to help vulnerable people and solve these important issues.”
They added: “This is augmented by poor service delivery in many areas and Ealing is seeing a record number of complaints and ombudsman cases, especially in housing. The much-trumpeted target of 4,000 truly affordable homes set by Ealing Labour for themselves is under threat due to poor management, which leaves Ealing’s homeless families with little hope of the safety and security of a roof over their heads.
“Greener Ealing an Ealing Council in-house trading company, created to replace poorly managed third party contractors, spend insufficient time on street sweeping which seems to have contracted to a basic quarterly wash, that is four times a year.”
Councillor Jon Ball, housing and development including the Local Plan spokesperson said: “All the “safe and genuinely affordable homes” performance indicators are red. This has clear knock-on effects for our children’s services and adult services teams. These appalling living conditions must have a toll on the families?”
Councillor Ball added: “And this crisis has a huge financial cost to the council as well as the human cost. I’m concerned that part of the administration’s response to this seems to be to make it harder for families to get Ealing to accept a housing duty. So the same homelessness but off our books rather than on them.”
Speaking to EALING.NEWS, an Ealing Council spokesperson rebuffed the LibDems claims. They said: “Ealing Council is delivering for Ealing residents. Last year’s Ealing Residents Survey showed that 83% of Ealing residents believe the council to be efficient and well run. This survey also highlighted that the majority of service users are satisfied with council housing.”
The spokesperson added: “At the end of 2023, the Council commissioned The Leadership Factor to carry out a telephone survey to over 1,000 residents, asking them to rate how they felt the council is performing as a landlord against new tenant satisfaction measures. Results showed that most residents are satisfied that their home was safe, well-maintained, as well as feeling that they are treated fairly and with respect.”
, Ealing Liberal Democrats councillors have challenged Labour-run Ealing Council over its claims that it is delivering for residents and businesses in the borough.){kind=link}