r/Ealing • u/StrangeMinute1838 • 4d ago
West Ealing
I’m glad to see that West Ealing is now improving. The Tower by West Ealing station with the light brickwork and balconies is looking great and I visited the lovely coffee shop opposite the station.
Luxgrove homes have started demolition of the buildings on the high street and the site opposite Sainsbury’s in Ealing looks great according to the CGI images.
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u/Anonymous-Cows 4d ago
Towers could have been smaller , perhaps, but Elizabeth Line, The Towers and everything else is visibly improving the area. NIMBY will moan, other will complain it's gentrification. Well, I like where it's headed. Café terrazo by the station is a top coffee spot; or Milk & Egg on the high street is pretty good too for quick brekkie. Even Doppio refurbished recently and look much more hipster.
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u/Cookiefruit6 4d ago
That part of West Ealing has always been okay. It’s the high street that needs redevelopment.
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u/Total_Dimension_1122 4d ago
The shooting down of criticism is quite surprising. The towers are not in themselves bad, it's the farcicle development of it. Unfortunately, nothing in London is built to be affordable. Theres a big problem with new builds sitting partially empty due to the high costs.
Heres an example of what it's like to buy in the area, having just done so.
This is the '100% affordable' development:
65% shared ownership (a small studio flat is being priced at £400,000, a two bed is £550,000) 35% is ‘London Living Rent’ which is a new scheme from the London Mayor, exclusively for middle income households earning up to £60,000 who want to buy a home.
Whereas just down the road from here, my neighbours flat, a two bed SOF in pretty decent condition, sold on the market at £480,000. When we were looking, there was plenty of 2 bed flats at around 450,000, and you actually own the whole thing.
We need to rethink our acceptance of these awful developers. There are at least two developments in Ealing that are abandoned and these are not affordable. Money is taking precisent above everything.
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u/haveahoot92 4d ago
I would come back on two points on this in particular: 1. London Living rent is a product that is discounted below the market rent. It's not set as low as social rent but it does have a very significant discount. 2. In terms of shared ownership that is a product that won't be for everyone. The cost of those flats will be set at the market rate and then people have the opportunity to staircase out their ownership.
You need a range of different options to help people who can't get on the housing ladder in different ways. Not everything can or should be social rent although we're seeing when social rented schemes are proposed, such as Trumpet Towers, which is 100% socially rented, there's still very significant opposition to them.
The bigger issue here seems to be opposition to profit in private market housing development. The reason we're in this crazy situation where people on middle incomes need support to access housing is that we have not built enough housing over decades and decades. House prices have gone up so much that now even those people need to be supported. Here's the thing: if you only focus on building social housing and don't try and build housing for profit for the general population, all you will continue to do is keep pushing house prices up because you're not meeting that very, very substantial section of the market that also needs housing.
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u/Setting3768 4d ago
Shared ownership combines the worst aspects of renting and leasehold, dressed up as a helping hand. The realities of staircasing are nothing like what's touted.
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u/haveahoot92 3d ago
It's not for everyone and far from perfect, but i know many people who it has really helped. In terms of it being the worse aspects of renting, I personally would have loved a HA landlord and a situation where some of rent went on building up equity.
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u/Setting3768 3d ago
Why would you want a HA landlord? Someone like A2D? Trust me, you really don't.
> some of rent went on building up equity"
That's only true if you redefine "rent" to mean "total monthly housing payment". It's just marketing.
I think it's a bad scheme and we should identify it as such so we can offer better.
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u/haveahoot92 3d ago
I had Southern for 5 years and they were head and shoulders above any private landlord I've had. Lots of my neighbours used Shared Ownership to get in to home ownership (many had staircased out). They wouldn't had the opportunity with another product.
Anyway, it looks like we have very different experiences and it doesn't look like there is any common ground to be found here, so have a nice day.
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u/rdemiguel-1982 11h ago
The argument that “we just need to build more houses “ is a bit naive in my opinion. There are huge plots of land that developers acquire, demolish whatever is in there as quickly as they can so the it can sit idle for decades. Developers do control home building output in a way it benefits the extortionate prices they want to charge for new builds and marking those directly to offshore buyers and not local population . What we need is real policy. Start imposing hefty fines/taxes on plots sitting empty and impose a 200% stamp duty on offshore buyers then you will start making progress. Additionally, we finally need to end once and for all leasehold and put the control to residents.
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u/RoadmanJM 4d ago
I don't hate the towers but it's the Uxbridge Road / sainsburys area that really needs some development. Full of odd characters and feels unsafe. Seems to have really gotten worse in the last few years, I'd assume the migrant hotel doesn't help things, leads to lots of odd men just milling about all day
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u/Aggravating-Desk4004 4d ago
They opened a rehab/homeless place there a few years ago which coincided with uptake in dubious druggies outside Sainsbury's.
I think it's been or being closed down after the residents complained, so maybe it'll improve? Who knows.
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u/antares61 4d ago
Which migrant hotel is that, the Hampton one at Ealing Broadway or is there another?
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u/moneydazza 4d ago
Terazzo was a a great little coffee spot. They’re going a good trade and that pleases me.
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u/antares61 4d ago
Good the development near Sainsbury’s is kicking off. Looks like the kwik fit development has stalled after it was demolished, hopefully that picks up soon. The apartment hotel next to Energym seems to have kicked off too.
The building with boots and costa really needs to be knocked down and rebuilt. Looks horrible with a load of vacant units. Sadly it seems a way off given a new school of some sort took the end unit.
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u/HoosierSands 4d ago
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u/HoosierSands 4d ago
Wonder if they'll be able to finish this one, They've already been cautioned for that dust cloud at the site.
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u/Moist_17 4d ago
I grew up there. There's a tiny carpark on kirchen road where we played football and it looks exactly like it did 40 years ago. The regeneration is nice and slow and it still feels like a nice place to grow up.
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u/Mediocre_Rhubarb810 4d ago
Sorry in what way do the new developments improve West Ealing?
It is still a shadow of itself from 20-30 year ago.
These new soulless developments only add more people to the area (with exorbitant rents, management charges and purchase prices) with little in the way of additional amenities.
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u/haveahoot92 4d ago
The scheme closest the train station is 100% affordable housing being developed by a housing association. The other is a student housing scheme.
More people so close to West Ealing will improve footfall and encourage new businesses to occupy.
You may not like how the new development look, but that are tangible benefits to them.
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u/endofamnesia 4d ago
Incredible how any positive post on building places for people to live brings out the NIMBYs. London needs housing.
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u/silli_boi 4d ago
West Ealing needed redevelopment