Nic Ferriday - Ealing Friends of the Earth

Massive increase in Ealing’s population under new local plan

Nic Ferriday — Fri, 29 Mar 2024 21:37:50 +0000

Ealing Council’s Local Plan consultation document has been issued. But hidden from the reader is the fact that the policies in the plan will lead to a massive increase of population in the borough of Ealing.

As the council has not come clean on this crucial issue, Ealing Friends of the Earth has estimated the population increase. (This relies extensively on the excellent work of Ealing Matters.) We conclude that the policies in the plan will increase the population of the borough by an astonishing

88,000 people

between 2021 and 2038. This is more than the entire population of St Albans.

We do not pretend this is an accurate estimate. But it is all that is available. It should not be down to hard pressed volunteers to do the work that the council should be doing as an essential part of its Local Plan.

Here is a summary off how we arrived at the population increase of 88,000.

1. Housing units to be delivered between 2021 and 2038 = 43,496 [note 1]

2. Assumed proportion of affordable units based on track record – 22% [note 2]

3. Number of affordable units to be delivered 43,496 x 22% = 9,569.

4. Affordable housing local need = 16,751 [note 4]. (It is assumed for simplicity that “local” equates to LBE.)

5. Assume that new affordable units are occupied by people who are part of local need.

6. Those people move across from existing overcrowded units and from any other component of local need.

7. Only 9,569 unit’s worth of people (out of the local 16,751 unit’s need) can get new affordable accommodation because that is all that will be built. (This is actually a highly optimistic estimate because many so-called “affordable” units are not in fact affordable.)

8. This 9,569 does not change the population because the occupants are already in LBE and move into new affordable units in LBE.

9. All the rest of total new units are occupied by people from outside LBE. Because – if they had been in overcrowded housing in LBE, wanted to move and could afford market rents, those people could have moved out anyway.

10. Number of units occupied by people from outside borough = 43,496 – 9,659 = 33,837.

11. At occupancy of 2.6 [note 11], number of people = 33,837 x 2.6 = 87,976 (2021 to 2038).

Notes

1. Study by Ealing Matters ‘What are the implications of LBE’s housing evidence? 16 January 2024’. Start of endnote 6. (Using council data.)

2. Track record calculated by Ealing Matters. (Using council data.)

4. Local Plan evidence paper ‘Ealing Local Housing Needs Assessment Update Nov 2022’. Figure 4.

11. Office for National Statistics (ONS) estimate

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Can Ealing Be Carbon Neutral by 2030?

Nic Ferriday — Wed, 06 Mar 2024 21:32:09 +0000

In April 2019 Ealing Council passed a motion which said “Aim to make Ealing carbon neutral by 2030.”

In January 2021 the council published its climate strategy. The strategy was a substantial piece of work, with useful background information and estimated emissions from the borough of Ealing. There were however some major issues.

The strategy showed a graph of emissions declining from over 900,000 tonnes of CO2 per annum in 2020 to values of 870,000 in 2030 if NO action is taken, to 680,000 if Ealing follows its climate strategy and to 450,000 in the best case. These are HUGE differences. Also, it was not clear how the Ealing strategy could make such a difference since only a small proportion of emissions from the borough are under council control. We asked the council what assumptions underpinned the estimates. They were unable to tell us because the estimates had been produced by consultants!

The strategy had a long list of actions. But the effect of each action (in terms of CO2 emissions saved) was not estimated. This means it is impossible to tell what impact the actions would have on total emissions.

Fast forward to July 2023 when the first “progress report” was published. This is an attractive and accessible document with pictures and nicely written text. But it lacked any significant quantification and there was no attempt to show how much emissions had changed between 2021 and 2023 and what progress towards Net Zero was expected.

Ealing Friends of the Earth wrote to the council saying: “We have seen the ‘Ealing Climate Action and Sustainability progress report 2023 Update’. We regard this as a document for wider public communication rather than a formal review of progress. We would therefore also expect to see a technical report, as part of the council’s climate action programme, which reviews the emissions, achievements, targets, etc in the CEES [Climate and Ecological Emergency Strategy] document.” No such technical document has, so far, been forthcoming.

It is manifestly clear that the climate emergency motion target “Aim to make Ealing carbon neutral by 2030” will fail to be achieved and will fail by a huge margin. We have not, however, seen any statement that supersedes the aim in the 2019 motion or the estimates in the 2021 strategy.

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Police, Crime, Sentencing & Courts Bill

Nic Ferriday — Sun, 21 Mar 2021 21:22:53 +0000

Up to 10 years in prison for a peaceful protest on climate change! That’s the plan that the government has for us in its Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill.

See https://friendsoftheearth.uk/system-change/why-police-crime-sentencing-and-courts-bill-harmful-piece-legislation-1

Whether it’s Greta Thunberg, David Attenborough or Extinction Rebellion, the voices of those who have been warning us about the perils of climate change have been getting through. But action on climate change poses a real threat to vested interests such as the fossil fuel and aviation industries and the government that promotes them. That surely is the real reason for the bill. Not because a protest might inconvenience motorists driving in central London and thereby merit 10 years in prison.

The bill is shocking in its own right. But it also makes a nonsense of Britain’s claim to be a liberal democracy. If the UK imposes this sort of repressive law on its people, it will be rightly branded as hypocritical when it lectures other countries such as China and Hong Kong.

and Greenpeace: https://www.greenpeace.org.uk/resources/policing-bill-open-letter

There are these 2 petitions:

https://speakout.38degrees.org.uk/campaigns/stop-the-attacks-on-our-democratic-rights-policing-bill

https://secure.greenpeace.org.uk/page/s/the-right-to-protest

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