West London Housing Partnership

The West London Housing Partnership

The West London Housing Partnership is an umbrella organisation for the 7 West London Local Housing Authorities of Brent; Ealing; Hammersmith & Fulham; Harrow; Hillingdon; Hounslow, and the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea.

The purpose of the Housing Partnership is to work together to meet the strategic housing objectives of the member boroughs. In order to achieve this we will:

• Lobby for the interests of the sub-region on housing issues
• Develop collaborative working across the sub region, and between
boroughs
• Create efficiencies through joint working where possible
• Improve provision of housing services in West London through
sharing knowledge, expertise and resources
• Manage shared resources for the benefit of all the partner boroughs
• Develop an excellent understanding of housing demand, needs and
conditions across West London, and an understanding of how this relates
to wider housing markets.

West London Projects

The 7 boroughs have been working in partnership for around 7 years and now have a number of joint projects operating across the West London sub region. These include:

• West London Locata: the choice based lettings system for people seeking council and housing association accommodation in West London
• West London LetStart: a project to help qualifying tenants access accommodation in the private rented sector
• West London Thermal Comfort Programme: The West London boroughs working in partnership with London Warm Zones to install energy efficiency measures in homes across the sub region
• West London HELP: a scheme to help homeless households and those with a housing need or facing homelessness into employment and/or training.
• West London Better Homes: a small grants scheme available to landlords who let property through borough lettings schemes
• West London Empty Homes scheme: offering limited grants to owners of empty properties to bring them back into use to let through borough lettings schemes
• Your Move: a scheme currently operating in K&C and Hammersmith and Fulham, to help under-occupiers move to smaller, high quality homes, thus releasing larger homes (which are in very short supply) for use by overcrowded households
• West London Housing Market Assessment: a research project looking at housing needs and demand across the various housing markets and sub markets both locally and more widely, which will inform borough strategies and Local Development Frameworks. West London boroughs have commissioned ORS to carry out this research. The study is due to report in mid 2010.

New Housing & Housing Investment

A biennial investment guide is produced setting out the sub regional requirements for new build housing in West London. The current West London Housing Investment Guide 2008-11 sets out 5 key West London requirements for housing developers wishing to build in the sub region:

• To create innovative options for home ownership
• To build larger homes across all tenures
• To deliver excellent quality and design across all tenures
• To create strong, cohesive and sustainable communities
• To deliver best practice on environmental sustainability

Sub Regional Working Groups

Each of the seven boroughs hosts a working group to take forward specific areas from the West London Housing Strategy Action Plan. Sub groups of these groups are also set up from time to time to deliver specific pieces of work. Click on a box on the left hand side of the screen to go to the area of work you are interested in.