“Normally landowners are only interested in financial return, but that’s not the case here – Broadway Living has an eye on the long-term effects of development. “It’s early days for them, but it’s clear that Broadway Living will offer huge benefits for the council and the borough’s residents in the long run.”
The right partner for the private sector Its commercial mindset makes Broadway Living the ideal partner for any private developer, giving Ealing a big advantage over most other councils. Philip explained: “Broadway Living means our partners get to work with another commercial organisation, which understands the public sector and has easy access to the right people at the council to make things happen.” Broadway Living could also help de-risk a project. “Working with Broadway Living could be one way to make a project viable for private developers,” added Philip. “Our long-term interest in making the borough a better place means we could be open to schemes which might otherwise be hard to get off the ground.”
A market leader of the future? The growing success of Broadway Living means that it is now set for a giant leap forward. Over the course of 2020, it will expand to become the council’s main vehicle for housing development, tasked with delivering affordable housing on council-owned land to help Ealing meet its ambitious affordable housing targets.
It is also becoming a registered provider, enabling it to deliver Ealing’s existing £99 million Greater London Authority grant programme and access further funding. Becoming a registered provider also means it can act as a housing association to its tenants, and it will bring the management of its tenancies in-house. Philip will oversee this step change in the company’s function. “We want to transform the way in which Ealing Council benefits from its housing and land assets,” he told us. “Our priority is to support the council’s commitment to create 2,500 genuinely affordable new homes by 2022, by making best use of the council’s land and working with partners to maximise the number of high-quality socially rented homes. We want to create a development programme for the borough which is sustainable in the long term, by using profits from private sales and intermediate rents to subsidise more genuinely affordable homes.” Change is happening at a rapid pace. “We’re swiftly scaling up to create an operational structure, with our own staff, finances and vision, making us able to act more commercially than the council,” he said. “Broadway Living will be an entrepreneurial, dynamic developer, providing exemplary affordable housing by partnering with the private sector. Some of the council’s existing development projects, like our regeneration of the Copley and High Lane estates, will be managed by Broadway Living, and it will manage all new housing developments on council land.” Broadway Living could soon use its expertise to help other local authorities. “Ealing is well ahead of many of its contemporaries on this issue, and there is already interest from many other councils in tapping into our expertise,” added Philip.
Inside an apartment at Copley
“Our priority is to support the council’s commitment to create 2,500... Copley phase 6
...genuinely affordable new homes by 2022.” Philip Browne, Managing Director, Broadway Living
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