Ealing Council Round-Up

Rent freeze and recycling- announcements made at the full council meeting

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As well as appointing Martin Smith as new Chief Executive the full council made other announcements last night (Tues 20th October).

Rent Freeze

Ealing Council is proposing to freeze rent levels and communal heating costs for council tenants next year to help some of the borough’s most deprived residents during the recession.

Under the national rent convergence policy the council would normally be required to put rents up. 

Following a campaign by Ealing Council and other boroughs the Government agreed to relax the policy on rents for 2009/10 because of the rapid fall in inflation since September 2008. 

The Government has not yet announced how the policy will apply for rents from April 2010. 

Cabinet Member for Housing, Councillor Will Brooks, said: “The last few months have been very difficult for a great many hard working families.  I’m sure there are a lot of people who will be pleased that we are proposing to freeze rent levels and communal heating costs for council tenants.” 

The proposals will need to be formally discussed when the council’s budget is set in spring 2010.

Recycling

The green box recycling service will be extended so residents will soon be able to recycle food and drink cartons.

The council estimates that when the Tetra Pak style cartons start being recycled in the borough it could save around 400 tonnes going to landfill every year. From Monday, 7 December, residents that have a green box collection service can add the cartons to their recycling.

The paper-based cartons, which are used for things like orange juice, smoothies, soups and wine, have historically proved difficult to recycle and capacity to recycle this material has been limited. They can be recycled into a number of different products, ranging from plasterboard liner to high-strength paper bags and envelopes.

The council is also gearing up to launch its new clear sack recycling service next month. Residents in flats with 13-24 properties, flats above shops and properties on red routes will benefit from this. There will also be a borough-wide extension of the existing communal recycling service for residents in high-rise blocks of 25 or more flats. 

 

October 21, 2009