A DEVELOPER planning Ealing’s first 100% affordable residential tower is sending out a challenge to the Mayor of London. 

Southern Grove says 55 West — which would be Ealing’s tallest building — is a model of how developers should be meeting Sadiq Khan’s Homes for Londoners vision of creating new homes, with a focus on fully-affordable, design-led landmarks.

Chairman Andrew Southern says it is decision time for planners, who face a choice between continuing to pay “lip service” to housing need and delivering affordable housing in the right places.

Ealing’s proposed tower has been made possible because of extended negotiations with landowners and a combination of contracts that means Southern Grove will never own the land outright. 

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This, says Mr Southern, reduces the cost of developing the site, while its 26-storey height enables Southern Grove and its partner, Metropolitan Thames Valley Housing Association, to ensure each of the 149 apartments is classed as ‘affordable’.

55 West is earmarked for the junction of Manor Road, Argyle Road and Drayton Green, next to West Ealing station

Roof gardens would overlook west London while, at ground level, a public plaza would also be created between the building and the station.

A doctors’ surgery is expected to fill one of two commercial units on the ground floor with direct access to the Crossrail station.

The application is expected to go to planning committee for a decision this November. 

The 55 West application follows recent proposals by another developer, A2Dominion, to build a 25-storey skyscraper at a site 100 metres to the south. 

Mr Southern added: “The Mayor has spelled out that the housing emergency in London means it is essential that good-quality, affordable housing is built in high densities on top of London’s major transport nodes. 

“This development answers that call, and should be the first of many.”