A Freedom of Information (FoI) request has revealed that Ealing Council had the most housing complaints in the year of 2023/2024 in London.

It shows the council received 2,273 complaints in one year which the Ealing Liberal Democrats believe "is truly appalling".

This follows a tenant survey in Summer 2024 which showed that about half of tenants were dissatisfied with the repair service due to slowness, feeling ignored and therefore not wanting to engage with the council.

For the five year period 2019/20 to 2023/24 in Ealing the figures are 7,764 complaints with three seeing court action taken.

Councillor Gary Malcolm, Leader of the Opposition said: "Labour-run Ealing Council are so shocking at managing its housing and how landlords act, causing huge problems for tenants.

"The super-huge number of complaints in recent years shows that this area of the council needs to be ripped up and reformed so that residents who are tenants get a better deal from landlords in Ealing."

"Liberal Democrats say that the almost zero number of prosecutions shows that the council is failing a very large number of residents.

"If the council were more effective with advice and mediation then there would not be this many problems in the borough. Ealing Labour need to reflect and make important changes for 2025"

An Ealing Council spokesperson said: "Ealing has the sixth highest number of properties rented by private landlords, which accounts for the high number of complaints received.

"We receive a large number of complaints about landlords on a variety of topics, which are recorded and investigated.

"We always endeavour to work with landlords or their agents to resolve any problems without the need for enforcement. If that does not work, we take a graduated approach to enforcement. Wherever possible, landlords are notified of problems and required to rectify them. In many cases, the prospect of an inspection results in action by the landlord or agent and the matter is resolved, avoiding the need for any prosecution. 

"If the matters are serious, we may issue the landlord with an improvement notice. It is an offence to not comply with an improvement notice. In nearly all cases we find that once landlords and agents are required to take action they do so.

"We take strong action against landlords who do not respond adequately to improvement notices, as can be seen by these recent prosecutions of planning enforcement breaches:

• Hefty fine for landlord who broke planning rules
• 'Beds in shed' landlord ordered to pay more than £380,000
• Two rogue landlords hit by large fines
• Rogue landlords prosecuted in latest clampdown"

To find out more about the Freedom of Information request click here.