The UK’s largest temporary housing development for homeless people will open up this week in west London.
Made up of refurbished shipping containers, the bold scheme will give 290 people registered as homeless with Ealing Council a roof over the heads just in time for Christmas.
Set up on derelict land next to an estate in Acton, the container village is the most ambitious effort yet to utilize the oblong, mobile units to help address the housing crisis.
Some communal spaces, laundry facilities and refuse storage space will sit alongside the fully furnished the mobile apartments.
The partnership between Ealing Council and QED Sustainable Urban Developments will see the homes placed there on a temporary basis, with a huge regeneration project already underway across the surrounding area.
It builds on a smaller QED container project carried out elsewhere in Ealing earlier this year, and a similar project in Brighton for formerly homeless people in need of “move-on” accommodation.