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New Ealing Law Centre
Guardian has a report about the new Ealing Law Centre, which was part of a successful consortium, led by Nucleus Legal Advice Centre, and which last week won a £200,000 contract for a one-year interim service.
For more information, see Here’s some legal aid good news. A new law centre has been born
Found a blog by Steve Lee on the new Ealing Law Centre.
In reality of course, ‘leafy Ealing’ is a caricature. The largest of the West London boroughs, Ealing is widely diverse in terms of ethnicity and distribution of wealth. Overall Ealing ranks within the top 20% most deprived local authority areas in the country, with areas of intense deprivation in east and west. In Southall for example – one of the most ethnically diverse communities in the UK – deprivation levels across all communities are extremely high. Nearly a third live in poor housing. The community ranks among the 1% most income deprived for older people and among the 5% most health deprived in the country.
Multiple deprivation gives rise, even in the best of times, to high levels of demand for social welfare law advice. All the more surprising then that advice provision in Ealing has always been sparse. All the more devastating a blow when the key not-for-profit provider for eight years Law For All – winner of council grants and holder of LSC contracts – went bust in July 2011 leaving a vacuum at the heart of provision at a time when need is at its highest.
In circumstances such as these often are the best ideas formed. Inspired by the doughty Sue James – Ealing resident and solicitor at Hammersmith & Fulham Law Centre – a group came together, with backgrounds in nfp advice and private practice, determined to try to plug the advice gap and meet advice needs in new and better ways. The chance to build something new, while longer established services are fighting to adapt to changing circumstances, proved an irresistible challenge and in October last year Ealing Law Centre was born.
To read the whole thing, see Advice in a Leafy Suburb