The decisions came after City Hall pledged to be more ‘interventionist’ with rejected applications in order to get more homes built in London
City Hall has intervened to overturn a North London council’s decision to reject the development of more than 1,700 new homes across two housing projects. The Mayor of London used his devolved powers to ‘call in’ proposals for 1,500 homes on the Great North Leisure Park site and 283 homes near a Tube station car park after Barnet Council originally voted to refuse both applications.
The decisions – which were vehemently criticised by Labour MPs and councillors – came after City Hall pledged to be more “interventionist” with rejected applications in order to get more homes built in London.
Great North Leisure Park
Councillors refused the former application due to fears around overdevelopment on the site due to the “scale and density” of the scheme. Developers outlined plans to replace the existing leisure park with a new building, including a proposed outdoor lido, in addition to the new homes, which includes tower blocks up to 25 storeys tall.
The proposal said 341 of the 1485 homes to be affordable, a proportion of 25 per cent. James Langsmead, a Deputy Planning Manager at Barnet Council, told the public hearing in City Hall on Wednesday, May 27 said members refused the application initially as the proposal would be “out of character” to the local area and that it was not supported by a relevant Section 106 agreement.
Mary Hogben, from the Finchley Society, added: “This is not design-led optimisation, but numbers-led gross maximisation. This is bad housing design with the wrong mix of housing to support growth in Barnet. Barnet is achieving their housing targets – therefore, there is no justification for this extreme density to the detriment of the health and wellbeing of future residents.”
A representative from developers Regal London said the site was a “textbook example” of an area that officials should be aiming to develop on. Deputy Mayor Jules Pipe, who was making the final decision, ruled in favour of the developers.
He told the meeting: “There is a very clear and urgent need to deliver more homes, especially genuinely affordable homes, to tackle the housing crisis. We cannot afford to leave brownfield sites such as this underused.”
High Barnet station car park
At High Barnet, developers had applied to build 283 homes in five blocks with heights between five and 11 storeys. However, council officers said some of the buildings were of “excessive height” and were out of character with the local area.
The vast majority of responses to the public consultation were also objections, primarily around the removal of the 177 station car parking spaces and pressure on local services. GLA officers were satisfied with the boost to housing supply, the affordable housing ratio of 40 per cent, and the impact on the local area.
However, at the hearing, also held on Wednesday, Barnet Council Planning Officer Sam Gerstein said the site is not suitable for tall buildings, while the loss of the station car parking would have an impact on commuters using an ‘end of line’ public transport hub.
“Members concluded that the elevated topography in this part of the borough would increase the visual prominence of taller buildings and that the proposed scale would be incompatible with surrounding townscape, which is characterised by low rise development,” he said.
Other objectors at the hearing raised issues with station accessibility, suggesting an older-than-average local population may struggle with approaching the station on foot or bicycle. Theresa Villiers, the former Tory MP for the constituency, told the Deputy Mayor that expecting residents to tackle the steep route up to the station without a car was unrealistic.
She added: “The tower blocks will serious distort the skyline – development on this scale was rightly rejected by Barnet Council. This kind of development is the kind of proposal our planning system was designed to stop.”
Representatives from the developers said their car parking survey revealed that the spaces were not serving Londoners, but commuters from as far as Stevenage, Grantham and Huddersfield, and so were not “essential” for local residents.
However, Mr Pipe concluded the high proportion of affordable housing and location of the site. He said: “We need to take opportunities to build new homes on highly accessible sites where key transport infrastructure is already in place.
“The height optimises development capacity in this highly accessible location. It is inevitable that schemes with this number of units will be visible – artificially constraining height in such locations will drive development to greenfield sites, including Green Belt, which will be less sustainable and car dependent.
“While the station car park is well used, its loss would promote more sustainable ways of travel…and have a beneficial impact on air quality.”
Labour fury at City Hall
Dan Tomlinson, the MP for Chipping Barnet, told the Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS), said: “Barnet Council rejected this application at its Planning Committee by an 8-1 margin, as it is clearly not in line with the Local Plan.
“Planning decisions aren’t mine to make as the local MP, but Barnet Labour has made its view very clear on these proposals and wrote to the decision maker ahead of today’s meeting setting out precisely the reasons for their decision.
“It is in black and white in Barnet’s Local Plan that seven storeys is the maximum for housing on this site. It isn’t right for the GLA to overrule elected Councillors to approve a scheme with an 11-storey block that contravenes the plan.”
Sarah Sackman, the MP for Finchley and Golders Green who opposed the scheme when it was presented to Barnet Council, said: “We must get the balance right between protecting community spaces and building more affordable homes.
“While I strongly objected to this application at all stages, and am disappointed by the outcome, we must now look forward. We must ensure that we get the best development for current and future residents.
“I will be pushing City Hall to maximise affordable housing and increase transport provision, so this development delivers real improvements for North Finchley.”
A spokesperson for the Barnet Labour Party said: “It’s extremely disappointing that two local planning decisions based on the Local Plan and London Plan and with the backing of the local community have been overturned by the GLA. Local councillors should be trusted to make decisions based on the best interests of their communities.”
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