Barnet (Parliament Politics Magazine) – Plans to build nearly 300 homes next to High Barnet Station have been rejected following concerns over scheme’s scale and its impact on surrounding area.
Plans to construct five blocks with 283 residences and 567 square metres of commercial space on the tube station’s 160-spot parking lot and adjacent storage spaces were submitted by developer Barratt London and Transport for London’s real estate firm Places for London.
On Monday, however, the plan was rejected by the strategic planning committee of Barnet Council.
The plan contained 40% affordable housing and would have reached a height of 11 stories.
However, Barnet Vale ward Labour councillor Sue Baker informed the committee that locals had expressed “an overwhelming amount of negativity” towards the plans. Since “many elderly residents” as well as those with disabilities and mobility challenges used the parking lot, she described its loss as “problematic.”
Because St. Catherine’s RC Primary School was nearby, locals were worried about the “impact” on the access road and station entrance.
Nine Blue Badge parking spaces for locals and seventeen spaces for tube passengers including eight disabled bays are included in the proposal. However, locals felt that this was insufficient to replace the station’s 177 parking spaces, 162 of which are designated for commuter parking.
The council’s new Local Plan specified a “maximum [height] of seven storeys” for the property, but “this application goes to eleven storeys,” according to Conservative council member David Longstaff, who also represents Barnet Vale ward.
The plan was “too dense, too tall, too cramped and the wrong design in the wrong place,” according to Reform UK council member Mark Shooter. The locals cherished the “village feel” of the region, according to Cllr. Shooter, and the council must “ensure that any new development enhances the area, not harms it.”
Simon said:
“The applicant claims London Plan policy D9 justifies the height because the design is exceptional [but] it is not. Architecturally it is a run of the mill brick tower, typical of mid-grade housing across London.”
He added:
“These blocks will be visually dominant, out of character, and harm the setting.”
Martin Scholar, head of planning at Barratt London, and Reece Harris from Avision Young, said:
“This proposal is on an allocated development site within Barnet’s Local Plan. [The proposal] entirely conforms with the Greater London Authority and government’s agenda to provide new homes of density near train stations.”
The plans are a part of the West London Partnership, an initiative by Barratt London and Places for London to build around 4,000 new homes on “underused land” with “excellent transport links.”
According to Martin, the private market properties would be offered for “about half” the typical High Barnet property price, “allowing first time buyers to get on the housing ladder.”
He noted that because parking and storage containers were occupying the land, it was now “under-used” and “unattractive.”
Claire Farrier, a member of the Labour committee, questioned why other designs with lower heights “were not possible.”
He noted that because parking and storage containers were occupying the land, it was now “under-used” and “unattractive.”
Claire Farrier, a member of the Labour committee, questioned why other designs with lower heights “were not possible.”
What impact does the decision have on local transport plans?
The rejection of the High Barnet Station casing scheme preserves the station auto demesne in the short term, avoiding immediate pressure on original machine and rail cloverleaf capacity from an affluence of new residents. Barnet Council’s decision aligns with guarding current transport structure amid ongoing debates over parking provision at Northern Line confines.
The offer would have excluded utmost of the face auto demesne, which serves commuters, senior druggies and those with reduced mobility; retaining it supports being patterns of auto- to- rail operation without forcing modal shifts that warrant indispensable parking hard.
Barnet’s original transport strategies, including implicit unborn TfL- led advancements to High Barnet station under the Northern Line extension review or city-wide parking norms, face no dislocation from this turndown, as the point remains available for transport- precedence uses rather than domestic intensification.
