However the 16-storey height of the scheme and the loss of a locally-listed building were both cited as strong negative aspects to the development, reports Joe Ives, Local Democracy Reporter
More than 300 new homes are set to be built next to North Middlesex University Hospital after Enfield Council approved the plans this week.
The scheme, supported by the Greater London Authority (GLA), was voted through unanimously by the council’s planning committee at a meeting on Tuesday (14th).
It will see “vacant and redundant” hospital buildings on the site demolished and replaced with 306 homes which will all be designated for ‘affordable’ housing.
The plans include a 16-storey tower block alongside a new nursery, café and replacement NHS offices. The largely “car-free” development will have 570 cycle spaces, alongside 15 Blue Badge parking spaces for people with disabilities.
One of the main concerns leading up to the decision was the potential demolition of a locally-listed NHS administration building, which is set to be replaced by the new, two-storey nursery.
In their report, officers acknowledged the negative impact of losing the listed building but concluded that the “substantial public benefits — particularly the delivery of affordable housing and regeneration — are considered to outweigh the identified heritage harm”.
Also of concern was the height of the tallest proposed housing block, which will rise to 56 metres. This exceeds the maximum recommended height for buildings on the site in the council’s draft Local Plan.
Nevertheless, officers concluded: “On balance, the visual, functional, environmental, and cumulative impacts of the tall buildings are considered acceptable.”
An addendum, added shortly before Tuesday’s meeting, brought conditions that must be met in the likely event that the building is knocked down to make way for the development.
As outlined in a council report, these include an obligation stating that the building cannot be demolished “until a programme of historic building recording has been secured and undertaken in accordance with a written scheme of investigation”.
This work would include “capturing oral histories from current and former occupants, as well as the wider community.”
It comes as an acknowledgement of the quandary presented by the scheme; a desire to keep a historic building, competing with the desperate need for more affordable housing in the borough.
Ahead of the vote, planning officers said that if the administration building was fully preserved then 120 — roughly 40% — of the homes would not be delivered.
A council report explained that, according to developer Vistry, alternatives that would see only a partial demolition of the NHS building would also “introduce a significant financial deficit and delay the project beyond the funding programme, risking the loss of grant funding and preventing delivery of the development”.
Matthew Lintern, speaking on behalf of Vistry, reiterated these points when he addressed councillors on Tuesday. He said the developers “recognise the loss of the former administration building” and argued that its demolition “was not treated as inevitable”.
Lintern noted that “having assessed the issue, officers concluded that the scheme’s public benefit outweighed the less-than-substantial harm arising from the building’s loss.”
He told councillors that planning approval was “an important milestone” needed to maintain eligibility for GLA support for the scheme.
A deferral, he agued, “would carry consequences beyond a simple delay to the decision” and “risks the funding package that underpins the scheme — and with it delivery of all 306 affordable homes”.
Lintern said the project represents an opportunity to turn “underused brownfield land into a new neighbourhood, delivering much-needed affordable homes, supporting a hospital, providing community facilities and creating high-quality pocket spaces”.
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