Plans pass after a cut in cheaper flats

Sep 23 2009 By Ian Proctor, Harrow Observer

PROPOSALS to build a block of flats in Wealdstone have been approved after councillors asked for the number of affordable homes there to be reduced.

This means Harrow Council instigated the loss of 12 below-market rent flats at a time when it is aiming to meet a target of overseeing 219 new affordable properties in 2009/11 and the same number in 2011/12 - despite acknowledging it missed previous years' quotas.

Originally, the applicants behind the plan for the residential redevelopment of 93 Peel Road and the former council mortuary and park depot next door intended that all 46 flats and houses be made affordable.

The scheme came up for deliberation before Harrow Council's non-partisan planning committee in July, but committee members deferred making a decision because, as an officer's report later explained, "they considered the importance of implementing a reasonable balance of housing mix in order to maintain a sustainable community, particularly for larger developments, as in this instance".

In response, the applicants designated just three-quarters of the block (34 units) as affordable and the rest as private housing, and the scheme was subsequently unanimously granted planning permission by the committee on September 9.

Councillors were told the influential London Plan - the capital's planning blueprint - states: "Boroughs should seek the maximum reasonable amount of affordable housing when negotiating on individual private residential and mixed use schemes, having regard to their affordable housing targets, the need to encourage rather than restrain residential development and the individual circumstances of the site."

They would have had to weigh this up with the council's own planning policies, one of which prescribes: "The council will seek the provision of a mix of dwellings, types, sizes and tenures in large housing developments".

Even with the reduction, the Peel Road development's composition of 74 per cent affordable housing still exceeds the council's own target of 50 per cent.

Planning committee member Councillor Thaya Idaikkadar, Labour's spokesman on planning, said: "The Conservatives objected to 100 per cent affordable housing because they wanted mixed use.

"We, as Labour, weren't going to vote against it since 74 per cent is better than zero per cent, and we have got to get the best out of it."