Highgate care home approved by councillors despite concern over local impact

The 66-bed care home will be built in Highgate Conservation Area and opposite two listed buildings, reports Simon Allin, Local Democracy Reporter

How the new care home is expected to look when built (credit Wolff Architects)

Plans for a 66-bed care home in Highgate have been approved despite concerns over its affordability and impact on a conservation area.

Designed to provide care for people with dementia and other neurological conditions, the home will be built in Hampstead Lane, within Highgate Conservation Area and opposite Grade 1-listed Kenwood House, Grade 2-listed West Lodge and their associated parks and gardens.

Two existing two-storey family homes will be demolished to make way for buildings up to four storeys high, connected by a “glazed link”, with basement car parking. Recommending the scheme for approval, council planning chiefs described the care home’s design as “high quality” and of an “appropriate scale”.

But the proposals, which were presented to a meeting of the council’s planning subcommittee on Thursday, drew 24 objections from members of the public, including concerns over the impact on heritage, loss of trees, and the lack of affordable units. The Highgate Society claimed the scheme would “do irreparable harm to the conservation area”.

Matthew Brewer, representing both Courtenay Avenue Homeowners’ Association and The Highgate Society, told the meeting the “overbearing scale” of the development would “unacceptably harm the character and appearance of the conservation area”, destroying some of its “key characteristics”.

He said there were “no significant heritage or community benefits that would outweigh the level of harm” caused by the scheme, which would be a “significant overdevelopment of the site”.

James Leof, representing Compton Avenue residents, said the scheme would result in an “unacceptable loss of family housing” and that there was “no justification for the scale of the operation proposed”. He also warned there was a lack of services and public transport in the area.

Shahabeddin Jafari, who lives in Courtenay Avenue, said the development would lead to overshadowing and overlooking, as well as having an impact on groundwater flow that could increase the risk of flooding.

Planning committee members questioned why no affordable homes were included in the proposals, whether there was enough demand for the scheme, and why the existing properties – built in the 1930s Arts and Crafts style – could not be retained and refurbished to provide a care home.

Council planning chiefs said there was no “policy requirement” for care homes to provide affordable housing but pointed out that the developer, Harrison Varma Projects, had agreed to prioritise Haringey residents, who will be fast-tracked to the top of the waiting list.

They added that the London Plan – which predicts the number of people with dementia will jump by 31% between 2017 and 2029 – contains a benchmark for Haringey to provide 110 units of specialist older people’s housing every year in order to meet demand.

Planning consultant Stuart Minty and Andy Goodchild, director at Wolff Architects, spoke in favour of the “high-quality” scheme, which they said was “intended to emulate the Arts and Crafts style”.

They claimed it would help to reduce pressure on the NHS and free-up existing family homes in the area, while allowing care home residents to use Kenwood House and Hampstead Heath for physical activity.

Andy said they could not convert the existing buildings because their window orientation and layouts “simply don’t work for a care home”, explaining that the new windows would need to be larger to give wheelchair users a “full outlook”. He also said the new building would be more energy efficient.

Stuart said four trees at the back of the homes needed to be removed to create a “dementia-friendly garden”, while four at the front were of “low quality”, adding that they would plant 15 new trees.

Addressing the flooding concerns, Andy said the plans had been designed to absorb surface water run-off, and this would “improve the situation rather than make it worse”.

Following the debate, the proposals were unanimously approved by members of the committee.

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