Plans for homes on Cockfosters tube station’s car park are being revised after the original scheme was rejected by the local council following fairly heated objections.

The previous scheme, a joint venture between Grainger and TfL,  had seen the entire car park built upon to provide homes for rent, but there was strong local opposition to removing the car parking spaces.

The revised scheme will retain 35 of the 336 parking spaces. That’s in addition to the previous agreement to retain the existing 12 parking spaces for accessibility users – so the new plans will see 47 parking spaces in total. They’ve also added a dedicated drop-off point made up of seven short-stay parking spaces.

The retention of some parking spaces is however unlikely to satisfy local campaigners who argue that the car park is heavily used and closing it will see more street parking instead.

Proposed development (c) Development application

There has also been a reduction in the number of flats being offered on the site due to an agreement to reduce the height of one of the buildings.

The development goes from 370 flats down to 351 flats.

Although they are retaining 40 per cent as affordable with priority for people who work in Enfield and with rents suitable for London’s key workers, the reduction in the number of overall flats also means a loss of eight affordable flats.

The amended proposals will now go back to the council for planning approval in the Autumn.

NEWSLETTER

Be the first to know what's on in London, and the latest news published on ianVisits.

You can unsubscribe at any time from my weekly emails.

Tagged with: ,
SUPPORT THIS WEBSITE

This website has been running now for over a decade, and while advertising revenue contributes to funding the website, it doesn't cover the costs. That is why I have set up a facility with DonorBox where you can contribute to the costs of the website and time invested in writing and research for the news articles.

It's very similar to the way The Guardian and many smaller websites are now seeking to generate an income in the face of rising costs and declining advertising.

Whether it's a one-off donation or a regular giver, every additional support goes a long way to covering the running costs of this website, and keeping you regularly topped up doses of Londony news and facts.

If you like what you read on here, then please support the website here.

Thank you

2 comments
  1. Jimbo says:

    The solution here seems quite simple – put together a development scheme which requires all existing parking spaces to be retained, probably by putting them under the development. If a viable scheme cannot be created with this requirement then redevelopment isn’t viable.

    • Ian Charles says:

      At a fairly lively public meeting regarding a similar scheme at Finchley Central, I asked about one of the information folk there about the removal of car parking spaces and here was the response – first, research had shown the majority of regular car park users lived within close walking distance of the station or another suitable transport hub and actually had no need to use the car park other than for their maximum convenience; second, that the aim was to find occupants for the flats who didn’t want to own a car. I’ve no idea about the first point but it would be interesting to see the findings, and if that interpretation is correct perhaps the need for hundreds of spaces is not so great? Regarding the second point, it’s interesting that planning applications just a few years ago had to include car parking provision for every dwelling, but that seems to be reversed now – and although one couldn’t imagine a rule forbidding a car owner to occupy a flat, there’s clearly some “nudge” policy going on here – offer housing in a very convenient location re public transport , and at the same time render it difficult and expensive to find somewhere to park a car – so in the end, people might choose simply to rent a vehicle for when they actually need one. I find this whole business interesting. I’m not offering an opinion, just trying to describe things as they were explained to me. I do have one concern: for the scheme to work, some joined up thinking is needed. I did find that when I asked something, the TfL person would say that was for the developer to address, and when I asked the developer representative I’d be told the Council should be asked…there are 3 players in these schemes

Home >> News >> Architecture