[ad_1]
The redevelopment of Temple Fortune Health Centre, in Temple Fortune Lane, will see the current two-storey 1970s unit demolished to make way for a four-storey block.
The new block will contain a replacement medical centre on the ground floor and eleven flats on the upper floors.
It was waved through by a Barnet Council planning committee on Thursday (October 26), despite objections from neighbours.
People had warned the taller building would overlook homes, block out daylight and sunlight, and add to parking and congestion problems in nearby streets.
There were also fears the scheme, which contains no affordable housing, would be out of keeping with the neighbourhood and harm Hampstead Garden Suburb Conservation Area.
Other residents have welcomed the plans, which are designed to provide a larger, better-equipped surgery to meet growing demand for healthcare, with the money raised from the sale of the flats used to fund the expansion.
The original proposals were scaled back following consultations, leading to an 18.5% smaller building with upper storeys stepped back to reduce the impact on neighbours.
But Zahava Shore, who lives behind the centre in Finchley Road, told the planning committee the revised proposals failed to meet the council’s own guidelines for proximity to neighbouring homes.
She said the basement car park and ground floor of the health centre, at 9.5-metres away from her home, would be “virtually in my living room” and even closer for some neighbours, causing “loss of light, loss of outlook, loss of sky” and “an overwhelming sense of enclosure”.
Marc Trup, a local resident and a patient at the health centre, spoke in support of the plans, telling the committee the “self-financing project” would create a “landmark building” and “future-proof our health needs for years to come”.
Dr Karen Myers, who along with her colleague Dr Leora Harverd applied to redevelop the centre,…
[ad_2]
