Andrew Dismore

The Mayor of London Sadiq Khan has issued a letter to Barnet Council outlining his concerns about a scheme to turn Barnet House in Whetstone into 229 flats. The Mayor’s stage 1 determination states that the application does not comply with the London Plan because only 10% of the units would be affordable.

The Mayor’s report states that:

“Given the high-density nature of the proposal and the use of a retained building, the 10% affordable housing offer is wholly unacceptable and must be significantly increased. No detail of unit mix has been provided, and this is fundamental to establishing the acceptability of the offer and/or the starting point for negotiation. The absence of this detail is unacceptable. The applicant’s viability appraisal will be rigorously scrutinised. Clawbacks, early implementation and late stage review mechanisms and a minimum of 15-year covenant must be secured through S106 agreement.”

Reacting to the news, Labour London Assembly Member for Barnet and Camden Andrew Dismore said:

‘At last! Sadiq is committed to delivering more genuinely affordable homes, and I am delighted that he is taking a harder line than Boris Johnson ever did. In the original scheme for this site the developer wanted to use a loophole in the law to build flats that were under the legal floor size limit. It is not much better this time, they are now hare hutches rather than rabbit hutches. And under this loophole, developers can convert offices to residential without the usual planning regulations, and without any affordable housing contribution.

‘The Mayor has shamed Barnet, who as usual barely raised an eyebrow. Given the building already exists, and all that is being done is that it is having a retro-fitted conversion to flats, with some additional building. The costs of this development are not high and the developer was going to rake it in. Barnet Council cannot have given the viability survey any attention whatsoever if they said a 10% affordable contribution was acceptable.’