Plans approved for redevelopment in Barnet

Metropolitan Thames Valley Housing (MTVH) has received approval from Barnet Council for its plans to re-develop the Westhorpe Gardens and Mills Grove Estate in an attempt to provide over 250 new homes.

Currently, the estate contains one hundred social rented homes that will all be replaced with contemporary new homes in addition to the construction of a new 150 homes for affordable rent, shared ownership, and over-55s retirement living.

According to the proposal, approximately 80% of the aforementioned additional homes will become affordable housing with a further proportion becoming retirement living properties for market sale.

The director of the architecture firm behind the redevelopment, Pozzoni Architecture, Julian Lockwood said: “The regeneration of the Westhorpe Gardens and Mills Grove estate will meet the needs of a wide demographic, from young families, to the elderly, helping to promote a feeling of community and bring multi-generational living to the heart of the scheme. We are now looking forward to progressing the scheme and bringing new life into the estate.”

The Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, imposed a new policy in early 2018 which required any major estate regeneration schemes, which involved the demolition of social homes, to carry out a resident ballot process over the proposals before access to City Hall funds could be received.

Residents at Mills Grove Estate voted in the housing association’s redevelopment proposals in November 2018, with two thirds of the estate’s 108 residents that eligible to vote at the time choosing to vote, and a resulting 75% of residents voted in favour of the development.

The Barnet Council Leader, Councillor Dan Thomas added: “This is an important step in the redevelopment of the Westhorpe Gardens and Mills Grove estate since residents gave their approval last year and voted in favour of the proposals.

“This will deliver a significant number of improved homes for our residents and reflects the significant wider growth and regeneration which is taking place across the whole of the borough.”

The existing homes on the Mills Grove estate are a mixture of houses and flats constructed in the 1970s and MTVH found, through numerous inspections and surveys, that a substantial investment would be required to raise the properties to contemporary building standards.

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