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Two office buildings and a multi-storey car park in West London will be replaced by up to 673 new homes. Hillingdon Council approved the plans to demolish the Hayes office buildings on Wednesday (March 11).
The site at Hyde Park on Millington Road in Hayes will soon see a number of residential blocks ranging between three and 11 storeys. As this is an outline application, the exact details of the development will be finalised at a later stage.
The developer provided an illustrative 650-unit scheme as "proof of concept". Within these details are plans for four studio flats, 282 one-bedroom flats, 264 two-bedroom flats, and 100 three-bedroom flats.
According to the developer, providing affordable housing on this site presents a viability challenge. Independent viability testing concluded that a 100 per cent private market scheme returns a financial deficit.
All parties agree that the current scheme returns a deficit, however the figures are disputed among different parties. The applicant calculated a deficit of almost £37 million, the council just over £15 million, and the Greater London Authority (GLA) just £197,000.
Due to the financial constraints, the council has agreed to a conditional "cascade mechanism". This means the developer is legally obliged to use "all reasonable endeavours" to secure external grant funding to provide a minimum of 10 per cent affordable housing.
If the developer can provide sufficient evidence to the council that it has exhausted all reasonable endeavours and no grant funding can be secured, the scheme can revert to 100 per cent private market housing - no affordable homes.
The development will also provide up to 368 square metres of flexible community and commercial floor space including retail and food outlets. The permanent loss of office space is considered acceptable because the current buildings are under-occupied with limited demand for the space.
The scheme also provides 10,027 sqm of amenity space which exceeds the London Plan requirements but falls short of Hillingdon Local Plan requirements by 5,000 sqm. This is accepted on balance due to the high-density urban nature of the site.
The scheme also falls short of the 37,688 sqm of publicly accessible open space. To mitigate this, the developer will pay a sum of £879,450 to enhance existing public parks in the area.
The site will provide 282 car parking spaces, with 135 specified for the new homes. Future residents without a parking spot will not be able to apply for a permit.
The application will now go before the Mayor of London for Stage 2 approval. Following this, the developer will submit subsequent planning applications to approve the finer details of the plans not approved at the planning committee.
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