New homes agreed for hospital site
A FORMER infectious diseases hospital may be torn down and turned into flats.
Haringey Council planners agreed NHS plans for the enpty buildings on the Coppetts Wood hospital site in Coppetts Road, Muswell Hill, to be demolished to make way for 55 flats.
Last July, residents expressed fears the development would burden the area's already overstretched schools and doctors surgeries and cause traffic chaos.
The Royal Free Hampstead NHS Trust owns the site and any future sale price is likely to be inflated with permission to build flats already in place.
John Iestyn, of DTZ, agents for the trust, told the council planning committee meeting: "We've spent three years designing this scheme with the council, we've spent a lot of time thinking about the issues that have been flagged up about the design. I would say that, importantly, the money made in this sale will benefit the NHS and I would ask you to support it."
An attractive administration building that fronts onto Coppetts Road will be kept if the scheme for four houses and four blocks of flats goes ahead, and railings and a clock will be restored.
But Councillor John Bevan, cabinet member for housing, objected, saying the scheme fell well short of a target for new developments to have 50 per cent "affordable" homes.
But planning officers said the target applied across the whole borough and not strictly to individual sites.
The hospital formerly occupied a much larger site, but land was disposed of in the late 1990s and redeveloped as Osier Crescent.
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Muswell Hill
Journal News |
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