At its meeting on August 26th Brent Council’s Planning Committee again refused to grant approval for the Abbeymews Ltd planning application to build a new block of apartments at the North East corner of the Jubilee Heights site despite a further recommendation to approve the scheme from the Council planners.
The proposed development has been made possible by the sale in August 2014 by the then Freeholder, Redab Kilburn Ltd, of a small parcel of land comprising most of the North East car park and some of the associated access road. The sale took place without consultation with affected leaseholders.
Since that time a large group of Jubilee Heights/Cedar Lodge leaseholders have, together, been successful in acquiring the remaining site freehold from Redab in order to fight the current application and to ensure that no further development of the site can take place without the support of the existing leaseholders.
The proposed Abbeymews development would abut the North wall of the main JH building, in effect creating a new party wall and would be bounded to the North by a new wall along the boundary with Watling Gardens.
It differs fundamentally from the recently completed South Extension which is an integral part of Jubilee Heights with occupants making contributions both to site service charges and to the JH community. In contrast, occupants of the new building would have no access to the existing building and would make no contribution to service charges despite utilising our Exeter Road entrance for vehicular access, servicing and waste management.
The car park would be retained at ground level but five of the parking spaces would be reserved for the additional building. The resulting impact on the site would be substantial with significant loss of light to several flats being added to problems associated with parking, access for emergency vehicles, waste management and increased traffic and congestion both on site and extending to Exeter Road. Existing leaseholders and residents would be expected to accept all these problems without any benefit accruing to them from the proposal.
The good news of the second rejection of the Abbeymews scheme followed representations made by JHCL Freehold Ltd, the company set up by leaseholders to acquire the freehold, the Jubilee Heights/Cedar Lodge Residents Association and many individual leaseholders and residents.
This is not necessarily the end of the story however as the applicants have a right to appeal to the Planning Inspectorate to challenge the decision taken by Brent Council and we need to be ready for that challenge.
JHCL Freehold Ltd is committed to do everything possible to ensure that the facilities of Jubilee Heights and Cedar Lodge are managed in the best interests of all leaseholders. If you would like to help us resist this final, ill-conceived development and make our estate a better place for leaseholders and residents then please get in touch by e-mail directly or via our new website and forum.