Enfield Council has published for public consultation the Draft Ritz Parade Opportunity Site Development Brief (PDF, 5MB). The deadline for commments is 5.00pm on Wednesday 10 February 2016.
The draft document aims to provide planning, design and development advice for the Ritz Parade site and will help guide future proposals. The consultation is asking the public and interested parties to consider whether the draft guidance has captured all relevant principles for achieving the desired regeneration on this important site.
Ritz Parade (see photograph) is on the northern side of the Bowes Road section of the North Circular. It is centered around a 1930s-built cinema (originally the Ritz, then the ABC Ritz, then the ABC), which since the 1970s has been used by the Jehovah's Witnesses as one of their most important assembly halls. Reportedly, much of the interior of the former cinema is well preserved.
(It's worth downloading the document just to look at page 30, which has an aerial photograph of Ritz Parade in 1932, showing a large area of allotments to its north and only one car travelling along the North Circular!)
The purpose of this planning document is to give a "clear direction" to potential developers of the site as to what the Council would consider to be suitable proposals for planning permission.
In view of the fact that most of the site is the freehold property of Notting Hill Housing Trust, it seems highly likely that its owners would wish to create the maximum number of housing units on the land. However, the situation is complicated by the existence of leases on the shops and in particular by the lease held by the Jehovah's Witnesses. The site of a former petrol station, now demolished for car parking, was purchased by McDonalds, who were last year refused planning permission to build a drive-through fast-food restaurant.
The council's draft document states a desire to retain a mixture of community use (at present represented by the Kingdom Hall), retail and housing, though it concedes that housing could constitute a higher proportion of usage than at present. Its four key principles are:
- A mixed-use community hub – i.e. for both community and retail use e.g. everyday convenience shopping, supporting services for local people. If the assembly hall were not retained appropriate community uses would be expected to be provided e.g. health uses, flexible community spaces, community spaces associated with a place of worship.
- High quality design – a prominent frontage paying homage to the existing art deco style.
- Improved routes and connections – e.g. an east-west cycle/pedestrian route and potential future access to Broomfield school.
- A flexible development framework – i.e. potential for phased development.
It describes in more detail two possible solutions. The first retains the cinema but replaces all other buildings with 5-storey residential blocks with retain and community units on the ground floor. The cinema and surrounding new buildings would present a continuous frontage. The second would see the cinema demolished and all buildings replaced by four blocks of flats, with community and retail premises on the ground floors. This option also includes a row of smaller houses at the rear of the site.
What will actually happen is not in the Council's power to decide. The proposals that emerge will depend primarily on commercial considerations. The Council's powers, to the extent that they exist, would be to negotiate and if necessary refuse planning permission.
Links
- Introductory page on the Enfield Council website
- Draft Opportunity Site Development Brief
- Interesting discussion on the Bowes & Bounds Connected forum
Addendum to the above article
In February 2016 the Broomfield Home Owners & Residents Association (BHORA) submitted a response to the consultation, which it summarised on its website as follows:
Overall BHORA is dissatisfied with the 2 options presented. We have attended many public meetings, (as far back as 20th February 2007) and have taken part in all the consultation processes, regularly outlining what local people need and want. It appears to bulldoze our ‘landmark’ building and replace it with more residential units. This document fails to include the amenities needed by an ever growing population.
