Plans for bungalows on Kings Drive garage site to be decided on Wednesday

The trees behind the garages are in the gardens of Barnhill residents

The car park, eventual access to the bungalows

The 'poor quality' trees on the boundary

3D view of the development, note the absence of the Barnhill garden trees behind the bungalows

Ariel view. Expensive private Barnhill houses on left, Kings Dricve council estate on the right

Site at present with garages

Proposed site plan

I have to state an interest on this issue as I am a resident on the King's Drive/Pilgrims Way estate although not in the immediate vicinity of this planned development. The proposal to build four affordable bungalow homes on the current garage site is part of a Council strategy to find space for new homes on Brent estates on under-utilised or redundant areas. Details of schemes across the borough can be foundHERE.

This scheme aroused a lot of opposition on the estate and hence the referral to Planning Committee for their consideration. The issue is one of balancing the need for new affordable homes with potential loss of amenity to current residents. In particular estate residents felt that the garages had been deliberately run down and not marketed for rent which enabled the Council to declare them not needed.  There was also concern at the potential loss of parking spaces and the loss of the trees. The garages form a sort of barrier between the expensive private houses of Barnhill and the council house blocks with the mature trees in the Barnhill gardens screening the view of the blocks.

There was no detailed survey of the Barnhill garden trees but the report, answering concerns about the trees overhanging the bungalows, says that under common law they can be cut back to the boundary.

A parking space will be provided for each bungalow and an additional 25 'communal' parking spaces will be provided. When I visited this evening there were 25 cars parked on the site.

A potential problem is difficulty of access. This is already a problem on the estate's cul-de-sac roads with parked vehicles blocking access to delivery lorries. Residents on Saltcroft Close suffer from many missed blue and grey bin collections because of this issue. They were not collected this week.

Full report HERE