Last month, we took readers through a recent client success story involving a site with a single storey small community hall in which we secured consent for nine new apartments and a health centre.

Continuing this story, we now move on to the next stage of the project, which recently resulted in a consent for a new 3-storey development comprising 20 new apartments in North London, making use of changes to the Use Classes rules (as well as other planning strategies) along the way. In total, permission for the scheme has added approximately £10m in development value to the site.

‘Salami Slicing’: Planning in stages
We submitted an application for planning permission for the 9-unit scheme in late July 2020, following a successful pre-application, and then finally obtained planning permission in October 2020.

Submitting for planning for the 9-unit scheme, before going back for 20 units, instead of going straight away for 20 units, had the following advantages:

• Smaller number of units draws less attention locally and drew less opposition. The 9-unit scheme passed with fewer than five objections and under delegated powers.
• No affordable housing is required in Barnet for less than 10 new units.
• It creates a higher value than the existing use as a community centre, which then means on larger schemes the alternative use value established by this permission reduces the affordable housing contribution on a larger scheme.
• Obtaining permission quicker and easier for a smaller scheme helps to raise money against the site, which can then help to manage the costs and delays to the scheme in trying to obtain planning for a larger scheme.
• An application for only nine units would not have required an on-street parking assessment, which for reasons explained below could not have been obtained during the pandemic.
• It establishes a ‘baseline’ in terms of scale, mass, height and siting. The 20-unit scheme was based on the same building envelope and the same window openings. This massively narrows the possible grounds for objection and enhances planning prospects.