Practice’s 139-home proposals are final phase of Abbey Road Estate upgrade
Pollard Thomas Edwards has submitted proposals to replace two low-rise brutalist residential blocks and a health centre in north-west London with a scheme that will deliver almost twice as many new homes.
Its plans form the third – and final – phase of the Abbey Road Estate regeneration programme for Camden Council. They will result in 139 new homes, along with new ground-floor commercial space, in three blocks of up to 11 storeys in height.
The first phase of the regeneration programme, a stone’s throw from Neave Brown’s grade II*-lised Alexandra Road Estate, delivered 141 new homes on the former site of a multistorey car park. The second phase, which is due to complete this summer, will deliver a new heath centre and community building near the estate’s two 20-storey tower blocks.
The programme’s third phase will see the demolition of the estate’s five-storey Hinstock and eight-storey-Emminster blocks, which have a total of 74 flats, along with ground-floor retail units, the Lillie Langtry pub, Belsize Priory Health Centre, and the Abbey Community Centre.
Pollard Thomas Edwards’ planned replacement buildings for the 0.5ha site at the junction of Abbey Road and Belsize Road include a private courtyard garden for residents at the centre of the development.
A planning statement produced by CBRE said one third of the phase-three homes would be “affordable”. It added that Existing Hinstock and Emminster residents had already been rehoused – either in the first phase of the scheme on the opposite side of Belsize Road, or elsewhere in the borough.
The planning consultancy said Pollard Thomas Edwards’ scheme offered a number of community benefits, including a mixture of market and affordable housing and 305sq m of new commercial space, split between two units.
It acknowledged that the figure was a reduction on the current 835sq m of commercial space on the site, and that around one-third of the 60 jobs on site would be lost. However it said the current units were “underutilised”.
Wates Residential is Camden’s main contractor for the Abbey Road Estate regeneration programme.
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