A former Ilford children's home has housed up to 24 people without permission since April 2024. Officers now recommend approval at the 16 September committee.

A large house in Ilford has been operating as a shared home for up to 24 people since April 2024 without planning permission, and council officers are now recommending that it be granted permission after the fact.

The property is 13 Granville Road, IG1 4RU, on the corner of Park Avenue in Valentines ward. It was a children’s home. Redbridge opened enforcement case E0063/25, “Unauthorised HMO”, on 5 February 2025. The applicant, Halo Property Services Ltd, submitted a retrospective application on 28 January 2026.

The officer report goes to the borough’s Planning Committee at 7pm on Wednesday 16 September at Ilford Town Hall, with a recommendation to grant.

What is there now

The application, reference 0249/26, describes a change of use from a children’s home to a large house in multiple occupation for 18 households and a maximum of 24 residents. Nothing outside the building changes.

The officer report sets out the arrangement:

  • 18 bedrooms across three storeys: six on the ground floor, five on the first, seven on the second
  • a mix of single and double occupancy rooms, each meeting the minimum size of 7.5 square metres for single and 11.5 for double
  • two kitchens totalling 43 square metres, against a licensing requirement of 25.5 for 24 people
  • three living rooms and a common room, 110 square metres of communal space in total, against a requirement of 67
  • a rear garden of about 885 square metres
  • six off-street parking spaces on the former staff car park

Officers say the accommodation meets the council’s own space standards. The application form gives the start of the use as 9 April 2024.

Timeline of 13 Granville Road, Ilford, from a 1955 children's home permission to the September 2026 committee decision
13 Granville Road, from vicarage to committee decision. Graphic by Ilford Today.
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The unlawful use, and why officers say it does not matter

Under the National Planning Policy Framework, a breach of planning control that is found to be intentional must be given substantial weight when a council decides whether to grant retrospective permission.

Officers accept the breach was intentional. Their words are direct: “As a change of use from a C2 care home to a Sui Generis large HMO does not just occur, officers must consider that this was an intentional act.”

They then set it aside. The report says the unlawful start “does not detract from the fact that the proposal broadly complies with national, regional, and local planning policy and is acceptable in all other regards”, and concludes that the unlawful use is not by itself enough to justify a refusal.

Officers also correct a point raised by an objector. Making a retrospective application is allowed under the Town and Country Planning Act, and the report draws the distinction plainly: “The use is unlawful, not illegal.”

Losing a children’s home

The building was granted permission to become a children’s home in March 1955, when it was a vicarage. Officers say Google Street View shows it in operation in 2008 as the Indigo Project, for 13 to 18 year olds, and that it was later used by Barnardo’s, whose sign came down after 2024.

Redbridge Children’s Services raised no objection to losing it. The service told planners the property “likely has not been operating as one for some time”, and that the change would not reduce active provision.

Its second reason is the striking one. The service says Redbridge already has an over-provision of children’s homes, particularly in the south of the borough, and that the borough takes in more looked-after children from other councils than it sends out. The report cites a net gain of 281 children from other local authorities in the figures it uses, and says the number has risen since.

Reducing that, Children’s Services argues, would ease pressure on the Children Looked After Health Team, general practice, community health services, sexual health services, mental health services, health visiting and emergency departments.

Where officers overruled their own colleagues

Two council services pushed back and were answered rather than accommodated.

The Local Highways Authority said the proposal “has the potential to result in a significant increase in trips to and from the site and a material increase in parking demand”, and asked for a parking stress survey. It also said the application had not demonstrated an acceptable impact on the safe and efficient operation of the local highway.

Planning officers decided a survey was not necessary, on the basis that six off-street spaces should be more than sufficient and that on-street parking can be controlled through tenancy agreements.

Officers also break with one of their own Local Plan tests. Policy LP6 expects this kind of conversion to be inside a town centre. This site is not. Officers note it is 190 metres from Ilford Metropolitan Centre and 650 metres from Ilford station, and judge that the failure does not undermine the point of the policy because no family housing is being lost.

On noise, they are candid that the file is thin. The report says a large HMO of seven to ten people would not be a significant change but a 24 person HMO “likely could have” been, and that the submission provides no information on how the impact would be managed beyond quiet hours of 23:00 to 08:00. The proposed answer is a condition requiring a revised management plan within a month of approval.

The council wrote to 14 neighbouring properties on 16 April 2026 and received three representations, raising character and overdevelopment, noise and disturbance, parking stress and fly tipping. Because the application drew three objections it went to the Chair of the Planning Committee, who decided it should be heard by the full committee rather than settled by officers.

Conditions and a payment

If members follow the recommendation, permission comes with six conditions, including:

  • a cap of 24 occupants
  • a bar on converting any of the two kitchens, three living rooms or common room into bedrooms, and a requirement that all 24 residents can use them at all times
  • a revised management plan naming which neighbours get the landlord’s and managing agent’s contact details, with evidence that it has been done
  • cycle store details to be installed within a month

There is also a payment of £6,798.42 towards managing recreational pressure on Epping Forest, a Special Area of Conservation. The site is inside the forest’s 6.2 kilometre zone of influence, and the charge works out at 16.7% of £2,216.71 for each of the 18 residents above the first six, plus a £135 monitoring fee. Because the scheme is retrospective there is no legal agreement to secure it, so the council requires the money before it issues a decision.

Also on Wednesday’s agenda

Two other items go before the committee, and one of them is the council’s own.

10-11 Janice Mews, Ilford (1516/26). This is the community hall the council opened in August. Its application is also part retrospective: the access ramp has already been built, and the officer report notes that the building opened on 26 August 2026, before the meeting that decides whether it can be used that way. Officers recommend approval, with hours of 09:00 to 18:00 seven days a week. It goes to committee because officers cannot determine applications made by the council on its own land.

142 Hermon Hill, South Woodford (1822/25). Nine flats and a shop on a former pub site, with 124 objections and an officer recommendation to approve.

What it means for you

Planning permission is not an HMO licence, and the two are decided by different teams. Redbridge requires a mandatory licence for any HMO with five or more occupants forming two or more households, and has run a borough-wide additional licensing scheme covering three and four occupant HMOs since 18 September 2023. A licence lasts five years. Nothing the Planning Committee decides on Wednesday changes what the licensing team can require.

There is also an odd thread in the file worth watching. The report’s planning history records permission 1955/24, granted on 1 April 2025, under an address covering Park School for Girls at 20-22 Park Avenue and 13 Granville Road, for a SEND school for 96 students and a post-16 facility in the former Barnardo’s centre on Park Avenue. The officer report does not explain how that permission and this one sit together.

To speak at the meeting, contact the Committee Support Officer by 5pm on the working day before, which is Tuesday 15 September. Up to three people may speak on an application, and the applicant or agent has a right of reply. The agenda gives Margaret Herring on 020 8708 2159 as the contact. Our Redbridge planning page tracks the borough’s applications and housing figures.

Sources