Redbridge granted nine flats and a shop at 142 Hermon Hill, South Woodford, on 19 October, after a void vote in September. New residents will get no parking permits.

Nine flats will be built on the old Fir Trees pub site at 142 Hermon Hill, South Woodford. Redbridge Council granted planning permission on Monday 19 October, with 26 conditions.

The planning register records application 1822/25 as “Granted/Approved - with conditions”. The decision followed the Planning Committee meeting of 14 October, which took a fresh vote after the September vote was ruled invalid.

The council has not yet published the minutes of the 14 October meeting, so the vote count is not known. The scheme drew 124 objections.

South Woodford is about three miles north west of Ilford town centre.

What has been approved

The decision notice describes the scheme as an extension to the ground floor commercial unit and two new floors above it. The officer report and approved plans set out:

  • nine flats: four with three bedrooms and five with two
  • a 334 square metre commercial unit, replacing a 285 square metre restaurant
  • five car parking spaces in place of the 14 on the site now
  • cycle parking and a 61 square metre communal terrace on the first floor

The register shows the scheme was amended before the decision. The first floor terraces and their privacy screens were set back and repositioned, and the second floor privacy screens were made taller.

The conditions neighbours will notice

The decision notice runs to 14 pages. These are the conditions most likely to matter to people living nearby:

  • No parking permits for new residents. Before anyone moves in, the developer must submit a scheme that excludes the flats from “any current or future local car parking permit scheme” (condition 15).
  • The shop’s opening hours are not settled yet. Before the commercial unit opens, the council must approve its use, its opening hours, its delivery hours, any extraction or flue, and a noise assessment of the effect on neighbours (condition 11).
  • What the unit can be. It is limited to shops, cafés and restaurants, offices and professional services, gyms, health services or a nursery, and cannot switch to anything else without a fresh application (condition 16).
  • A construction plan first. No work can start until the council approves a demolition and construction plan covering lorry numbers, timings and routes, parking for builders, dust control and safe footpaths past the site (condition 4).
  • One blue badge bay must be allocated to a resident of the flats and reviewed each year (condition 14).
  • Three years to start. The permission lapses if work has not begun by 19 October 2029 (condition 1).

The developer, Saeed Developments Ltd, has also signed a legal undertaking. The officer report says it pays £20,085.39 towards protecting Epping Forest from extra visitors, because the site is inside the forest’s 6.2km zone of influence.

How the decision was reached

The scheme first went to committee on 16 September. The draft minutes record a tied first vote, the chair abstaining on his casting vote, and a second vote of five to three in favour. Legal advice then ruled the second vote invalid, because the motion had not been formally proposed and seconded. We set out each step in our report on the void vote.

The application went back on the 14 October agenda “for vote only”. Officers had recommended approval throughout. Our September report covers the 124 objections, which raised traffic on Hermon Hill, parking, air pollution, noise and overlooking from the balconies.

What it means for you

  • The decision is final at council level. Neighbours have no right of appeal against a planning permission in England. The routes left are a judicial review, which must be brought within six weeks of the decision, or a complaint to the council about how it was handled.
  • You can still comment on the details. Several conditions need further approval before work starts or before anyone moves in: drainage, the construction plan, materials, landscaping and the shop’s hours. Each one is a separate application on the planning register, and it is worth watching for them.
  • Construction problems such as noise outside permitted hours or blocked footpaths should be reported to Redbridge Council. The approved construction plan is the document to hold the developer to.
  • This was one of the last applications decided under Redbridge’s old committee rules. From 31 October, councillor call-ins and three neighbour objections no longer send a scheme to committee, as we reported in September. Our Ilford planning news page tracks the borough’s other big applications.

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