Redbridge's Planning Committee approved nine flats at 142 Hermon Hill on 16 September by 5 votes to 3, then legal advice voided the vote. Councillors vote again on 14 October, alongside the Granville Road HMO.

Updated 8 November: the council’s draft minutes of the 14 October meeting, published with the 10 November agenda, record that the motions to grant 142 Hermon Hill and to refuse 13 Granville Road were each proposed and seconded “and the vote carried”. They do not give the number of votes either way.

Updated 29 October: Redbridge granted permission for the Woodbine Place shops and offices in Wanstead on 23 October, with 16 conditions. Read the update.

Updated 22 October: Redbridge granted permission for 142 Hermon Hill on 19 October, with 26 conditions, including no parking permits for new residents. Read the decision.

Updated 18 October: the council refused permission for 13 Granville Road on 15 October, against officers’ advice, citing parking and the intensified comings and goings. Read the decision.

Redbridge’s Planning Committee approved nine flats on the old Fir Trees pub site at 142 Hermon Hill, South Woodford, on 16 September by five votes to three. Then the council’s legal officer told the meeting the vote did not count. The application is back in front of councillors at 7pm on Wednesday 14 October, listed “for vote only”.

That is the account in the draft minutes of the September meeting, published this week with the agenda for 14 October. The same agenda brings back the Granville Road shared house in Ilford, which the committee voted nine to two against its officers’ advice, and a new scheme of shops and offices at Woodbine Place in Wanstead.

How the September vote fell apart

The minutes record 26 members of the public at the meeting. Three residents spoke against the Hermon Hill scheme and the applicant’s representative spoke for it. Councillor B. Brewer spoke against it as a ward member. Members discussed air pollution, safety on Hermon Hill, noise and the privacy of neighbours overlooked by balconies.

Then came the votes:

  • The first vote on the officers’ recommendation to grant was 4 for, 4 against and 3 abstentions, so it was not carried.
  • Under the council’s constitution the chair, Councillor G. Williams, had a casting vote. He chose to abstain.
  • A second vote was taken. It went 5 for, 3 against and 3 abstentions, and the minutes say the officers’ recommendation “was approved subject to the conditions as set out in the report”.
  • Following legal advice, the second vote was treated as invalid “because the motion had not been formally proposed and seconded”. Consideration of the application was deferred to the next available meeting.
Bar chart of the two votes on application 1822/25 at Redbridge Planning Committee on 16 September 2026: first vote 4 for, 4 against, 3 abstain; second vote 5 for, 3 against, 3 abstain, later ruled invalid
The two votes on 142 Hermon Hill on 16 September, from the draft minutes. The second was ruled invalid. Chart by Ilford Today.
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South Woodford is about three miles north west of Ilford town centre.

What the committee is voting on

The scheme has not changed since September. The officer report republished for 14 October still recommends that permission be granted. It proposes:

  • nine flats above a new ground-floor commercial unit: four with three bedrooms, five with two
  • a 334 square metre commercial unit, which officers assess as a small supermarket, replacing the 285 square metre restaurant
  • five car parking spaces in place of the 14 on the site now
  • cycle stands for at least nine bikes and a 61 square metre communal terrace

The council received 124 objections and three comments in support. Our report on the September hearing sets out the objections and the officers’ answers in full.

The agenda lists the item as “For Vote Only - 1822/25”. The council has not published what that means for public speaking on the night. If you want to speak, ask the Committee Support Officer named on the agenda before the deadline below.

Granville Road: four reasons, and officers answer each one

The other unfinished business is 13 Granville Road in Ilford, a former children’s home that has been run as a shared house for up to 24 people in 18 households since April 2024 without permission. The applicant is Halo Property Services Ltd. Our September report explains the background.

On 16 September members voted 9 against and 2 for the officers’ recommendation to grant. They then discussed their reasons for refusal and agreed to adjourn the item.

The follow-up report for 14 October says the recommendation to grant “remains unchanged”. It lists four reasons for refusal that members raised, confirmed with the chair and vice chair, and gives the officers’ view on each:

  • Loss of a children’s home. Not an appropriate reason, officers say, because the council’s own Children’s Services team had no objection. Its consultation response said the building “likely has not been operating as one for some time”.
  • Highways. The council’s highways team objected because no on-street parking survey was submitted. Officers draft a possible reason on that basis, but note the site has at least six off-street spaces and that national policy only supports refusal for a “severe adverse impact” on the network.
  • Policy LP6 1(a) of the Local Plan, which supports shared houses in town centres. Officers accept the site is outside one, but say the policy’s purpose is to protect family homes and keep intensive uses near transport. This was never a family home, and the site has a public transport accessibility level of 4.
  • The retrospective breach. The 2026 National Planning Policy Framework gives substantial weight to whether a breach was intentional. Officers say that informs the planning balance rather than being a reason in itself, but they draft a reason members could use, citing the “intensified pattern of independent occupation, trips, comings and goings”.

The report ends with a warning that reads as advice to a committee minded to refuse: “Members should be clear that there is sufficient evidence to support any conclusion they reach.”

The last committee under the old rules

Also on the agenda is the application for a three-storey block of four shops and offices behind the sixteenth-century corner building at Wanstead High Street and Woodbine Place, which drew 83 objections. We cover it in our Woodbine Place report.

This is the last Planning Committee before Redbridge’s new rules take effect on 31 October. From then, three neighbour objections or a councillor’s call-in will no longer force an application to a public hearing, as we reported in September. The next meeting is on 10 November.

What it means for you

  • To speak on Granville Road or Woodbine Place, contact the Committee Support Officer, Margaret Herring, on 020 8708 2159 by 5pm on Tuesday 13 October, the working day before the meeting. Up to three people may speak on each application, and the applicant has a right of reply. The council’s planning committee page sets out the rules.
  • The meeting is public, at 7pm in the Council Chamber at the Town Hall, 128 to 142 High Road, Ilford IG1 1DD.
  • A September “approval” was not a decision. If you are a neighbour of 142 Hermon Hill, the application is still undetermined until the committee votes properly on 14 October.
  • Our Ilford planning news page explains why Redbridge’s housing delivery record weighs on every decision like these.

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