A proposed care home site in Hampstead has been sold to a new developer
Home care provider Kyn has purchased 84 West Heath Road from Harrison Varma Projects.
A planning application was submitted to Barnet Council on August 1 to demolish the former care home and school and replace it with five storey care home with 80 bedrooms.
Objections listed on Barnet's planning portal say its "size and density are completely out of keeping with the rest of the area" and highlight "significant traffic problems in an already busy road".
Neighbours said they were bemused to receive a consultation letter in February, then again in June, then gain six weeks later, not knowing the site had been sold.
Beatrix Moran said that the impact of this "huge redevelopment on local residents is that traffic and road safety and mature trees, and the significant overshadowing and lack of privacy, along with the facts that it is hugely oversized, is out of keeping with the local area."
Neighbour Bernard Freeman, a care home operator since 1997, said: "If he's going to put in an application for a care home, you've got to factor in incredibly different dynamics.
"You've got visitors, a whole load of professionals coming in, you've got a whole lot of staff that change two or three times a day, so a high volume of traffic.
"Deliveries in a care home are significant, particularly waste products and recycling on a daily basis and if they're going to get a care home, of something like 80 beds, that's an enormous amount of volume.
"How are they going to find parking for visitors and friends, and how will they get to the site?
"The build out will take two to three years and they've got to deliver stuff there that will be hugely inaccessible.
"We really are concerned about this."
David Roe, Kyn's origination, land and planning director, said: "The council has recently written to local residents in the area asking for their views on revised plans for a new care home at 84 West Heath Road.
"Should these plans secure planning permission from the council in the coming months, Kyn looks forward to delivering an attractive and sustainable new care home which meets an important local need."
The application at www.barnet.gov.uk has reference 22/3958/FUL.
Comments: Our rules
We want our comments to be a lively and valuable part of our community - a place where readers can debate and engage with the most important local issues. The ability to comment on our stories is a privilege, not a right, however, and that privilege may be withdrawn if it is abused or misused.
Please report any comments that break our rules.
Read the rules here