Barnet Council has postponed a decision on the redevelopment of a health centre to allow for further talks with the NHS.

Plans to demolish Temple Fortune Health Centre and build a replacement medical facility plus 11 flats for private sale were due to be considered by a planning committee on Wednesday (July 26).

Town hall planning chiefs had recommended the scheme for approval but subsequently withdrew it from the agenda.

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Following the meeting, the council said it was deferred “to allow further time for the applicant to consider revision to the replacement health centre element of the scheme in consultation with the NHS North Central London Integrated Care Board”.

The plans would see the existing two-storey 1970s-built property in Temple Fortune Lane replaced by a four-storey block containing a new health centre on the ground floor with flats above it and 17 parking spaces in the basement.

Doctors Leora Harverd and Karen Myers, the GP partners who applied for the redevelopment, claimed it would provide a “better-equipped” surgery and had been “carefully designed” to protect neighbours. They said the housing was needed to fund the new medical centre.

But the council has so far received 87 objections to the plans, with opponents saying the scheme would overlook homes, block out sunlight and daylight, and add to parking and congestion problems in nearby streets.

Others praised the design of the existing building and pointed out that the new medical centre would be smaller than the current one.

Further concerns include the absence of affordable housing, loss of trees, and fears that the scale of the development would harm nearby Hampstead Garden Suburb Conservation Area.

Despite the objections, council planning chiefs wrote in their report that the scheme would have “an acceptable impact” on the area and there would be no “adverse impact” on neighbours.

A separate application to build a three-storey care home in West Heath Road, Childs Hill, was also deferred to a future meeting of the committee.

The council said this was “due to late representation being received highlighting outstanding concerns regarding trees, which the council’s principal tree officer is now reviewing”.