Detailed plans support a planning application seeking full planning permission for the development of unit 7 Staples Corner Retail Park, Geron Way which is currently leased to Flip Out Brent Cross, a children’s indoor adventure playground.
Plans have been submitted to the London Borough of Barnet seeking full planning permission for its redevelopment.
Proposals seek to construct a 26-storey tower alongside a mezzanine portion, this would step down to the north-west of the site to parts 11 and 10 upper floors to form a wider S-shaped built form along a southeast-northwest axis
Contained within the proposed tower would be 844 purpose-built student accommodation (PBSA) rooms, arranged as a mix of ‘cluster flats’ and studios with 85 rooms with 10% being wheelchair accessible.
Of the total 844 PBSA rooms, 35%, or 295 rooms would be secured as affordable student accommodation, and 51%, or 429 rooms (including the 35% affordable), would be dedicated to a Higher Education Provider through a nomination agreement, the remaining 415 rooms would be market student accommodation.
This would be supplemented by the provision of 4 flexible commercial ground floor spaces fronting Geron Way.
The site is located directly adjacent to the new Brent Cross West Station, within the heart of the Brent Cross West (Staples Corner) Growth Area, and within the centre of the wider regeneration occurring or planned to occur within the wider Brent Cross and Staples Corner areas within the London Borough of Barnet and Brent.
Proposals also seek to capitalise on the emerging Astir’s vision for the Site to deliver a best-in-class PBSA development, that seeks to meet or exceed student cluster around the new Sheffield Hallam satellite campus due to open by Autumn 2026.
The current preferred operator for the development is Homes for Students. The operator has over 40,000 studios and rooms and is also the preferred operator for Sheffield Hallam’s student accommodation.
Barnet Council is well advanced in the production of a new replacement Local Plan, with a likelihood that the new Local Plan will be adopted in 2024. The Council recently consulted on Main Modifications to the Draft Local Plan between 7 May – 18 June 2024.
While the contents of the draft Local Plan may be subject to final adjustments, the strategy and development requirements for Brent Cross West (Staples Corner) are enshrined in the new Development Plan.
The Draft Plan recognises that Brent Cross West Railway Station is being delivered and allocates 1,800 new homes (with the potential for more when the West London Orbital is delivered), to be delivered between 2031 and 2036 in a new Brent Cross West (Staples Corner) Growth Area that includes the subject Site.
The applicant has commissioned a detailed Need and Demand Analysis for student accommodation to support the development proposals. This report, prepared by Knight Frank, highlights several key findings that justify the need for additional student housing in this area.
- 6,487 full-time students are living within a 1.5-mile radius and 34,796 within a 3-mile radius of the Site
- Notably, Middlesex University, the largest institution in the immediate area, hosts 15,154 full-time students, with a substantial proportion of these students residing near the site.
- The number of full-time students living in the catchment area has increased by 27.6% since 2017/18.
- Despite this growth, the supply of PBSA remains limited, with only 413-bed spaces within a 1.5-mile radius and 7,936-bed spaces within a 3-mile radius, representing just 6.4% and 22.8% of the student population, respectively.
The applicant has appointed architects GML to produce design and access proposals for the site.
Any details about a draft S106 / CIL agreement were not available at the time of publication.
We have previously published articles about another similarly tall PBSA tower within Brent Cross Town, which is currently under construction and set to open in time for the start of the next academic year.
