How the new tower will look

A 24-storey tower block of private housing has got the green light after a £100million-plus development was approved for the second time at the Town Hall.

Landowner Regal has applied to make “amendments” to planning permission for 100 Avenue Road in Swiss Cottage first agreed almost a decade ago.

The changes included adding 53 homes to the scheme – a total of 237, including 70 “affordable” – changing the private homes to for-sale instead of rent-only, and colouring the tower facade red.

The Winch youth centre will finally get to move into a new home alongside social housing tenants in the building next to the tower following the planning committee’s unanimous approval on Thursday.

Anthony Kay, from Save Swiss Cottage, had urged the council to consider imposing restrictions on the sale of homes to foreign investors who often leave properties empty despite the housing crisis.

He said: “The property company has a business model of selling properties overseas.

“Part of the reason for the model is that generally overseas buyers pay more. They buy earlier, and off plan. Often that leads to higher prices and the risks of money-laundering. But our main concern is with empty properties.

“Over a dozen local authorities in this country have put restrictions on the sale of all new-builds, to those wishing to occupy as a principal home.”

Alan Selwyn, from the Belsize Society, said: “The proposed red-brick facade will stick out like a rude throbbing finger. We disagree this change makes a contextual improvement, it doesn’t. Nobody in the local area supports the change in colour.”

Janine Sachs, who has campaigned against the tower for more than a decade, said: “Swiss Cottage simply cannot take the strain of a 29 per cent increase in the scheme. The proposed new 53 dwellings must be rejected.”

Belsize ward councillor Tom Simon raised concerns about a “fantasy” plan to send all delivery drivers down an underground tunnel that will open at the Eton Avenue side of Hampstead Theatre and lead to the centre of the main site.

He said: “All the servicing traffic will have to come up Winchester Road, Eton Avenue or Adamson Road.

“These are all quiet residential streets. There are a lot of schools. A hostel. There are vulnerable people. Road safety is a big issue. The idea is the delivery drivers will go through a long tunnel to get to the basement.

“It is a fantasy that all servicing traffic would do that. These people are in a hurry, they take shortcuts to get the job done, that’s because of how they get paid You are going to whizz across the site and get access through the pedestrian area. Anyone who says otherwise is living on another planet.”

Councillor Tom Simon

Cllr Simon warned daily deliveries to so many homes would disrupt the “careful equilibrium” of the “success story” of the Swiss Cottage open space.

The council’s legal adviser said enforcement was the best way to control the tunnel.

Cllr Tommy Gale asked about flooding defences and Cllr Martin Lane raised questions about the terms of the lease between Regal and the Winch.

The youth centre will be moving out of its historic home in Winchester Road, a council-owned property, into the private market after 50 years.

The charity’s chief executive Rashid Iqbal was at the Town Hall on Thursday but did not speak.

The redevelopment of 100 Avenue Road – the former offices of the Hampstead and Highgate Express – was first rejected by Camden in 2014, before being approved following an appeal and an intervention from the Secretary of State in 2016.

It was then mothballed by Essential Living, who said that costs had risen so much during the delays that it could no longer make a sufficient profit.

Regal bought the site from Essential last year for an undisclosed sum.

The new developer said the latest scheme was compliant with new fire standards set out by safety legislation post-Grenfell and would make a “significant contribution” to Camden’s housing building aims, adding: “We’ve been very clear that we have a mixed situation that some properties are bought from people overseas, some are from the UK. All go on sale in the UK. We have sales teams sat in South Hampstead, where are office is based.

“With the way projects are funded, that is a very normal process. We are in line with the residential property market in London.”

After the decision, Regal said the council had made a “real statement of intent”.