HUNDREDS of family homes and much-needed jobs will be created on the Kodak site if its phased transformation into a brand new neighbourhood is approved by councillors.
Outline plans to build a mix of 985 homes along with industrial units, shops, community facilities and cafes during a decade-long project on the site in Harrow View have been submitted to Harrow Council by developers Land Securities.
If granted, the first two phases to be developed will be a 10-acre already cleared swathe of land in the south-eastern corner nearest Harrow Crown Court and fronting Headstone Drive, and the 20 acres on the other side of Harrow View occupied by vacant sports centre Zoom Leisure, its car park and its playing fields.
The remainder, largely occupied by the existing Kodak factory, could be developed in the future if the land becomes available.
Stephen Neal, development director at Land Securities, said: “Over the last year or year and a half, we have been evolving a masterplan for the project and going through a process of working with the local community and stakeholders to develop that masterplan.
“Last week we applied for outline planning permission for the site and that’s a key milestone.
“The site is transforming from being what has been a factory for a long time which hasn’t allowed people into it into something which will be open to the public.”
He said Land Securities wanted to ensure all the community infrastructure was in place before residents moved in, which is why the south-eastern plot will boast a health centre, a community centre, a care home, offices, a parade of shops and a space for a supermarket along with student housing and some sort of leisure facility.
“We’re talking about a whole new area of Harrow,” said Mr Neal. “The assumption is it will take around 10 years from start to finish.
“The phasing depends on the market and how much demand there is for housing and offices.
“The masterplan doesn’t drive Kodak down any particular route and allows them to have a different amount of space: Kodak may choose to change what it does on site and so what parts of the site they can dispose of, and when.”
That means carefully balancing the development of the new housing with the potential demolition of redundant parts of the Kodak factory.
“We want people to find they are in a completed area and not a construction site,” Mr Neal said.
Details such as the layout, scale, appearance, access and landscaping for the proposed buildings, and how they will be brought to market will be explained in a reserved matters application to come once the outline applicaton is approved.
Mr Neal said: “With the outline application, we’re keeping it as flexible as possible but we have made assumptions about the number of units and how they are divided up.
“Initially, it’s orientated towards family housing rather than apartments. The mix varies from detached to semi-detached to a large number of terraced houses.”
It is envisaged the iconic chimney of the Kodak factory and the turbine room from which it rises, will be kept and converted into a cafe.
Respondents to the consultation identified the structure as an important historic symbol of the area.
A new housing estate of this size would ordinarily generate enough demand for a one-form entry primary school whereas Land Securities has planned for a three-form entry primary school at the north-end of the eastern half of the site whose sporting facilities would be made available to the public.
A tree-lined pedestrianised walkway connecting Harrow Museum and Heritage Centre and Headstone Manor Recreation Ground to Headstone Drive, known as the Green Link, will run through the middle of the site.
The fencing around Headstone Recreation Ground will be removed so the more luxurious houses at the western end of what is currently Zoom Leisure will have a view out over a new feature lake, which doubles as a drainge solution, and Headstone Manor and its surroundings.
Local football teams are currently using the Zoom Leisure pitches while the centre itself has shut and Mr Neal said: “We are working with Kodak FC and Harrow Council to find the club a new home and we have identified a series of possibilities, and there is an opportunity to create new sports pitches on the Kodak site.”
Mr Neal said it has not been decided what percentage of homes would be affordable or whether in lieu of making low-rent accommodation available on site the developers will pay a sum of money for off-site provision.
“We’re working with Harrow to prioritise where the benefit should actually lie. We’re trying to keep as many options open as possible,” he said.
The Kodak site lies within an identified intensification area covering Harrow town centre, Station Road and Wealdstone that has been chosen to house the majority of Harrow’s allocation of new homes and jobs needed in the next 15 years.
Mr Neal said: “The targets of the Heart of Harrow area action plan are 3,000 jobs and 2,500 homes, and we’re providing 985 homes and generating about new 1,500 jobs – that doesn’t include the existing Kodak employees.
“The benefit is that we’re going to do this early on in the timeline.
“The area action plan is looking up to 2026 and the south-eastern corner site is cleared and ready to go and, depending on all the assumptions, we will try to start on site in spring 2013.”
n What do you think? Contact chief reporter Ian Proctor on 07793 114820 or e-mail ianproctor@trinitysouth.co.uk
