Following the dismissal of an appeal to demolish 33 Lyonsdown Road and replace it with 20 flats, we thought its future would be safe – but we were wrong. It’s scheduled for demolition on 1 October 2022. Since 2017, we’ve campaigned to save this beautiful Victorian villa, and in 2020 succeeded in getting it added to Barnet’s Local Heritage List.

Yet due to a bizarre loophole in planning law, Abbeytown Ltd, the property development arm of Martyn Gerrard estate agents, was able to apply to demolish the building without any proposal to replace it.

We sought urgent advice from a solicitor specialising in historic buildings to help formulate a detailed objection. Sadly, the planners took a different view of the case and on 22 June approved the applications.

How could this demolition be allowed?

At present, No.33 is on Barnet’s Local List, which is the lowest tier of designation for historic buildings. We’ve twice applied to Historic England for it to be added to the National List, without success.

Unfortunately, unless locally listed buildings are in conservation areas, they’re not immune to Permitted Development Rights, which have been greatly expanded by the government in recent years and do not require full planning applications. The shocking decision to allow the demolition of 33 Lyonsdown Road was made, Barnet Council has admitted, ‘by default’. It was not taken on the merits of the case, nor was it referred to the Planning Committee; nor were Councillors informed.

Local residents and national conservation bodies including The Victorian Society and SAVE Britain’s Heritage are horrified that the Council is allowing demolition of one of the finest buildings in New Barnet. The case has featured twice in Private Eye.

The situation is also an embarrassment to Barnet’s new Labour Council. For it to lose a building on the Local List, with the needless release of embodied carbon that demolition would cause, soon after it declared a climate emergency is not the start it would have wanted.

Events since permission for demolition

We took legal advice on the available options but concluded that we did not have sufficient funds for judicial review.

On 11 August, several of us met two senior planners and all three Barnet Vale ward Councillors to express our concerns about the way demolition had been approved. We explained why we considered the decision to be unsound. The councillors were also upset that they hadn’t been notified.

We reminded the planners that we had urged them to give protection for 33 Lyonsdown Road by means of an Article 4 Direction as long ago as February 2021, when the last planning application was refused. This would have closed off the Permitted Development route and is used routinely in conservation areas. Councils around the country have imposed, or are in the process of imposing, Article 4 Directions to prevent demolition. The planners and Councillors agreed to consider similar action in Barnet.

Theresa Villiers MP attended a demonstration outside No 33 in August. She has also written asking the developers for a meeting

We’ve written an open letter to Abbeytown to ask them to consider the scope for a conversion scheme. Theresa Villiers MP has also stepped in. In August she attended a protest outside No.33 and wrote asking for a meeting with the developers. To date, there has been no response to her or our approaches.

Alternative scheme

The Society has argued all along that this striking landmark building with its elegant interiors and rich history should not be demolished but repaired and converted to flats. We, local residents and the property guardians who lived there until last year are convinced that such a well-built house could be repaired. There’s scope for a sympathetic new-build element in the garden among the splendid trees. All agree that another block of flats is not what we want to see.

Simon Kaufman, who is an architect as well as a Committee Member of the Society, generously offered his services – at short notice and pro bono – to sketch a scheme along these lines. His bird’s-eye view is illustrated below.

Find out more about Simon and his work at www.simonkaufmanarchitects.com (contact: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.)

In a 16-page report, Simon analyses the existing building and its potential for conversion, showing that it could accommodate 6 to 8 flats while retaining most of its impressive interiors. He also demonstrates that a further 7 to 9 flats could be built in a new building in the garden – a potential total of 17 flats. That’s almost the same quantity that Abbeytown proposed in their last (unsuccessful) planning application, but with the bonus that the proportion of high-end ‘period’ refurbished flats would fetch a premium.

Simon’s indicative appraisal shows that, when taking into account demolition costs and additional sales value of homes in the historic building, the overall financial margin for his scheme is very similar to – if not better than – the 2020 proposal. Moreover, by setting the new-build to the side of, and behind, the existing building and at a lower height, the quality and character of the original villa would be unimpaired. The new building would be sympathetic to its venerable neighbour in both materials and details.

Although building in the garden would entail the loss of a small number of trees, the damage to the neighbourhood would be substantially less than Abbeytown proposed and far more likely to receive community support.

We sent a copy of Simon’s report to Abbeytown.

The importance of this case

Conserving our architectural and natural heritage is a core Society priority. We’re proud of having nominated many architecturally and historically significant buildings for the Local List. When the demolition of No.33 was approved, we realised the same could happen to many others on the List.

What next?

The Society waits with interest to see Abbeytown’s or Martyn Gerrard’s reaction to our alternative scheme. We stand ready to help take this to the next stage. Planning officers told us they would welcome a pre-application discussion of an alternative scheme.

We are also continuing to press the Council to impose an Article 4 Direction protecting buildings which are on the Local List but outside conservation areas from demolition.