A housing development at a hospital site in Edgware will be used to fund new facilities including a breast-screening unit.

NHS Property Services won outline permission to build 129 homes in blocks up to seven storeys high at Edgware Community Hospital in Burnt Oak Broadway.

Income from the scheme – which will involve demolishing disused buildings that are classed as “surplus to the operational needs of the hospital” – will be used to provide a “modern, fit-for-purpose breast screening facility” used to check for cancer, with the current building described in a council planning report as in “very poor condition”.

Barnet Council’s strategic planning committee gave the go-ahead to the scheme during a meeting on Thursday. The council had received 26 written objections from members of the public and one letter of support, but no-one spoke in opposition to the development during the meeting.

A financial viability assessment carried out as part of the planning process concluded no affordable homes could be delivered on the scheme, due partly to “significant infrastructure costs”. 

However, the council could decide to exempt the developer from paying a charge used to fund local infrastructure, which would allow 10% of the homes to be provided as affordable units.

Speaking during the meeting, Paul Burley, a planning consultant acting on behalf of NHS Property Services, said the aim of the scheme was to “begin the process of enhancing and consolidating parts of the hospital to help secure improvements for staff and patients”.

He said that many services are currently “spread right across the site”, making them “difficult to operate” and hard for patients to “navigate around”. Paul added: “Many health providers […] are operating from poor-quality and outdated buildings, which results in high running costs and low-quality patient experience.”

But Labour’s Claire Farrier raised concerns over the size of the scheme – which she said was “higher than anything else” in the area – and the lack of affordable homes. She asked if more affordable homes could be provided on a further phase of the development planned for the eastern part of the hospital site.

Paul replied that the eastern side of the site was “quite challenging in terms of flood risk” and there were “viability considerations in terms of the height we go to”. He added: “We are looking to see if we can get an appropriate balance so we can deliver affordable housing in that phase and also make the best use of the land, because we don’t want to be under-providing housing.”

Responding to the size of the blocks, Paul said that while the scheme would be “taller than the prevailing height”, the “very good levels of public transport” and the “lack of impact” from the buildings on daylight and sunlight levels indicated that the development was “suitable”.

Following the debate, Conservative committee members, the Liberal Democrats’ Gabriel Rozenberg and Labour’s Tim Roberts and Laurie Williams voted in favour of the scheme. Cllr Farrier voted against.