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Camden News - by DAN CARRIER
Published: 15 May 2008

Cllr Adrian Oliver

Heath mansion plan ‘totally inadequate’

Proposed routes for builders’ lorries come under fire

A BUILDER in a dayglo jacket will lead hundreds of heavy lorries along a quiet path on to Hampstead Heath if plans for a mansion in Highgate get the go-ahead.
The owners of Fitzroy Farm, a mock-Elizabethan home that faces the Highgate Ladies’ Pond, have been given permission to demolish the house and replace it with a neo-classical mansion boasting a three-storey basement.
But they must first get the Town Hall to agree to a construction statement at a meeting tonight (Thursday). It shows the plans require 25-ton lorries to remove around 6,000 cubic metres of earth from the site using either a gravel track from Millfield Lane past the Ladies’ Pond to the front of the house, or the quiet, private road called Fitzroy Park.
Builders plan to set up a parking area for lorries to wait at the top of Millfield Lane in a space used by an ice-cream van while checks are carried out to make sure the way ahead is clear.
Planning officers have recommended the scheme gets permission.
But a massive protest against the plans has garnered hundreds of signatures from Heath users, neighbours, and civic groups including the Highgate Society and the Highgate Conservation Area Advisory Committee. They fear the scheme is dangerous for pedestrians and would cause two and half years of chaos.
There are also fears the excavation could cause flooding and pollute Heath ponds.
The Highgate Society say the plan is “totally inadequate” and the path earmarked for access is incapable of taking any but the lightest traffic.
They say the alternative – along Fitzroy Park – is also unsuitable and would require the lorries to drive through private land, adding that the design was “a grostesque pastiche of Kenwood House”.
The Heath’s superintendent Simon Lee has added his weight to the protest.
He said: “Millfield Lane is used extensively and is a major gateway to the Heath, and is the main access to the Ladies’ Pond, a facility that can attract over 3,000 users on summer days.”
Highgate ward Green councillor Adrian Oliver has called for the plans to be referred back to the planning committee.
He said: “When officers first looked at this they clearly did not take into account the effect the construction would have.
“The planned building is not in keeping with the conservation area and it does not enhance it. It is a highly sensitive site and this plan should be thrown out.”
The owner of the site is registered as being a firm called Millamant Limited based in the Isle of Man, while the architects, Quinlan and Francis Terry, told the New Journal to say they had been instructed not to comment. Terry knows the area, having grown up in Hampstead and his early career was spent working with classical architect Raymond Erith who designed Jack Straw’s Castle, the former pub overlooking the Heath near Whitestone Pond.

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