Following several years of public consultation, plans to redevelop Edgware’s tired old shopping centre and neighbouring bus station have been submitted to Barnet Council.
Ballymore bought the 1990s shopping centre in 2020, and in 2022, they signed an agreement with Transport for London (TfL) to combine their neighbouring assets into a single, larger development site.
The redevelopment, designed by Howells, proposes to deliver 3,365 new homes, including 1,150 affordable homes and 463 student accommodation spaces. The rebuilt shopping centre could double the existing commercial, retail and leisure space on the site, including a larger supermarket to replace the current one.
Space will also be provided for new health facilities such as GP surgeries, clinics and a dentist.
Around the back of the shopping centre, nearly five acres of land that was inaccessible to the public for almost 100 years when it was taken over by the railways would also be opened to the public as the new Deans Brook Nature Park.
Source – Ballymore consultation
Apart from the housing, one of the more contentious aspects of the development was the plan to move the bus garage to an underground site underneath the shopping centre. The original plan was for this to be an entirely electric bus fleet, but following concerns about battery fires, the developer says that it will be a conventional bus garage, which can be converted later once fire concerns are addressed.
Edgware is a fairly new town that was still largely fields until the 1940s. The shopping centre itself was only built 30 years ago on former railway sidings. However, there’s a lot of local opposition to the plans, mainly arguing against them as an overdevelopment of the area.
Subject to planning consent being granted, the first phase will be delivered by 2031 which includes: the new nature park, retail, leisure, cinema, around 1,000 homes, new Sainsbury’s store, office, bus station and garage as well as the library and community centre. The whole development has an anticipated completion date of 2036.
The planning application is here.