Police Station To Flats
Harpenden, Hertfordshire
A 1990s police station in a conservation area, wrapped in policy protections and a restrictive covenant. We mapped the planning route before sketching the flats.
The Challenge
The former Harpenden Police Station sits in the town's conservation area, next to locally listed buildings, with a restrictive covenant limiting the site to community uses. As a police station it is a Sui Generis use, so any change of use needs full planning permission, and the emerging Local Plan protects community infrastructure through Policy SP7. The question was whether residential conversion was realistic at all.
Our Approach
We produced a planning appraisal covering the adopted and emerging Local Plans and the Neighbourhood Plan, the conservation area appraisal, and the site's planning history. The key test is Policy SP7: a change of use must show the police function has been re-provided or is no longer required, which the evidence supports. With the building only around 30 years old, reuse scored better than redevelopment, so we sketched flat layouts within the existing envelope, colour-coded by use, respecting daylight to the neighbouring office building.
The Outcome
The appraisal concluded that a case could be made for residential and other town-centre uses, subject to the SP7 test and the covenant, and flagged the lack of outside amenity space as the main design constraint for housing. The sketch scheme shows how flats fit the existing building. The client went into negotiations knowing exactly which hurdles matter and in what order.
The Drawings