Romford Road, Forest Gate 'co-living space' plan refused

The plans, from Dilawar Properties Ltd, were criticised by Newham Council planning officers who said the rooms were too small and of a "poor quality".

The officers also believed in total there would be 56 people living in the property, in Forest Gate, because each room contained a double bed.

However during a meeting of the council’s local development committee on October 28, Dilawar Properties’ representative disputed this and said only one person would be living in each room.

They also said that the accommodation, currently consisting of 16 rooms for young and vulnerable people supported by Sovereign Residential Housing, would have "no material change" and would continue housing vulnerable people.

The applicant wanted to add a number of extensions to the property (Image: Newham Council planning documents)

A planning officer disagreed and said the planning application form detailed a change in use.

The plans would have seen the property in Romford Road redeveloped to include a part-three, part-two and part-one storey rear extension as well as a roof extension to create the 28 rooms.

Under the plans, each room was set to include a double bed, a kitchenette and an en-suite shower room plus a toilet, but planning officers were concerned that the rooms would have been treated as "self-contained homes", which goes against the London Plan.

There were also concerns around the size of each of the rooms, which ranged from 14.7 sq m to 22.3 sq m, and were considerably smaller than the London Plan guidance for "large-scale, purpose-built, shared living".

Planning officers were also worried that the size of each room would be detrimental to future residents’ long-term health and wellbeing and that several rooms would not receive enough sunlight throughout the year.

During the meeting, a planning officer said: “I think there’s been a number of issues in terms of the information we’ve been provided to establish the use [of the property] – which is why there was a site visit carried out.

"We still haven’t been provided with any sort of sufficient information on exactly who the users are and what are the levels of vulnerability other than what we can tell is that there is some level of vulnerability happening there.”

A senior planning officer said information about the plans was "sadly lacking" and advised the committee to refuse the application, which they did.