Meadow Park cafe plan: 67 more spaces, 10 trees to go

Hertsmere’s planning committee decides on Thursday 20 August whether Meadow Park gets a cafe with public toilets, a rebuilt Brook Road car park with 67 more spaces than it has now, a new tree lined pedestrian entrance, extra lighting and additional CCTV. Officers recommend approval, in the report published with the agenda, but with a condition that has not yet been met: the council’s own tree consultant lodged a holding objection eight days ago and has not withdrawn it.

The applicant is Hertsmere Borough Council itself, which owns and runs the park, and that is the reason the application (reference 26/0166/FUL) goes to committee at all rather than being decided by officers. The site covers 0.92 hectares in Borehamwood Cowley Hill ward. It is not Green Belt, not in a conservation area, and carries no tree preservation order.

What is actually proposed

The car park is the bigger change. The existing Brook Road car park would be remodelled to take in part of the former bowling green and the space around it, creating two car parks of roughly 4,654 and 2,216 square metres. The report’s executive summary puts the total at 211 bays, 198 standard and 13 accessible, of which 10 standard bays would have electric vehicle charging points. The car parking management statement submitted with the application splits that as 141 spaces in the north car park, seven of them accessible, and 69 in the south, five accessible and 10 with EV charging. Those two summaries differ by one space, which the committee may want clarified.

Either way, the net effect is an increase. The report states the layout offers “a further 67 available spaces” over what is there today. Hertsmere’s own 2014 parking standards would require 44 spaces for the tennis courts, basketball court, multi use games area and interactive sports court built in the recent phases, plus 14 for the cafe, a combined 58, so the scheme covers its own demand with room to spare.

A secure fenced route for football spectators runs along the north boundary of the car park, closest to Boreham Wood FC’s ground. The report sets the scheme in the context of the council’s Meadow Park concept plan dated August 2021, which also covers the club’s work towards English Football League ground requirements, the completed phase 1 and 2 improvements, and possible future changing rooms and a BMX track.

The cafe is deliberately modest. It has an internal floor area of about 97 square metres in a building of roughly 130, indoor seating for around 22 people and partially covered outdoor seating for 30 to 34. It contains three fully accessible toilets, two of them reachable from outside the cafe so park users do not have to buy anything to use them. The report is explicit that it “is intended to be an ancillary facility to the play area, Splash Park and other existing park facilities, and not a standalone destination”. A council officer’s consultation response describes the likely offer as “akin to a Costa selling ice cream”, with warming equipment and refrigeration rather than a commercial kitchen, and the applicant has confirmed no specialist extraction will be needed.

The tree question is not settled

Ten trees would be felled to make the scheme work. There is no room on site to replace them one for one in the same places, so the applicant proposes to plant 47 new trees instead, and officers judge that this delivers an overall net gain in tree numbers. A minimum 10 per cent biodiversity net gain is required, and the report notes some of it may have to be secured off site.

Place Services, the Essex County Council team that advises Hertsmere on trees, does not yet accept the case. It objected on 20 April, saying the tree survey did not assess the impact of the plans on the tree stock, and objected again on 6 August. Its second response is sharper: the arboricultural impact assessment “does not adequately demonstrate that opportunities to integrate and retain the existing trees have been fully explored”, and it points to an internal contradiction, a report that says the proposal “will not impact on any retained trees” while also setting out pruning and resurfacing works inside the root protection areas of specific trees and a hedge. The consultant suggests permeable surfacing and load bearing cellular confinement could save more of them.

Officers say the required documents have now been submitted and that Place Services’ final comments will reach councillors either on the update sheet or verbally at the meeting. The formal recommendation is to grant permission “subject to conditions, and subject to no further objections made by Place Services Arboriculture”. In plain terms, if the tree consultant maintains its objection, the recommendation as written no longer applies.

What neighbours said

Hertsmere notified 167 neighbours. Four responded, all objecting, none in support. Their concerns were practical rather than hostile: how many spaces would be lost, whether staff and patients at a nearby practice would keep the permits they pay for, whether school parents could still use the car park at drop off and collection, and whether the revised entry and exit arrangement reintroduces the old conflict of traffic turning right in and right out at the same point. One objector suggested angled bays rather than 90 degree ones, on the grounds that larger vehicles struggle.

Officers reply that capacity increases rather than falls, that Hertfordshire County Council as highway authority “does not wish to restrict the grant of permission”, and that the design and access statement states existing permits will apply to the redeveloped car park. The scheme is not liable for the Community Infrastructure Levy.

Five other decisions the same night

Meadow Park is one of six applications on the agenda, and all six carry a positive officer recommendation. The heaviest is at Elstree, where up to 17,000 square metres of flexible industrial, storage and distribution floorspace is proposed on 5.57 hectares of grassland and rough pasture on the south side of Dagger Lane (25/1108/OUT). The land is in the Metropolitan Green Belt, but officers conclude it meets the National Planning Policy Framework’s definition of grey belt, which means the development “would not constitute inappropriate development in the Green Belt” and no very special circumstances test applies. They cite a Hertsmere employment assessment projecting a net requirement of about 14,428 square metres of industrial floorspace by 2041, driven by demand for logistics space.

That one drew a broader response: 367 neighbours notified, six objections and none in support, plus formal objections from Aldenham Parish Council, which cites loss of Green Belt, proximity to Aldenham Country Park, loss of Grade 3 agricultural land and traffic, and from CPRE Hertfordshire. The recommendation is to delegate approval subject to a section 106 agreement and to refer the application to the Secretary of State to consider calling it in. Details on the Dagger Lane report run to hundreds of pages.

The rest, as the agenda sets out: 26 to 30 Theobald Street in Borehamwood, a variation of the design, siting, materials and noise conditions on an already approved scheme (25/1512/VOC); Bhaktivedanta Manor at Aldenham, refurbishment of the Goshala building, new agricultural barns and a glasshouse (25/0138/FUL); Haberdashers’ Girls’ School on Aldenham Road, a 3G synthetic pitch with fencing and new natural turf pitches (25/1774/FUL); and land south east of the electricity station on Hilfield Lane, a permanent access road and two landscaped bunds (25/1463/FUL).

What it means for you

The meeting starts at 6pm on Thursday 20 August at the Civic Offices, Elstree Way, Borehamwood WD6 1WA, and it is open to the public.

To speak on an application, you have to telephone the council on 020 8207 7550 between 10am and 4pm on the day of the meeting. Only one person may speak in favour of an application and one against, each gets three minutes, and requests are handled first come, first served, so ring as soon as the line opens. Seating is guaranteed only for registered speakers. If you would rather watch, the council confirms that planning meetings are filmed and broadcast live and stay on the website for six months.

The neighbour consultation on 26/0166/FUL ran earlier in the year, and the four objections above are the ones councillors will have in front of them. What can still change the outcome is the update sheet, which the agenda says may be issued after the main papers to cover additional information, and which officers have said may carry Place Services’ final tree comments.

If you use Brook Road for the school run or for the park, expect construction disruption at some point after any approval. The car park would be rebuilt in a park that stays open, and the report does not fix a start date. Our Borehamwood roadworks and parking page lists every Hertsmere car park and its tariff, and Borehamwood planning news tracks the bigger picture, including the 16,160 homes the borough must plan for and the next draft local plan due before the end of December.