Councillors back plan to demolish Woodbine Place shops

Wanstead Hairdressers has been trimming heads on Woodbine Place since 1969, according to the Ilford Recorder. Its future is now an open question, because Redbridge's planning committee has approved plans to demolish the low row of shops it sits in, according to reports of the meeting.

That's despite 83 public objections, and one from the council's own heritage officer. The application, reference 3335/25, went to the Planning Committee on Wednesday 14 October at Ilford Town Hall. Wansteadium reported the following week that councillors had "given the go-ahead". We found no published minutes or decision notice, so we can't give the vote or the final conditions. What follows comes from the officer report and its addendum, published before the meeting.

The site is 12 to 15 Woodbine Place, behind the mock-Tudor corner building at 32 High Street, opposite Christchurch Green. The officer report lists the occupiers as two estate agents and, along Woodbine Place, a takeaway, a hairdresser and a children's clothing shop.

The applicant, named as Mr Meskauskas, wants to knock down the single-storey rear buildings and put up:

• four ground-floor commercial units, about 90 square metres in total (three there now);
• about 230 square metres of offices on the first and second floors, with 37 fixed desks and two meeting rooms;
• a lift, internal cycle storage and a bin store; and
• no car parking.

It would stand 9.25 metres to the ridge, in brick with Portland stone detailing and a tiled mansard-style roof. The application went in on 27 November 2025, and amended plans in September cut the height by 0.35 metres. The corner building stays.

That corner building is the one with history. No. 32 is "believed to date back to the sixteenth century", the report says, "one of the oldest surviving buildings in Wanstead", and it's on Redbridge's local list. It got its Mock Tudor look in the 1920s. The buildings to be demolished "originally functioned as stables", and the heritage officer sees the front building as what matters: the rear has "significantly less value overall", and there's no objection in principle to losing it.

The case against

The council received 83 objections across two consultations (from 26 January for 21 days, and from 8 September for 14 days). The main themes:

• no demand for more office space in Wanstead;
• height and scale out of character with the conservation area;
• harm to the locally listed building and the setting of the listed Christ Church;
• overshadowing, noise, the bus stop and stand outside, and no parking; and
• carbon released by demolishing rather than reusing.

Objectors also questioned the accuracy of several of the applicant's statements and plans. Businesses in the units objected over leases that haven't been renewed, but the report says leases, compensation and financial impact "are not material planning considerations".

The heritage officer objected too, recording "a low level of harm to the Locally Listed Building" and "the same level of harm to the Conservation Area", because of the new building's scale, massing, design and relationship to the retained one.

Planning officers recommended approval anyway. They agreed there was harm, "at the low end of the scale", given "considerable importance and weight" and in conflict with London Plan policy HC1, but judged the public benefits outweighed it: four shops instead of three, modern office space "capable of supporting 37 or more employees", footfall in a town centre with a public transport accessibility rating of 5a (6b is best), and keeping the most important part of the locally listed building.

On the "nobody needs offices here" objection, the report says policy doesn't require a developer to show demand. It cites the council's 2016 Employment Land Review, which found Redbridge office floorspace fell about 13.8% between 2000 and 2012 but also identified a need for modern, flexible space, and concedes the review "is outdated due to its age". Design, Highways, Environmental Health and the Met's designing-out-crime officer raised no objection.

The recommended conditions:

• ground floor limited to retail and food-and-drink (Classes E(a) and E(b)), upper floors to offices;
• construction 8am to 6pm on weekdays and 8am to 1pm on Saturdays, with a construction logistics plan;
• a two-part archaeological investigation (it's an archaeological priority area); and
• Community Infrastructure Levy of £198.29 per square metre of new floorspace.

If works close the pavement, the bus stop "would be relocated or closed as required".

The barber's

For many of us this is really about one business. Wanstead Hairdressers is a family-run business, and the Ilford Recorder has named its owner as Paul Michaelides. Local reports say its future is undecided. We haven't been able to confirm that with the business, and no decision on its future has been published.

A rule change from Saturday

Under Redbridge's current rules, an application with more than three objections goes to a "Chairs Review", where the planning committee chair decides whether officers or councillors handle it. Here the chair sent it to councillors, after reviews on 12 May and 21 September, because of its complexity and local interest.

That changes on Saturday 31 October. New regulations, the Town and Country Planning (Discharge of Local Planning Authority Functions) (England) Regulations 2026, create a national scheme of delegation. According to the report to Redbridge's full council on 24 September, there will "no longer be a general right for Members to call-in applications", routine applications will go to officers, and only matters of significant economic, social or environmental significance reach committee. The council also warned that decisions not following the regulations from 31 October could face judicial review.

The next Planning Committee is on Tuesday 10 November at 7pm.