Abney Park Trust slams Stoke Newington greengrocer’s expansion plans

Divided: plans to expand greengrocer’s will have a ‘detrimental’ effect on the heritage of the adjacent park buildings, says Abney Park Trust. Photograph: Google Streetview

Abney Park Trust is up in arms over a greengrocer’s plan to extend his shop, which is adjoined to the Grade II-listed entrance gates to the memorial park.

The owner of Nature, a fruit and vegetable shop on Stoke Newington High Street, wants to fling up a two-storey extension with a new mansard roof on top.

But the site is in the Stoke Newington Conservation Area, which comprises Stoke Newington High Street, Church Street, Abney Park cemetery and many historic and listed buildings.

Abney Park is a woodland memorial park and local nature reserve, owned and managed by the London Borough of Hackney.

The park is noted for its flora and is the home of birds, bats and butterflies.

Educational and community events at the park are organised by Abney Park Trust. The charitable trust claims the greengrocer’s extension plans will nibble away at the character of the area.

A spokesperson for Abney Park Trust said: “The proposals in the application do not respect, are detrimental to and make no positive contribution to the architectural, historic quality and character of the existing lodges and gates.

“Abney Park Trust – which was only notified about this planning application last week – will be objecting to [the planning application] on the grounds that the building is attached to and forms part of the curtilage of the Grade II-listed main entrance gates and lodges to Abney Park cemetery.”

The proposals were submitted to Hackney Council by Pinnacle Architecture Ltd on behalf of the greengrocer.

A spokesperson for the architects said: “The proposed application was amended from the initial submission to provide a development that completely visually complied with the extant adjacent and abutting terrace of properties, by continuing the roof-line through at the same level. Therefore [it] was able to fit in with the original terrace of properties.

“It is, therefore, strongly contended that the amended proposal clearly respects the architectural and historic integrity of the original terrace of properties and respects the architectural and historical character and quality of the extant lodges and gates.”

Abney Park cemetery is on Historic England’s Register of Parks and Gardens with special historic interest. The gothic-style church at the heart of the cemetery was built in 1839 and is surrounded by 200,000 graves, including those of William Booth, founder of the Salvation Army, and Betsi Cadwaladr, known as ‘the forgotten Florence Nightingale’.

Since the chapel fell into severe disrepair, it has been fenced off to the public in recent years. Hackney Council and Historic England in January submitted an application to restore it before a public reopening.

Hackney Council cannot comment on a live planning application.