Officers back a permanent building at Sunnyside Community Gardens, N19, replacing the shipping container used since a 2013 arson. Councillors decide on 3 September.
Islington planning officers have recommended approval for a permanent community building at Sunnyside Community Gardens in Hazellville Road, N19. The charity has been working out of a rusting shipping container and a row of metal sheds since its last building was destroyed by arson in 2013.
Planning Sub Committee B decides on Thursday 3 September. It is the only application on the agenda. (Islington Council, agenda for Planning Sub Committee B, 3 September 2026)
The application, reference P2025/2399/FUL, is in the name of Anna Portch of Sunnyside Community Gardens, a registered charity, number 1092031. It would demolish the existing structures and put up a single storey building for community use, with new landscaping and changed entrances. (Islington Council, committee report)
What the building would contain
The officer report sets out a total internal floor area of 96 square metres, made up of:
- volunteer space, 53 square metres
- a separate entrance, 13 square metres
- an accessible WC and shower, 8 square metres
- a second WC, 3 square metres
- an office, 9 square metres
- tool storage, 6 square metres
Counting external walls, the building measures 114 square metres. That is 57 square metres more than the temporary structures it replaces.
The roof would slope south to carry sixteen 350W solar panels. The report says those panels would cut the development’s emissions rate by 22.98% against the insulation-only baseline. The walls would use reclaimed bricks, and the design keeps space for a future mural on the face looking onto Elthorne Park.
Proposed opening hours are 9am to 10pm Monday to Saturday, and 9am to 8pm on Sundays and bank holidays. The report says the building is likely to be used for fewer hours than that. Listed uses include volunteer gardening sessions, therapeutic horticulture, shared meals, training and craft activities, with monthly plant sales and bike maintenance sessions planned for the wider neighbourhood.
The site has burned twice
Before 1978 the site held terraced housing and a pub. After demolition it sat derelict and was used for fly-tipping. Local volunteers and school groups cleared it in 1978, and a permanent ecology centre was approved in September 1992. That building was destroyed in the 2013 arson attack, and the charity has used temporary structures ever since.
It happened again last year. The charity says its wooden toilet block was set on fire on the evening of Friday 2 May 2025, and that it does not know whether this was vandalism or an accident. Manager Anna Portch said at the time: “It is such a shame that this has happened just when our volunteers’ hard work is paying off and the gardens look so beautiful. We really just need to get a proper volunteer building.” (Sunnyside Community Gardens)
Four months later the gardens took Gold and first prize for Best Community Garden 2025 at Islington In Bloom, on 22 September 2025.
Nobody objected, but the police raised a concern
The council sent 176 notification letters on 3 September 2025 and put up site notices on Sunnyside Road and Hazellville Road. Four responses came back, all in support. Both Hillrise ward councillors and Jeremy Corbyn MP sent letters of support with the application.
The council’s own design and conservation officer called it “an outstanding scheme”. Its tree officer raised no objection, noting that only one low-quality tree and one dead tree would be removed, with five new trees planted.
The Metropolitan Police Designing Out Crime officer was less comfortable. That officer told the council there were 120 reported crimes in Elthorne Park between October 2024 and October 2025, which the report describes as “excessive for this scale of public park”, and warned that the proposed picnic benches on the corner of Sunnyside Road and Hazellville Road “could attract crime and ASB at all hours of the day and night”.
The charity does not want to fence the site. Its founding purpose is recorded in the report as “to provide a garden for Hillrise”, and it argues that a fence high enough to secure the site would spoil the open aspect, threaten boundary trees, and force a volunteer to attend daily to lock up. Officers have sided with keeping it open, and recommend a condition requiring security details to be approved before anyone occupies the building. Roller shutters and moveable mesh screens are already in the design.
It cannot deliver biodiversity net gain on site
New development in England must normally deliver a 10% increase in biodiversity value. This scheme cannot. The submitted assessment delivers 1.07 habitat units and 0.06 hedgerow units on site, leaving 0.19 habitat units to be bought as off-site credits.
Officers call that “regrettable” but acceptable, saying the applicant has exhausted the on-site options. They add that they looked for somewhere in Islington to spend the credits and could not make it work under the current rules, and that they would encourage the charity to keep the habitat gain inside the borough if an opportunity appears while the building goes up.
The site is designated open space and forms part of the Elthorne Park and Sunnyside Gardens Site of Importance for Nature Conservation. Islington’s own Local Plan resists building on both. Officers argue the case gets over that bar because the community use already exists and the scheme improves it rather than changing what the space is for.
A planning fire safety strategy has not been submitted and would be required by condition before work starts.
What it means for you
If you want to speak on this, the meeting is at 7.30pm on Thursday 3 September in the Council Chamber at the Town Hall, Upper Street, N1 2UD. It is webcast, so you can watch without attending.
The gardens are open to the public every day and are free. If the building is approved, the charity still has to pay for it. Its GoFundMe page recorded £8,155 from 89 donations towards a £10,000 local target when we checked on 31 August 2026, and says £170,000 of the £530,000 needed for the whole project is in place. The charity’s own website page carries an older and lower figure of about £365,000 for the building and courtyard, so treat the total as the one on the live appeal. (GoFundMe, Sunnyside Community Gardens)
Approval would not be the end of it. Highways officers have flagged that deliveries during construction would have to use Sunnyside Road, which is a bus route, and would need parking suspensions. Moving the courtyard gate would need a highways occupation licence because the work encroaches on the public highway.
You can follow other applications in the borough on our Islington planning news page, and the gardens are listed among the free days out on our things to do in Islington page.
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