London planning dataset labels 832 Haringey schemes major, one of them a garden office

London's public planning dataset types the installation of a pre-fabricated garden office in a Haringey back garden as a major housing development. The record, for a scheme at Hawke Park Road approved on 11 December 2023, gives a development type of "Major dwellings".

The thresholds planning authorities attach to that word are far larger. Lambeth's planning applications committee terms of reference send residential applications to its committee where "the number of dwelling houses to be provided is 10 or more; or, the development is to be carried out on a site having an area of 0.5 hectare or more".

The statutory definition, in the 2015 development management procedure order, could not be consulted for this story.

The label is not rare in Haringey. A search of the dataset returns 832 Haringey applications typed "Major dwellings", against 4,575 for London as a whole. One borough holds 18 per cent of the capital's total.

The same search run for Lambeth returns none, though the dataset holds at least 10,000 Lambeth applications. The first of those records carries a null development type, so boroughs are filling the field differently.

Other Haringey records under the major label include the replacement of timber sash windows with uPVC units at Harvey Road, approved on 14 March 2024. The oldest the search returns dates from 2001 and reads "The change of use of part of the ground floor to a gymnasium."

The dataset also runs a "Minor dwellings" type, and Haringey has 178 records under it. One from 2016 covers work "to facilitate the conversion of the property into 2 flats". Another, from 2014, covers "Conversion of properties into 5 self contained flats".

A 2024 scheme of the same kind sits on the other side of the line. The record for the conversion of a single-family house into two flats at Willingdon Road, Wood Green, approved on 15 January 2024, is typed "Major dwellings". It logs one existing home and two proposed, all for market rent.

Status fields contradict decisions on the schemes that are genuinely large. The record for application HGY/2023/2137 at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, 748 High Road, logs a decision of approved on 8 April 2024 while its status still reads "Application Under Consideration".

That application varies conditions on Plot 3, the hotel and residential element of the stadium scheme, on a site the dataset measures at 8.466 hectares.

The records give no correction date. The dataset's front page returned a default nginx web server page on 14 August 2026, reading "If you see this page, the nginx web server is successfully installed and working. Further configuration is required.", with no data quality note and no route for reporting an error.