NatWest House on Shenley Road would swap 91 studio flats for 228 co-living rooms with 14 parking spaces. Comments to Hertsmere close on 13 October.
A developer wants to turn NatWest House on Shenley Road, opposite Elstree Studios, into co-living, a type of housing the applicant says is new to Hertsmere. The plans would take the building from 91 studio flats to 228 rented rooms, and add up to three storeys along the road.
The application, 26/1293/FUL, was lodged with Hertsmere Borough Council on 4 September by Borehamwood Homes Limited. The council is taking comments until Tuesday 13 October. Its deadline for a decision is 4 December.
What is being proposed
The formal description is a “part 2, part 3, part 8 storey extension providing 228 co-living units (sui generis) with communal facilities, co-working floorspace (Class E)”, with car and cycle parking, bin stores and landscaping.
The applicant’s planning statement, written by the London planning consultancy DP9, sets out the numbers:
- 228 rooms: 204 standard rooms and 24 adaptable rooms
- floor space rising from 3,932 sqm to 9,418 sqm
- 786 sqm of indoor shared space, including a communal kitchen on the sixth floor
- 530 sqm of outdoor terraces, at upper ground, fourth and sixth floor levels
- a co-working space with a café at the front, open to the public
- car parking cut from 60 spaces to 14, two of them for Blue Badge holders
- 124 cycle spaces
The building would be renamed Studio House. The red-brick front would be “retained, cleaned and repaired wherever possible”, according to the scheme’s consultation website, which also says the building “would be up to three storeys taller along Shenley Road”.
What co-living means here
Co-living is not a block of flats in planning terms. Each resident gets a private room with an en-suite and a kitchenette, and shares lounges, kitchens, a gym and terraces with everyone else. It counts as a “sui generis” use, so the normal standards for self-contained homes do not apply.
The planning statement says tenancies would run from three to 12 months, with no deposits and all bills included. An operator, VervLife, would run the building with a 24-hour concierge, according to the operator management plan filed with the application.
The rooms are small. The statement gives this split:
The applicant pitches the scheme at young professionals and at people working in the town’s film and television studios. Its statement lists Sky Studios Elstree, Elstree Studios and BBC Studioworks among the employers nearby.
No affordable housing expected
The planning statement records what council officers said in pre-application talks. Officers “advised that affordable housing is unlikely to be sought”, it says, as long as the rooms are not self-contained and there is enough shared space.
Officers also agreed to count co-living towards Hertsmere’s housing target at the London Plan’s rate: 1.8 co-living rooms to one ordinary home. On that basis the applicant says the 228 rooms are worth 127 homes, which is 36 more than the 91 flats in the building now.
The applicant leans hard on Hertsmere’s housing shortfall. Its statement cites the government’s 2025 Housing Delivery Test, which it says shows Hertsmere built 567 of the 2,181 homes it needed over three years, or 26%. It also cites a December 2025 appeal decision at Longview that put the council’s housing land supply at 0.98 years.
Parking
Future residents would be barred from applying for resident parking permits, according to the applicant’s transport statement. The roads around the site, including Brook Close, sit in a controlled parking zone where only permit holders can park from 8am to 6.30pm, Monday to Saturday. The ban would have to be secured through a planning obligation agreed with the council.
If parking in the town centre matters to you, our guide to parking in Borehamwood covers the car parks and the zones.
The building’s history
NatWest House was built as offices in the 1980s. It was turned into 91 studio flats under permitted development rights, which let office conversions skip a full planning application. The consultation website says that conversion happened in 2019 and that the building has since been bought by AssetStone, which has refurbished the flats.
A 2023 application, 23/1034/FUL, sought a part three, part five, part eight storey extension with 69 new homes. The planning statement lists it as “not determined”.
What people have said so far
The applicant consulted from 10 to 31 July. It says it sent 2,207 leaflets to homes and businesses around the site, according to its statement of community involvement. Five people filled in its survey. The main concerns it recorded were parking, pressure on local services, construction disruption, who would live there and the scheme’s closeness to the war memorial.
On the council’s planning portal, 411 neighbours have been consulted. Two comments had been received when we checked on 25 September, and both were objections.
What it means for you
- If you live nearby, you can comment on application 26/1293/FUL until 13 October. Comments on planning grounds, such as height, overlooking, parking and design, carry the most weight.
- If you rent one of the 91 studios now, the application does not say what would happen to current tenancies during the works. The applicant’s agent, DP9, is named on the planning file as the contact.
- If you work at the studios, this is aimed squarely at you. The rooms would be let on short tenancies with bills included, but no rents have been published.
The case officer is Joshua Lemm. The site is in Borehamwood Brookmeadow ward. For other schemes going through the council, see our Borehamwood planning news.
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