Harrow's planning committee has approved rebuilding the fire-hit Rising Sun on Greenford Road as a shop, six flats and two houses. The vote was unanimous.

The Rising Sun on Greenford Road, empty and held up by scaffolding since a fire in October 2023, is to be rebuilt as a shop with eight homes.

Harrow Council’s planning committee approved the scheme on Wednesday 23 September. It was the only application on the agenda. The chair put the officers’ recommendation to the vote and declared it “granted and that’s unanimous”, in the meeting’s webcast. The written minutes have not been published yet.

What has been approved

The application, PL/0797/26, was made by Adelaide Properties (Harrow) Ltd (committee report, PDF). It keeps what is left of the old building and builds behind it.

In the main building:

  • the two surviving main facades are kept and repaired, and the southern one is put back
  • a new clay tile roof, with the timber gables and half-timbering reinstated
  • the original stone finish on the ground floor front is uncovered again
  • a 292 square metre shop on the ground floor, entered from Greenford Road
  • six flats on the first and second floors, entered from Hussain Close

Behind it, the temporary buildings on the rear of the site come down and two three-bedroom houses go up, each with a garden, a parking space and an electric car charger.

Home Size Floor area
Flat 1 1 bedroom 58 sq m
Flat 2 2 bedrooms 71 sq m
Flat 3 2 bedrooms 86 sq m
Flat 4 1 bedroom 51 sq m
Flat 5 2 bedrooms 80 sq m
Flat 6 2 bedrooms 76 sq m
House 1 3 bedrooms 110 sq m
House 2 3 bedrooms 106 sq m

Every home is above the London Plan’s minimum space standards, the report says.

Why a pub can become flats

The Rising Sun is on Harrow’s local list, which makes it a non-designated heritage asset. The report says it has worked at various times over the last 150 years as a pub, a restaurant and a hotel. It was built as a two-storey building in a mock Tudor style and was altered and extended many times after.

Losing a pub normally needs marketing evidence to show nobody wants to run it. Officers said that test did not apply here. The ground floor stopped being a pub and became a restaurant with a bar around 2012, more than ten years before the fire. The council confirmed that with a certificate of lawful use, granted on 8 September 2026.

The report is blunt about the building now. It has had no roof and much of its structure missing since the fire. It is treated as a dangerous structure, held up by scaffolding to stop it collapsing, and officers put its current heritage significance as “low”.

What neighbours said

Ten neighbouring homes were written to and a site notice went up. The council received four objections and one comment. Among the concerns:

  • the loss of local jobs
  • overlooking from the new balconies into back gardens
  • loss of light and outlook
  • parking pressure
  • a worry that new residents might complain about activity at the Sudbury Hill Club nearby

One objector spoke at the meeting. Councillors asked what the shop would be. A planning officer told them a condition limits it to retail, financial and professional services, or offices, because other uses in the same planning class could bring more noise and parking. The chair said a restriction to quieter uses was “very welcome”.

The money and the conditions

The report puts the provisional Community Infrastructure Levy at:

  • £202,804.25 to Harrow Council
  • £77,021.07 to the Greater London Authority

The permission still hangs on a Section 106 legal agreement. The main term makes the six flats car free: their residents will not be able to get residents’ or visitors’ parking permits. The developer also pays £1,638.04 to change the local traffic order, and a carbon offset payment if the new homes cannot reach net zero.

If that agreement is not signed by 6 November 2026, or a later date the chief planning officer agrees, the council can refuse the scheme instead.

What it means for you

If you live near Greenford Road, the scaffolded shell should eventually go, and the frontage people know is kept rather than knocked down. There is no start date yet: the legal agreement and the conditions come first.

If you park locally, the flats will add no permit holders to the street. The two houses have their own spaces, and the shop gets a single disabled parking space on its forecourt.

If you wanted the pub back, this is the end of that. The approved ground floor use is a shop, an office or a professional service, not a bar or restaurant.

Other decisions and applications across the borough are on our Harrow planning news page.

Sources