Harrow's town centre survey opens on 11 September and closes 23 October, with pop-up events on the 19th and 20th. Shop vacancy is 1.7%; offices are at 9.8%.

Harrow Council opens a six-week survey on the future of Harrow town centre on Friday 11 September, and it closes on 23 October.

The survey is the first public stage of the Harrow Town Centre Masterplan, a document that will set out what the council wants built, changed and improved across the borough’s only Metropolitan town centre. A report going before the council’s Planning Policy Advisory Panel tonight, Wednesday 9 September, sets out the timetable and publishes the consultants’ baseline findings for the first time (agenda and papers).

The dates that matter

  • 11 September: the online survey opens on MyHarrow Talk, the council’s consultation site at talk.harrow.gov.uk. It asks about the town centre’s role and identity, shops and services, public spaces, green spaces, culture, movement and accessibility, and recent development.
  • Weekend of 19 and 20 September: public engagement events in the town centre, with pop-up market stalls, exhibitions and interactive activities. Paper copies of the survey will be available at these.
  • Week beginning 5 October: about two walking tours. These are invite only, aimed at key stakeholders and hard-to-reach groups.
  • 23 October: the survey closes.

One detail worth knowing before you turn up on the 19th or 20th. The report says there will be no formal council officer presence at the engagement events, deliberately, “to encourage open and honest communication”. You will be talking to the consultants, not the council.

What the council’s own consultants found

The baseline study is finished. It is the evidence the masterplan will be built on, and its picture of the town centre is sharply split: the shops are doing well and the offices are emptying.

Harrow town centre: shops against offices, 2026 baseline Comparison of retail and office markets in Harrow town centre. Retail vacancy 1.7 per cent, office vacancy 9.8 per cent. Retail net absorption over 12 months plus 9,400 square feet with 5,400 square feet in the pipeline; office net absorption minus 12,700 square feet with no pipeline. Retail stock about 1,500,000 square feet; office stock 947,000 square feet. Source: Harrow Town Centre Masterplan Baseline Report, August 2026. The shops are full. The offices are not. Harrow town centre vacancy rate, and 12-month net absorption of floorspace Shops c.1,500,000 sq ft 1.7% vacant +9,400 sq ft absorbed, 5,400 sq ft in the pipeline Offices 947,000 sq ft 9.8% -12,700 sq ft absorbed, nothing in the pipeline And the homes are for renting, not buying 445 rental lets against 21 sales in the town centre over 24 months. No three-bedroom home sold in the town centre in those two years. Source: Harrow Town Centre Masterplan Baseline Report, Allies and Morrison for Harrow Council, August 2026. Retail vacancy excludes the large privately managed shopping centres. Graphic by Harrow Today
The baseline report's market summary, as put to councillors on 9 September 2026.

The numbers behind that, from the report’s market summary:

  • Shop vacancy is 1.7%, down from nearly 20% in 2023/24. Asking rents are £33.21 a square foot. There is 5,400 square feet of new retail floorspace in the pipeline. Note the caveat the consultants attach: this figure excludes the large privately managed shopping centres, which they say need a separate review.
  • Office vacancy is 9.8% and rising, against 947,000 square feet of stock. Net absorption over 12 months was minus 12,700 square feet, and there is no new office construction in the pipeline at all. The report’s steer to the masterplan is blunt: “plan for managed contraction and release secondary stock”.
  • The town centre has 445 rental lets against 21 sales over two years. No three-bedroom property sold in the town centre in that time. The consultants say the town centre housing offer “effectively excludes families”.
  • The report counts three build-to-rent schemes totalling 614 homes in the town centre, and lists the Poets Corner scheme of up to 1,058 homes as still in the pipeline. That is the former Civic Centre site, covered in our Harrow planning news.

The report also records that earlier engagement raised concerns about safety in the town centre, particularly in the evening, naming lighting, inactive frontages, empty buildings and wayfinding as the issues.

The catch: this will not be a planning policy

Here is the part the survey will not lead with. The council currently intends to adopt the masterplan as informal planning guidance, not as a statutory Supplementary Plan.

The difference matters when a developer applies to build something. The report states plainly that informal guidance “cannot carry significant weight when making decisions on planning applications or provide new policy”. A statutory Supplementary Plan would carry the same weight as a Local Plan policy.

Two things pushed the council this way:

  • Supplementary Planning Documents, the old route, cannot be adopted after 30 June 2026 under the Levelling-up and Regeneration Act 2023.
  • The Supplementary Plan route that replaced it needs a minimum six-week consultation and an examination in public, and it is new. The council says it is watching government guidance and other authorities’ experience before committing.

Officers are asking the panel to note that the merits of the Supplementary Plan route “will be reviewed” as national policy becomes clearer. So the question is open, not closed.

This is also not the first time the masterplan has been floated. The same panel looked at it on 4 May 2023, when the plan was to adopt it as a Supplementary Planning Document. It then sat still for three years while the council finished the Local Plan.

Who is writing it

Allies and Morrison Urban Practitioners were appointed after a three-quote procurement exercise. They worked on the evidence base for the new Harrow Local Plan. Three sub-consultants are working with them: Urban Flow on transport, PRD on market, property and viability, and Fisher Cheng, an architecture firm leading the engagement events.

The study area is primarily Greenhill ward, with small parts in Headstone and Harrow-on-the-Hill. The report notes the outcomes may have borough-wide implications.

What it means for you

If you shop, work, drink or live in Harrow town centre, this is the stage where what you say can still change the shape of the document. The vision statement and the draft masterplan both come after this engagement, not before it.

  • The survey is open 11 September to 23 October. Six weeks, then it shuts.
  • If you want to speak to someone in person, the 19 and 20 September pop-ups in the town centre are the only open events. Bear in mind the 19th and 20th is also the weekend of the Oxhey Grange rail closure, so getting into town by train from Hatch End or Headstone Lane will be difficult on the Sunday.
  • If you care about the weight this document carries, that is a live question worth raising: guidance or statutory plan is still under review.
  • If you own or run a business in the centre, the consultants are separately interviewing landowners, developers, TfL, Places for London, Harrow BID and transport operators.

Frequently asked questions

When does the Harrow town centre survey open and close?

It opens on Friday 11 September 2026 and closes on 23 October 2026, a six-week window. It runs on MyHarrow Talk, the council’s consultation site at talk.harrow.gov.uk.

Can I speak to someone in person about the masterplan?

Yes, at the public engagement events in the town centre on the weekend of 19 and 20 September, which will have pop-up market stalls, exhibitions and paper copies of the survey. The report says there will be no formal council officer presence at them; the consultant team runs them. The walking tours in the week beginning 5 October are invite only.

Will the masterplan control what gets built in Harrow?

Not as currently planned. The council intends to adopt it as informal planning guidance, which the report says “cannot carry significant weight when making decisions on planning applications or provide new policy”. Officers will review whether to adopt it instead as a statutory Supplementary Plan, which would carry the same weight as a Local Plan policy.

What area does the masterplan cover?

Primarily Greenhill ward, with small parts of the study area in Headstone and Harrow-on-the-Hill wards. The council notes the outcomes may have borough-wide implications.

How many shops are empty in Harrow town centre?

The baseline report puts retail vacancy at 1.7%, down from nearly 20% in 2023/24. That figure excludes the large privately managed shopping centres. Office vacancy, by contrast, is 9.8% and rising.

Sources

  • Harrow Council, Planning Policy Advisory Panel, 9 September 2026: agenda and reports pack, specifically the report “Harrow Town Centre Masterplan: Baseline Findings, Early Engagement and Next Steps” by Sharon Strutt, Assistant Director of Housing and Regeneration, for the timetable, the adoption route, the procurement and the study area.
  • Appendix 1 to that report, the Harrow Town Centre Masterplan Baseline Report by Allies and Morrison, August 2026, for the market summary figures: vacancy rates, net absorption, floorspace, rents, and the sales and lettings counts.
  • MyHarrow Talk, the council’s consultation site, where the survey opens on 11 September.