With a rapidly approaching deadline for bids, Quinta Village Green residents step up their campaign to take over derelict youth club

A packed meeting at Underhill gave enthusiastic support to a community bid to purchase the derelict former Quinta Youth Club in Mays Lane which is being sold off by Barnet Council.

Fears that the building might go to the highest bidder because of the council’s dire financial position led to a last-minute appeal to local residents to demonstrate the strength of their campaign to secure a new combined community hub and youth centre.

Gina Theodorou, chair of the Quinta Village Green Residents Association, made a passionate plea to the neighbourhood to demonstrate to councillors why the council should respect the wishes of those who lived in Underhill.

Provision of services and support for young people was lower in the Underhill area than in the rest of the Borough of Barnet and the meeting was adamant the former youth club, which the community built in the mid-1960s, should be returned and redeveloped for their benefit.

Leaders and representatives of other groups and organisations from in and around High Barnet lined up to give their backing to what they agreed was a well resourced and imaginative bid to buy back a building on which the council has placed a £300,000 valuation.

“Of course, there are other bidders, and we know there is a major risk that another group or organisation might try to outbid us, but Barnet Council should realise this is the preferred scheme of those who live in Underhill,” said Ms Theodorou.

Quinta Village Green Residents Association has campaigned long and hard for the restoration or replacement of the former youth club and secured a six-month pause in the sale of the building after they succeeded in persuading the council to declare it an asset of community value.

Plans and artists’ impressions of the proposed community hub were presented to the meeting by architect Simon Kaufman – with the help of his daughter Ana.

A preferred option was for the new hub to have a central corridor with a sports hall on one side and activity rooms on the other with a new community café looking out on to Quinta Village Green.

All the rooms would have sliding walls offering flexible space for different activities together with plenty of storage space.

A single storey building was proposed but if there was sufficient funding there could be an upper floor.

Full advantage would be taken of their site in the Green Belt with community gardens and perhaps an orchard alongside the building.

Along the Mays Lane frontage there would be 19 parking spaces, including accessible spaces for wheelchairs, plus 40 cycle spaces as the new hub could become a stopping off point for cyclists along the Dollis Valley green walk.

Ms Theodorou stressed the importance of residents expressing their support before the deadline for bids on 23 October – even the smallest donation would help https://gofund.me/70e0fe9c2 as would responses to their community survey https://forms.gle/Ynmib6DYGKxCTcoD7

Two charities – Hadley Trust and Common Nature – have told the residents association that financial assistance might well be available towards the purchase and reconstruction if the local community unites around the plan and succeeds with its bid.

Among those attending the meeting – see above, from left to right – were Underhill Councillor Josh Tapper, Chipping Barnet MP Dan Tomlinson, Gina Theodorou, and Julian Desborough, trustee of the Hope Corner Community Centre which was re-opened as part of the Dollis Valley regeneration.

Mr Desborough said the 12,500 residents of the Underhill ward were in desperate need of more community space and services for young people. What was so important about the Quinta project was that, unlike Hope Corner, it was in the middle of an open space in the Green Belt.

His plea for more services and activities for Underhill’s youngsters was reinforced by Amber Jones of the Young Barnet Foundation.

Out of 223 organisations offering services for young people across the borough, there were less than 20 in the north of the area and only four in Underhill.

Andy Rimmer, vicar of Christ Church, Barnet, added his support for Ms Theodorou’s argument that Underhill was in desperate need of a safe space for young people and a centre offering warm surroundings for the elderly in winter.

Among those to be canvassed later this month for ideas for a youth centre will be students at Totteridge Academy – an initiative welcomed by Eve Rogers, managing director of Grow, the academy’s school farm.

After the meeting, both the Chipping Barnet MP and Underhill councillor, stressed the importance of the council considering all the bids free of political interference.

Dan Tomlinson said that nonetheless he hoped the council would “consider very carefully the strength” of the Quinta community bid.

“We have to bring the derelict youth club back into use and bring it back in a way which serves the local community.  There is a massive need for space which helps provide activities for young people.”

Josh Tapper insisted that as a Barnet councillor he could not take a position and had to remain neutral during the bidding process, but he had been anxious to attend the meeting and listen to the case being put forward by the community.