Author: Robin Bishop

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Bees stay in Hive for now: Council rejects Barnet FC plans for new Underhill stadium

A 100+ crowd packed planning committee rooms at Barnet Town Hall last night for the big match – Barnet Football Club v defenders of Barnet Playing Fields, the proposed site of a new 7,000-seat stadium. After more than two hours of impassioned debate, the result was announced: 6-0 against the Bees.

Barnet FC left its traditional home turf at Underhill for The Hive in Harrow in 2013, selling its site for the Ark Pioneer academy. Ever since, fans have pined for its return to the Borough, and the Club’s recent promotion to English Football League 2 has exacerbated pressures on The Hive. Design began on a new stadium, culminating last December in the outline planning application that was now to be determined by Barnet’s Strategic Planning Committee (visualisation by And Architects below).

There have been vigorous campaigns both for and against the proposal. Barnet FC’s Bring Barnet Back (BBB) claimed 9,500+ supporters. Save Barnet Playing Fields (SBPF – see photograph above) asserted that 90% of local residents opposed the development, and CPRE London said that almost 19,000 had signed a petition against it. The Council received 1,274 online comments plus 72 letters supporting the proposal (35%), as against 1,162 online and about 1,308 paper objections to it (64%). The numbers can be disputed, but division was clearly deep.

The Planning Officer’s report, which recommended refusal, ran to 120 pages – unusually thorough for a project of this size. For comparison, the report last year on the Whalebones application was a mere 103 pages. It reflected local sensitivity, especially around development in the Green Belt. As Committee Chairman Councillor Nigel Young noted, approval could set a precedent for building on other Barnet green spaces.

The significance of the matter was demonstrated by no fewer than five local politicians addressing the meeting in person (in addition to the nine Councillors on the Committee itself). Cllrs Zahra Beg (Underhill), Paul Edwards (High Barnet), David Longstaff (Barnet Vale) and London Assembly Member Anne Clarke all wished to see Barnet FC return to the Borough, but opposed a stadium on Barnet Playing Fields. Only Cllr Tim Roberts supported it.

They were followed by Robert Verrall representing opponents of the scheme, and by Ian Botterill and Sean McGrath representing BBB and the Club’s design team respectively.

All spoke with passion, occasionally interrupted by bursts of audience applause and heckling despite the Chairman’s repeated requests for quiet.

Committee members then discussed the proposal between themselves. Most reiterated support for Barnet FC’s return, just not to this particular location. Several called for consideration of alternative sites, but as the Chairman pointed out, the Committee could only decide on the application in front of them.

In the end, the outcome was decisive. Three members abstained but the others were unanimous in denying planning permission.Their key reasons for refusal were that

‘the proposed development would result in substantial and irreversible harm to the openness and function of the Green Belt, and…the applicant has failed to demonstrate the very special circumstances necessary to justify such harm. The proposal would also result in the loss of valued public open space…’

Other reasons for refusal were insufficient information to safeguard protected species; insufficient information on archaeology; inadequate assessment of on-street parking impacts; unacceptable site access and junction design; and lack of a Section 106 Agreement (detailing the applicant’s financial contribution towards community infrastructure costs).

Barnet Society position

Consultation with our members last February indicated that they were roughly evenly split over the scheme.

Our Committee agreed that we wholeheartedly support the principle of Barnet FC returning closer to its historic roots. And a building and landscape design of exceptional quality could enhance Barnet Playing Fields, which make only a limited contribution to local biodiversity and are little used for sport. But we had severe reservations about key aspects of the Club’s case with regard to the Green Belt and the environment; transport and parking; community uses and benefits; and economic value.

We therefore took a neutral stance but submitted detailed comments that you can read on our website.

What will happen next?

Barnet FC has the right to appeal to the Planning Inspectorate against the Council’s refusal, but its chances of overturning the decision are not great – and will involve yet more expense.

A better way forward would be to build on the constructive discussions that its team held with the Barnet Society and Barnet Residents Association, and to engage more closely with the Council and other stakeholders about alternative sites.

Although disappointed, Bees fans remain defiant. As BBB organiser Keith Doe (seen below with Ian Botterill) said after the meeting, ‘One way or another, we’ll bring Barnet back!’

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Transport for London grilled at public meeting on its proposals for High Barnet Station car park

Chipping Barnet constituents filled most of the pews in St John the Baptist’s Church on Thursday evening, 20 March 2025, to tell Transport for London (TfL) what they thought about their proposal to build 300 flats next to High Barnet Station. After a passionate and occasionally acrimonious meeting, the TfL team will have no illusions about local opposition to their development. But the audience were also left in no doubt that – barring unforeseen constructional challenges or political events – we have little chance of securing more than a few tweaks to the design of the buildings or their outdoor spaces.

The plans were exhibited for public consultation at the end of February and presented at a TfL webinar on 4 March. They can be viewed online here, as can the Barnet Society’s response to them.

Dan Tomlinson MP called this meeting on The future of High Barnet station car park to give residents another chance to ask questions and pass their comments on the scheme directly to the developers. These are TfL’s property company Places for London and their house-building partner Barratt London. Patrick Clark headed their panel, which included members of their design team.

Opening the meeting, Mr Tomlinson explained that he himself is neutral about the scheme. Barnet’s recently adopted Local Plan designates the site for 292 homes, and the Labour Government and Mayor of London are committed to delivering much-needed new housing. If the Council refuses the scheme it will go to the Planning Inspectorate, who are almost certain to approve it.

But Mr Tomlinson wanted to ensure that, if it is approved by Barnet’s planning committee, the developers will have listened directly to people who live in Chipping Barnet, and the designs made as good as they can be. As an example, he pointed to the public footpath ramp that he has insisted must be improved with better lighting and benches. He also said that TfL has agreed in principle to move the northbound bus stop closer to Station Approach.

During a brief overview of the scheme by Patrick Clark, the mood of the audience quickly became apparent. His remark, ‘This will be a car-free scheme’ was greeted by hollow laughter and his promise of ‘four drop-off points’ by ironic applause.

Mr Tomlinson then invited questions from the audience around three topics: transport and connectivity, the design (particularly its height) and other issues including car parking.

A question about the impact of building work on the neighbourhood was answered by reassurance that a Construction Management Plan would be agreed with the Council, and that ‘just-in-time’ management of construction vehicles would minimise disruption. The added difficulties if Barnet Football Club stadium is built nearby at the same time were not addressed, however.

Members of the audience commented that the six proposed Blue Badge bays are not enough for current, let alone future, needs.

The panel was asked where residents of new flats will park. The reply that they will not be allowed to apply for Resident Parking Permits did not go down well.

A questioner noted that the Northern Line links High Barnet to many hospitals, and many nurses and other staff members use the tube early or return late after night shifts. Women in particular need the security of using their own cars at those times of the day. 

Another questioner deplored TfL’s reluctance to embrace any of the wider opportunities offered by the project such as improving cycling experience and safety.

Gordon Massey asserted that the current proposals ‘will take us back to 1872’ when there was no car park. It was in 1934 that the Barnet Residents Association first called for the lack of a bus stop on the station forecourt to be remedied.

A member of the audience speculated that TfL’s ruling out of buses on the station forecourt was driven not so much by technical constraints but by their wish to protect the bus schedules. That prompted a burst of clapping.

An even bigger round of applause followed another speaker’s observation that ‘It’s clear to me that this is a done deal.’

Regarding design, Mr Tomlinson and others pointed out that the Local Plan states that seven storeys is the maximum height for this location in Barnet. The planning consultant on the panel replied that London Plan Policy D9 allows greater height if certain criteria are satisfied.

There was universal agreement that TfL’s team must supply visualisations to prove their contention that the buildings would not interrupt key views. Mr Tomlinson strongly supported this request.

Katy Staton, a landscape architect, said the drawings were not adequate for this stage; more detail is essential. She also asked if the designs take into account the new building safety requirements such as for two staircases. The panel’s architect assured everyone that the buildings would comply with the latest Building Regulations.

Under other matters, a questioner asked what would be done to relieve pressure on local services. Mr Tomlinson said that he had already asked the Council for, and had been given, data on pupil numbers and the ability of local schools to accommodate them. Due mainly to the decline in the local birth-rate, there would be spare capacity. He reminded the audience that the Government is already investing heavily in the NHS. He is in regular dialogue with local GPs and assured us that additional funding would be available. If health services don’t improve by the next election, he quipped, ‘I’m a goner’.

Another questioner was worried about the safety risks to the 200 or so children likely to be living in the flats, especially from vehicles, since the plans showed no provision for emergency access, deliveries or visitors.

Nick Saul, a retired civil engineer, drew the panel’s attention to the fact that most of Barnet hillside was an artificial construct, and that the best structural advice should be obtained before a final commitment was made to proceed with the project.

The biggest boo of the evening followed a comment from the floor that TfL had admitted that a proportion of the flats could be sold to overseas investors. But 90 minutes was up and no time was left for a satisfactory answer to this or many other questions, though Mr Tomlinson invited the audience to let him know about any other concerns.

Additional reporting by Frances Wilson

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The designs for High Barnet Station car park are entirely out of scale and character with our neighbourhood. In return for such disruption, we deserve an accessible and environmentally enhancing transport hub

Following the recent public consultation about proposals for this highly prominent site, Dan Tomlinson MP is holding a meeting for residents to share their thoughts with the landowner, Transport for London (TfL), at 7pm on Thursday 20 March.

Chipping Barnet constituents can register here. Registered attendees will receive details of the location 24 hours before the event.

The designs exhibited earlier this month are still vague in important respects, but at present our community stands to gain very little from such a disruptive development. The Barnet Society has submitted the comments below to the developers, Places for London & Barratt London, on the issues that matter most to us.

Scale and character

The designs are entirely out of scale and character with our green and historic neighbourhood. At the top and bottom of Barnet Hill, few buildings exceed three storeys, but the new ones would rise over three times as high. They would totally dominate the existing townscape and greenery that makes High Barnet, Underhill and Barnet Vale special.

The use of red brick throughout is misplaced respect for local precedents. Queen Elizabeth’s Girls’ School, the Old Courthouse and Tudor Hall are dainty in contrast to the giant scale of the proposed buildings. Less uniform colour might lessen their overbearing impact.

Massing

The 8 & 10-storey blocks proposed contradict Barnet Council’s new Local Plan regarding tall buildings, which indicates a maximum height of seven storeys for this location. Therefore those proposed are too tall, and if approved, the Local Plan would fail at its first test.

While there could be a case for a larger building at the foot of the hill, alongside the railway bridge that already provides a ‘gateway’ to Barnet Hill, we are opposed to anything so tall as being proposed at the northern end of the site, where it would be visible from the historic town centre, the Green Belt of the Dollis valley and elsewhere.

Access

As a development led by TfL, which has direct interests in both the site and the transport and highway arrangements immediately outside it, it is reasonable for the local community to expect an exemplary and holistic approach to the designs worthy of the 21st century.

Considering the size and location of the development and its potential to enhance the neighbourhood, more must be done to remove danger and improve pedestrian and wheelchair connectivity between the tube, buses, taxis and private vehicles. Outside the station building itself, High Barnet is one of the least accessible stations on the network. The nearest southbound bus stop is more than 100 metres away, and the northbound bus (including ones to Barnet Hospital) double that – both up steep pedestrian slopes with narrow footways and problems crossing Barnet Hill.

We have been shown no evidence that buses cannot divert into the station forecourt, as they sometimes do at Finchley Central. The new bus lanes in the Lower High Street will speed up bus travel. Bus-activated traffic lights at the new Barnet Hill/A1000 pedestrian crossing could obviate the need for northbound buses to wait to cross. At the very least, a northbound stop must be provided as close as possible to Station Approach (i.e. the southern vehicle ramp). For certain services e.g. the 234 & 384, an additional step-free stop should be provided on the station forecourt.

Despite the proposed new pedestrian crossing lower down Barnet Hill, access to and from Greenhill Parade and Station Road would be tortuous and frustrating. The distance to bus stops would be especially so for residents at the southern end of the development wanting to reach shops and services in New Barnet, Whetstone and Finchley.

Car parking

We are unconvinced by the rationale for removing the car park leaving only disabled parking. Many Barnet residents, and those in nearby Hertfordshire, live far from a tube or railway station. There are many reasons why people will continue to drive to the station in the future, particularly as this is the end of the line where people come from further afield. Maybe they would or should use buses instead, but front door-to-station door trip time can exceed an hour so this is not realistic in many cases.

The car park at the station allows interchange between different transport modes, and discourages people driving further into London (and taking advantage of cheaper travel zones). Without it, many vehicles will be displaced onto local residential streets, despite the proposed CPZs, or will add pressure to existing town car parks.

Abolition of commuter parking is also likely to lead to more dropping off, waiting and picking-up on an access road already congested at peak times.

Lack of spaces for residents, visitors and 24/7 deliveries would exacerbate this. National guidelines are that 300 new flats would generate an additional 18 parking spaces.

For these reasons we are surprised that proposals did not include a reduced car park, for example in a semi-basement underneath the flats, as has been provided at Colindale and elsewhere in both Barnet and across London.

Housing mix and quality

We need clarity on the mix of housing size and tenure types, their internal planning, aspect and measures to combat noise, poor air quality and overheating.

We also wish to see more detailed floor plans, building sections and landscape proposals to enable us to assess the quality of the development as a whole and its connectivity with neighbouring streets and local amenities. This information also needs to show how a good range of outdoor play would be possible for children of all ages and abilities, that any potential risk of harm to health and safety caused by the electricity transformer in the centre of the site will be adequately mitigated, and that the outdoor realm on the trackside of the housing blocks would not be conducive to anti-social behaviour.

Finally, TfL’s admission (in their 4 March webinar) that overseas marketing of units has not been ruled out undermines a fundamental justification for the development: London’s dire housing needs.

Conclusion

We are unconvinced that this project is economically and socially viable. It is halfway up the steep and unstable Barnet Hill, and based on the Barnet Society’s knowledge of the geology of the area, we do not feel adequate engineering infrastructure has been accounted for.

The housing is also squeezed between the noisy, polluted railway line and the equally polluted Great North Road, meaning that the scheme would offer an unhealthy built environment with unacceptable access for residents and station users alike. 

The prospect of new shops and cafés by the station is unfortunately belied by the decades of economic precarity of similar businesses in the Lower High Street. The investment would be better spent reviving existing premises.

We should also point out that if the current planning application for a new Barnet FC stadium is approved, there could be an unacceptable increase in construction traffic on roads in and around the town centre.

Unless the above matters can be addressed, at present the Barnet Society is minded to oppose the proposals.

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The Barnet Society supports Barnet FC returning closer to its historic roots. But we have severe reservations about aspects of the Club’s case

We wholeheartedly support the principle of Barnet Football Club returning closer to its historic roots, and we can see some potential benefits for Chipping Barnet as well as the Club. But we have severe reservations about key aspects of the Club’s case.

We’ve submitted our comments on the Club’s outline planning application to Barnet Council planners, and you can read a slightly abbreviated version below. We’ve focused on four key aspects of the Club’s case: Green Belt and environment, transport and parking, community benefit and economic value.

Green Belt and environment

We oppose building on the Green Belt as a matter of principle. Numerous Green Belt sites in our area have recently been, or currently are, threatened by development. For the Council to approve such a major development on one of Chipping Barnet’s most visible open spaces would set a deeply damaging precedent.

If approved, permission should be subject to a guarantee that, should the football use fail and the site become vacant, the club could not sell the site as brownfield or grey belt and realise a gain in land value. It should revert to Barnet Council or the site be remediated. This must be enforced by a robust legal agreement and/or lease with the Council (both as planning authority and landowner).

We’re not opposed to change of any kind. Although Barnet Playing Fields is a vital link in the lovely chain of greenery along the Dollis valley, its main contribution is its openness and as a popular resource for the leisure and wellbeing of local residents and their dogs. Its contribution to local biodiversity is quite limited, comprising mainly a large grass sward that is unsuitable and little used for the team games for which it was originally intended.

If designed to the latest best practice, new landscaping would support a markedly richer range of plants and wildlife. And it should be perfectly possible to design a range of spaces for exercise, contemplation and socialising, linked by walking, wheelchair, jogging and cycling routes that would be at least as attractive as the present Playing Fields.

The application documents are, however, light on information demonstrating that the new facility would be set within meaningful landscape design, embedded in its context.  With such a sensitive site it is imperative that this level of detail is considered, designed and demonstrated.  

While we welcome the applicants’ commitment to meeting the Mayor of London’s Biodiversity Net Gain and Urban Greening Factor standards, for such a sensitive site we’d expect higher aspirations.

We also have more detailed concerns including the need for a landscape statement, less hardscape, more biodiversity, a drainage strategy and a link with the Dollis Valley Greenwalk. Careful attention would be essential to lighting, waste disposal and site security

Although the stadium design employs various green strategies, it appears to fall short of net zero standards. Its claims to be fully recyclable must be substantiated robustly, since if the Club fails in its Football League ambitions it would otherwise become a white elephant in the Green Belt.

Transport and parking

We’re aware of historic local concerns about traffic congestion and on-street parking on match days, so we’re puzzled by the Planning Statement’s claim (in paragraph 12.2.10) that ‘The impact of matchday movement will be more significant [than non-matchdays] but will take place infrequently’ – as if that would allay residents’ concerns. It also claims to identify mitigation measures in the Transport Assessment, but we cannot find these in the documents. Information about, and marshalling of, travel routes would be critical, not least for visiting fans travelling via car or public transport.

We’d also expect analysis of the effect on bus services, especially for mid-week games that could affect local schools. The location of a Superloop stop also needs careful consideration (in association with Ark Pioneer Academy).

We can’t find the basis for the quantity of onsite parking of cars and coaches. Although these may be adequate for present attendances at The Hive – and it would be wasteful to leave empty parking spaces for most of the year – we’d expect to see a strategy for future expansion in the event of 7,000-capacity crowds.

How have the levels of bicycle parking been calculated? There doesn’t appear to be adequate provision close to the stadium. 

We’d also point out that if the current proposal to build 300 flats on High Barnet Station car park proceeds, there could be an unacceptable increase in construction traffic on roads in and around the town centre.

Community uses & benefits

Our view is that there would be social value in rebuilding a sense of identity of this part of Barnet which older members feel has been lost. But Barnet Community Stadium must bring benefits to the wider community, not just football fans.

The Planning Statement says (in paragraph 1.1.2) that ‘community space’ and a ‘community diagnostic health centre’ will be provided and (in para 10.3.5) that the Club’s Charitable Foundation aims ‘to bring the local community together to encourage participation in sport with a particular focus on promoting physical exercise with older adults, disadvantaged young people and supporting girls into football’.

These all sound splendid, but the plans are diagrammatic and unclear as to how those aims would be delivered. For example, would fully accessible changing rooms be provided for young and old members of the public as well as for the professional footballers? What sort of community activities would be possible, eg playgroups, youth clubs, meetings and parties? And would adequate storage for chairs, tables and equipment be available for different user groups?

Economic value

The Planning Statement states (in para 10.4.4) that the project would deliver £6.0 million Gross Value Added impact, approximately 85 FTE net additional jobs and £350,000 per annum of social value (in addition to construction phase economic impacts). Apparently these calculations are based on standard methodology, but we question whether sufficient local commercial analysis has been carried out.

We accept that match days would generate some additional demand for eating and drinking, but since we understand that franchises would be accommodated in or adjacent to the ground, we doubt that much of fans’ spend would benefit local business.

Conclusion

If we could be satisfied that the matters the Society has raised above have been properly addressed, we would be pleased to support this application.

You can submit your own comments here. The deadline for online comments is Wednesday 19 March.

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Local growth must be underpinned by co-ordinated transport planning

Transport is back in the news, with the government’s promises of a ‘bus revolution’ and renationalisation of rail services. As London expands into the Green Belt, it’s timely to review the state of transport in Barnet and neighbouring areas.

Background

Being an ancient market town at the top of a hill, Chipping (High) Barnet has long been dependent for its economy on traders, travellers, businesses and visitors, and this means roads and transport connections. The Great North Road and the Holyhead (St Albans) Road, supported by orbital connections to Watford and Enfield and many local minor public trackways, provided the means.

Transport used on Barnet’s roads remained mostly horse-drawn, with some exceptions, until gradually giving way to motorised vehicles after the 1st World War. Importantly, these exceptions included the electric street tramway which opened between Archway and Whetstone in 1905 and was extended to Barnet Church in 1907. That stimulated more house building on the level in High Barnet than had the steam railway to High Barnet in 1872. The other exception to note was the 84 motor bus route between Golders Green and St Albans via Barnet and South Mimms in 1912, which was the first successful regular motor bus service to run through Barnet High Street.

In the 1920s new bus links were established between Watford and Enfield via Barnet, and towards Central London via Muswell Hill and Camden Town, and to Potters Bar and Hatfield. With the introduction of pneumatic tyres, long distance coaches to the Midlands and North began to appear with pick-up/set-down facilities at Finchley and High Barnet and a regular service to Bedford with stops in Outer London including Barnet was established by Birch Bros. ‘Commuter’ limited stop services were also started between the home counties and Greater London via Barnet in1929/30, and these were absorbed into the Green Line network in the early 1930s.

Personal car use by local residents remained very low during this period, but photographs of Barnet High Street in the late 1930s showed some parking of private cars, and the provision of pedestrian crossing places signed with Belisha beacons showed there was a safety need to protect pedestrians from traffic flow in Barnet. Striped zebra crossings replaced Belishas about 1950, but it was not until the early 1960s that it was felt necessary to control where parking in Barnet should and should not take place on the roads and make off-street provision for cars in the town centre a necessity.

The opening of the M1 motorway, in stages at the southern end, the upgrading of the South Mimms – London Colney section of St Albans Road and the A414 access to the motorway hugely increased car usage between Greater London suburbs including Barnet and the home counties in the 1960s for both work and leisure travel. At the same time the upgrades to the strategic roads caused the diversion of the long-distance coach services which no longer served the High Barnet area. Green Line services lasted a bit longer, but a combination of suburban rail electrification and greatly increased traffic congestion reduced user levels to a point where the road services could not be economically viable.

Personal transport

Anyone who studies a scale map of the Greater London area will see that distances between the residential areas and town centre attractions are far greater in the outer reaches of the built-up area than in Inner London. A walk from house to convenient shops, banks, entertainment, schools and rail and bus connections which may be easy for those who live in, say, Kentish Town, become much more difficult and extreme north of the Finchleys and Muswell Hill. It is understandable that personal car usage is more widespread in these outer areas, and made the more acute where steep hills are part of the journey.

In the build-up to the climate change 2050 deadline it becomes vital that all public authorities recognise the need to work in co-operation to provide or secure a co-ordinated solution to this multi-disciplinary project. That would involve Highways England, TfL, the London Borough of Barnet, Hertfordshire County and Hertsmere District Council with public highway responsibilities and, where appropriate, planning, housing and environmental duties.

Co-ordination is required in the provision and user costs of on and off-street parking places, electric charging points where residents don’t have personal driveways, traffic speed limits, traffic schemes designed to eliminate moving vehicle emissions, pavement parking, pedestrian movement safety in residential areas as well as town centres, recognition of the heavy weight of electric cars and vans on local roads not constructed for regular use by them, and reliable provision of adequate road-based public transport on the existing network and in the design of new-build residential developments, to accommodate conventional bus services.

In Barnet it is noticeable that in recent years there has been a big increase in the number of transit-size vans travelling and parked on local main and side roads, both small trader and unidentified ownership. That in addition to online delivery vans.

Electric battery cars and small vans are likely to be the most popular zero-emission personal and trader vehicles in the near future, but that is not to say that other motive methods may be tried. Critical to the speed of conversion will be the availability of public charging points at affordable rates.

Increase in the use of electric cars and vans will lead to a decrease in the existing fuel duty and VAT paid by motorists. The government will want to recoup that income from motorists and this could mean some form of Road User Charging, the details of which are undecided and far from clear at present. It is an issue that is bound to some up for political and public debate in the coming years, so watch Barnet Society space!

Driverless cars/vans may be up and coming with their safe passage assured, even on roads used by conventional vehicles. The danger in the longer term is that the person in the ‘driver’s seat’ begins to lose their ‘streetwise’ knowledge which normally develops with driving experience. This could result in silly low-speed manoeuvres, or in more serious incidents on a fast road with junctions, both involving vehicle damage and often collisions causing personal injury. Both would currently be considered completely avoidable.

While pedal cycling and motor biking can reduce car use, the hilly nature of much of the High Barnet area rather deters local use for work and shopping purposes. However, for takeaway food deliveries biking avoids the use of small vans. The sporty pedal cyclists will help the coffee shop trade, but their ability to purchase more widely in Barnet is understandably very limited on such occasions! The speed of the Sunday pedal power is important for pedestrians to realise when crossing the roads. Use of the footway, particularly narrow pavements, by battery-powered scooters or cycles can also be a hazard for walkers, including the less agile and those using their mobile.

All this is a big ask, but needs to be addressed. Whether we like it or not climate change is going to produce extremes of weather, which is bound to affect roads and transport infrastructure and movement of people on the public highway, be they in vehicles, on feet or in wheelchairs. This is very relevant in hilly areas like High and New Barnet with catchment residences in adjacent valleys. Individual authorities may well prioritise the interests of their own residents, but the moving public are rightly concerned with journey time, safety, convenience and costs of travel and parking, not with which highway authority they are using on their travels. Those in transit are all equal ‘customers’.

Public transport

It is important to examine the role of existing scheduled public transport in the context of climate change and separately in those areas that are proposed for new-build housing within the Society’s sphere of interest in north Barnet and Enfield and adjacent parts of Hertfordshire. Predominantly this will concern local bus services and the few contract hire coaches that operate at school times. While the tube and rail services are a vital part of public transport, realistically it is unlikely that there will be any extensions or new stations in the foreseeable future in the Society’s interest area. Crossrail 2 proposals for a New Southgate branch to its service from south-west London and the reopening for passenger traffic of the Dudden Hill branch from the Brent Cross station to Acton and Hounslow have been very quiet in recent times. Both have possible extensions that would bring relevance to Barnet residents. But to concentrate on road-based public transport and access for users.

The way local bus services are organised within and outside Greater London are very different, and enshrined in different primary legislation. Outside London, private sector bus companies can operate local bus services on a commercial basis which they have ‘registered’ with the relevant area traffic commissioner. The operator decides on the route, the frequency, the hours and days of operation, the stopping and terminating stand places, the vehicle size and capacity and the fares to be charged. The local authority will check the physical implications of the registration, and has powers to provide subsidy to fill ‘gaps’ in the service provision it feels are necessary and affordable (e.g. Sunday, evenings, school time extra journey) via a tender invitation to interested private sector operators.

Within Greater London the planning of the whole local bus network, including the frequency, vehicle sizes and detailed design, fares and ticketing, stopping and standing places, bus priority measures, etc. and, prior to 1984/5, the actual operation of services, was the duty of just one central organisation with monopoly powers and responsibilities, ever since 1933. The London Regional Transport Act 1984 took ‘London Transport’ into central government control in view of the impending abolition of the Greater London Council and required it (LRT) to involve private sector bus companies in the operation of London local bus services. This was 100% achieved by 1995 and made practical through an efficient tendering process.

When the Greater London Authority and TfL were established in 2000, the tendering system continued. TfL has powers to extend its services into the Home Counties to reach important traffic objectives within easy reach. This it does all around London, with Oyster validity throughout. Private sector companies can operate local bus services within Greater London which are not part of the TfL network, but they need to obtain a ‘London local service licence’ from the metropolitan traffic commissioner to do so. Such services are not part of the TfL Oyster fares and ticketing system.

Cross-boundary bus services

Nearby Hertfordshire places are served by regular daily TfL local bus services as follows: Watford from Wealdstone and Harrow; Watford from Stanmore and Edgware; Borehamwood from Edgware; Borehamwood from Arkley and High Barnet; Potters Bar from Cockfosters and Southgate; Potters Bar from Chase Farm and Enfield.

London buses absorbed the Potters Bar – Enfield link from the National Bus Company in 1982 when Hertfordshire withdrew funding from the St Albans – Potters Bar section of the 313 service. This led to the diversion of bus 84 from South Mimms via Potters Bar en route to High Barnet in June 1986. In October 1986 the London Bus operator registered the 84 as commercial between St Albans and New Barnet. By 2015 Metroline were providing a 15-minute service in Mon-Sat shopping hours (30 minutes on Sundays) with hourly services to late, but in a period before it withdrew the service south of Potters Bar, the daytime service was halved. The regular provision of a local bus service between Barnet and Potters Bar ceased in 2022 for the first time in 101 years, and it is sad and surprising that TfL declined to participate in ‘filling the gap’, especially when it maintains daily tendered links between Potters Bar and Southgate and to Enfield, amongst many other cross-boundary services all around Greater London. Hertsmere District Council has now provided funding for a limited Mon – Sat daytime service between Potters Bar and Barnet. This is very welcome, and we have to wait to see if patronage increases and can justify a frequency increase.

Another cross-boundary local bus is UNO’s commercial all-day service 614 which serves Barnet Spires and Arkley en route between Hatfield and Queensbury. It connects with Hatfield via St Albans Road and the A1(M) where it serves the University of Hertfordshire, the Galleria and the rail station for Hatfield House. In the other direction it runs via Stirling and Apex Corners, Edgware (including the Community Hospital) and Burnt Oak. It provides a half-hour service on Mon – Fri, hourly in evenings and all day Sats. TfL Oyster and Travelcards are not accepted, but Freedom Passes are. Single journey cash fares are capped at the present time at £2 through a central government grant which expires in 2025. We shall have to see what the new government will do.

To complete the cross-boundary picture, TfL does run a school-time only local bus (626) between Finchley, New and High Barnets and the Dame Alice Owen School in Potters Bar, but although it is available for all users, it only serves Potters Bar (proper) in the morning run, as afternoon journeys only emerge onto the Great North Road at Ganwick Corner.

Public transport in new-build developments

New-build residential developments need to be for about 5,000 people to justify a new bus service, although if there is an existing service nearby which can be diverted easily then smaller developments can be served. All residential units need to be within 400 metres (5-minute walk) of a bus stopping place, and roads serving buses (both ways) need to be a minimum of 6.75 metres wide assuming no on-street parking by cars/vans (DoE circular 82/73).

Routeing through the estate needs to be progressive if the bus does not terminate there – double runs should be avoided and given bus stopping places are 400 metres apart on average, residential cul de sacs should be no longer than 200 metres from the bus route. New developments in urban areas should not be reliant on Dial-a-Ride minibuses – minibus drivers do not get mini wages and there is the added cost of dealing with the travel requests.

General comments

There has been a lack of care by TfL staff in the last 10 years to deal with issues that arise with some bus services in the outer reaches of Greater London in the hilly areas in and around High Barnet and its residential catchment communities. Water, gas leaks and road works in various parts of the Chipping Barnet constituency have resulted in dramatic diversions and withdrawal of some services, often distant from vulnerable residential areas at the bottom of steep hills which have been isolated for weeks on end.

More disturbing are the sudden and frequent withdrawals of 184 buses for several afternoon/evening hours when users, including the less agile, are returning from Barnet with shopping to their homes in the Manor Road/Mays Lane valley. Reliability of some bus services has suffered, not helped by an absence of bus stop timetables for up to four years in Barnet High Street and The Spires. Low floor and electric buses should be welcome, but bus stops are London Buses’ shop window where those who do not have a computer or smart phone depend on information about the bus service they require.

There is a clear need for a Ms or Mr Bus with knowledge of the local area and its hills and valleys to recognise and resolve the issues that can arise so that users – including those who are less agile or have buggies in tow – can be confident that the planned service can actually be run reasonably reliably. When the only bus service on a section of route is withdrawn for a long time, usage does not come back easily when it returns, and that can result in a drop in planned frequency.

On a different but connected tack, the Mayor of London proposes the Superloop 2 for limited stop services between Harrow, Barnet and Enfield. We will wait for details of this exciting and potentially useful project to be consulted on, but some issues need to be pointed out and addressed.

Existing Superloop 1 services around London rightly received a lot of local publicity. Less attention was paid to the associated reductions in existing parallel stopping service frequencies. With the Superloop 2 proposal between Barnet and Enfield the 307 service is vulnerable to altered frequencies which, given the hilly nature of the routeing, needs detailed attention. The Superloop service will only use the main and busy stops en route. Sections like Cat Hill and Slades Hill may not have a Superloop stop. Nearby schools and hospitals may have to depend on a reduced service for their pupils, staff and outpatient appointments. This is just to draw attention to the issue, not to criticise the project. The Bus Planning Team at TfL headquarters plan expertly, but there are lots of intricate details affecting this project which understandably they may not be aware of. It underlines the need for locally-based TfL staff in Outer London who are familiar with the needs and concerns of the local communities.

Peter Bradburn BA, CMILT

I have lived in the Chipping Barnet constituency virtually all my life and enjoyed a 45-year career in transport planning, mainly in the London region but also in northern and west country cities. Experience was plentiful in this multi-disciplinary business and was enhanced by those I met, at all levels.

I joined the Barnet Society committee some 35 years ago, and have advised it on local transport issues from time to time ever since. I believe that the influence of transport on the key housing, Green Belt and town centre aims of the Society at the present time is more important than ever to co-ordinate with other authorities in this outer edge of Greater London.

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Whalebones development – Last chance to comment!

The deadline for comments on the planning application to build 114 homes on the field shown above is Tuesday 12 December. Barnet planners have already built them into the draft Local Plan, and we must work on the basis that they are likely to recommend approval of the plans. If you haven’t submitted your comments yet, there’s still time – you can do so here (or go to Barnet Council’s website and search for planning application 23/4117/FUL).

Residents successfully fought off the previous scheme in 2019, and since then public and political attitudes have significantly changed. Covid-19 greatly enhanced our appreciation of the value of open space and the natural environment. And in 2022, Barnet Council declared a climate and biodiversity emergency. We can fight this off too.

For a full description of the latest plans, see my web post in October.

Before finalising its opinion of the plans, the Barnet Society consulted its membership, some 750 in number. 17.5% responded – a good rate for organisations like ours, and better than in some local elections. Of those, 88% agree that we should object; only 7% support the development – an overwhelming majority.

On the Council’s planning portal, the weight of opposition is even more decisive. As I write, 306 have objected and only 19 have expressed support. But that may not be enough to see off the application. Over 500 people objected to the previous application in 2019. So your vote still matters!

Below is the Society’s submission:

The Barnet Society objects to this planning application on three main grounds: (1) overdevelopment, (2) harm to the Conservation Area, and (3) breaches of policy on open space, the environment and farming.

Overdevelopment

The 114 homes proposed far exceed what is necessary to fund reprovision for the artists, bee-keepers and farming by tenants, and for maintenance of the estate. We accept that some enabling development may be necessary to fund reprovision and maintenance of the estate, but that need only be a small fraction of the number of units proposed.

This is a large development on land which the Inspector described as a ‘valuable undeveloped area of greenspace’. The remaining open space would have the character of an urban park, not the rural character it has now – part parkland, part agricultural smallholding. There would be greater encroachment into the central area than was proposed in the 2019 application. Some buildings would be of 5 storeys, i.e. the same as the tallest of the hospital buildings. Setting back the building line from Wood Street would not be sufficient a visual break between Elmbank and the new buildings on the south side of Wood Street, and would blur the current separate identities of Chipping Barnet and Arkley.

Harm to the Conservation Area

The resulting loss of green space would seriously harm the Wood Street Conservation Area (WSCA) and set a very bad precedent for Barnet’s other conservation areas.

The Whalebones fields are integral to the history and character of the WSCA, and so must be preserved or enhanced. The WSCA extends this far west specifically to take in Whalebones, and defines its ‘open rural character’ and ‘views in and across the site’ as key. Building over the last remaining fields would brutally contradict several statements in Barnet’s WSCA Appraisal Statement and result in major harm. The Planning Inspector’s dismissal of Hill’s appeal against refusal of the previous application in 2021 recognised that the harm both to the Conservation Area and the setting of the listed house ‘is of considerable importance and great weight, sufficient, in my view, to strongly outweigh the public benefits which would flow from the development.’

Breaches of policies on open space, the environment and farming

A development of this type and scale would contradict other Council and national planning policies in relation to open space, the environment and farming. It would also be contrary to New London Plan policies G4.B.1 (no loss of protected open space), G6.D (secure net biodiversity gain) & G8, 8.8.1 (encourage urban agriculture), as well as the Mayor’s Environment & Food Strategies.

Disregarding all these would send Barnet residents a most unfortunate message about the Council’s understanding of the increasing value we increasingly attach to the natural environment – not to mention other issues such as healthy eating and food security. It would also be inconsistent with Barnet’s own declaration of a climate and biodiversity emergency.

Other matters

We support public access to at least part of the estate and enhancement of its natural qualities. But the previous owner Gwyneth Cowing allowed access by means of a permissive path, so providing a Woodland Walk is only replacing what has been withdrawn.

The application is unclear about the long-term ownership and management of the public space.

Notwithstanding the technical reports, we remain concerned about the poor ground conditions and the possible impact of the development on the drainage of neighbouring areas.

Conclusion

This site is precious: a unique historical survival and a living reservoir of biodiversity. Not only would the current proposals severely harm it, their approval would expose the eastern part of the site to further development. Their implementation would be a humiliating reminder of the Council’s failure to protect its past and plan constructively for its future. Please refuse the application.

I have requested to speak at the Planning Committee on behalf of the Barnet Society.

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Concerns grow about lack of Council notification of Whalebones planning application

Concern is growing that – nearly a month after a major planning application for 114 homes on the Whalebones fields was submitted – neighbours have yet to be formally notified by the Council. Barnet residents have until only until Tuesday 14 November to look at the plans and make their own comments, for or against.

Since this article was posted, the Council has identified an administrative error which resulted in non-delivery of the public consultation letters. It has now sent letters dated 31 October with a new 42-day consultation period (expiry date 12.12.2023). Further application documents are expected this month and the Council will also re-consult upon their receipt.

Of even greater concern is that the only visible public notice of the new application is both inaccurate and out of date. Unlike the previous Whalebones application and appeal there are no public notices attached to any of the various accesses and gates to the estate, small-holding, and fields.

As the photo above shows, the one and only sign is wrapped tightly around the circumference of a pole for a CPZ parking bay on Wood Street, a few yards along from the main Whalebones entrance. It cannot be read without turning full circle and stepping into a busy main road.

More to the point, it is out of date as it states that comments can be made until Thursday 2 November (and that the sign will be removed on November 3) when the final date for representations is in fact Tuesday 14 November. The absence of an up-to-date and correct public notification is a highly egregious omission.

The Whalebones estate is nearly 12 acres of ancient and biodiverse greenery visually separating Chipping Barnet from Arkley, looking south-west towards Arkley (as shown in the architects’ aerial visualisation at the top. The Arkley pub is at the top right, and Barnet Hospital is just off to the left). It is an integral part of the Wood Street Conservation Area, which encapsulates the story of historic Barnet, a town that grew up as a market for livestock that grazed on these meadows.

Barnet Council has a statutory duty to consult neighbours on planning applications. Its Statement of Community Involvement 2018 states in paragraph 5.1.2 that

‘The Council’s approach to publishing and consulting upon planning applications is:

  • to consult for 28 days;
  • to publish applications on the Council’s website; and
  • to publish a site notice and press advertisement when necessary and issue neighbour consultation letters.’

In 5.3.1 it adds, ‘For major developments with a wider effect, consultation will be carried out accordingly’.

To date, Barnet Society members who live adjacent to the site have not received any such letter. Our wider enquiries indicate that no-one else has either.

At the time of writing, 178 objections have been posted on the Council’s planning portal, and 3 comments supporting the planning application. When an application was made in 2019 for a scheme generally similar to the latest proposal but for 152 instead of 114 homes, 570 objections were received and 5 supported it.

It seems extraordinary, especially for a site that has been the subject of public interest and enjoyment for many years – and when the incoming Council committed itself last year to a greener Barnet – that special effort has not been made to engage with the local community.

Most residents can’t spare time to check weekly online on the off chance that a new planning application has been posted that might interest them. That’s why many of them join voluntary amenity groups such as the Barnet Society: we do that job for them. We’ll be submitting the Society’s comments by 14 November.

But there are many other residents who have an equal right to know about local applications that might affect them.

Paragraph 5.1.4 of the Statement of Community Involvement asserts that, ‘the Council values the contribution of all responses to planning applications to the decision making process.’ We ask it to act as a matter of urgency to inform neighbours – and everyone who commented on the 2019 application and therefore also have an interest. If necessary, the deadline for them to comment should be extended.

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Fairview & One Housing back for more (again) at Victoria Quarter

The Victoria Quarter illustrates – barely believably – the extraordinary lengths to which some developers go these days to cram housing onto their sites. After a decade campaigning for a development of the former gasworks site in the best interests of present neighbours and future residents, and seeing off several schemes that weren’t, locals might be excused for accepting a compromise solution. Instead, residents group Save New Barnet (SNB) are determined not to settle for a scheme that, as climate changes, could become a slum of the future.

The Victoria Quarter illustrates – barely believably – the extraordinary lengths to which some developers go these days to cram housing onto their sites. After a decade campaigning for a development of the former gasworks site in the best interests of present neighbours and future residents, and seeing off several schemes that weren’t, locals might be excused for accepting a compromise solution. Instead, residents group Save New Barnet (SNB) are determined not to settle for a scheme that, as climate changes, could become a slum of the future.

The battle over the 7.5 acres former gasworks site in New Barnet has been epic:

  • In 2017, after 4 years of negotiation, a scheme for 371 homes was given planning permission. Council and community agreed it to be a good blend of flats and family houses with gardens, most with views of Victoria Recreation Ground.
  • In 2020 One Housing with Fairview New Homes applied for permission for 652 units in blocks up to 10 storeys high. Following a local outcry, it was refused.
  • Undeterred, they returned in 2021 with a reduced scheme for 539 units in 13 blocks ranging from 4 to 7 storeys high. 800 members of the public objected. Last year the Council rejected that proposal too by 9 votes to 1 (with 1 abstention).
  • The developer appealed against the decision, but lost after a public planning inquiry.
  • They sought a judicial review of the appeal decision, but were refused.
  • In a final throw of the dice, the developer appealed in the High Court against that refusal. Last January that appeal was refused too.

At that point, you might think Fairview & One Housing would revert to the 2017 (approved) scheme – but you’d be wrong. Last month they came back with yet another planning application, this time for 486 units, 35% of them affordable.

 

They claim to be generally following the 2017 plan with its ‘finger’ blocks, but replacing the terraced houses and gardens with taller blocks to provide 76 more social and affordable homes. Their ambition is ‘to see Victoria Quarter become the most sustainable development that Fairview has delivered to date’.

In the Barnet Society’s opinion the scheme is architecturally nothing special, but an improvement on the others offered since 2017. The design is generally less fussy and overbearing. The landscaping works better. Most flats would have a view of the Recreation Ground. But we regret the complete absence of traditional private gardens, and that only 8 of the homes would be for larger families.

At a public meeting on 11 October an over-riding theme emerged: the poor environmental design of many of the homes. For example, around:

  • 20% of the flats would be single-aspect, so cross-ventilation in hot weather would be impossible.
  • 25% wouldn’t meet adequate daylighting standards, affecting mental health.
  • 45% would require active cooling to meet the minimum guidelines on overheating, the running cost of which would not be included in their rent.
  • And most homes would depend on mechanical ventilation and heat recovery (MVHR). If MVHR is switched off, condensation, mould and poor air quality would result, causing damage to the building fabric and potentially serious health consequences for occupants.

SNB have now publicised five design improvements that must be made before they could accept the scheme:

  1. Overheating – add brise soleil (sun louvres), and examine design/orientation of flats.
  2. Railway noise – add noise barriers at track level.
  3. Daylight/sunlight – reduce the 4 finger blocks to 5-storey instead of 6.
  4. High proportion of small flats – replace some of the single-aspect studio flats in the finger blocks with larger dual-aspect flats.
  5. Out of character with the area – address the comments raised by Barnet’s Urban Designers.

You can read SNB’s full objection here.

The Barnet Society supports SNB and is objecting to the planning application – despite our ardent wish to see new housing on this site. We’re YIMBYs: we’d love well designed new housing in Chipping Barnet. But it must be genuinely sustainable. Fairview & One Housing’s latest effort wouldn’t be.

Half a century ago, the construction and management defects of numerous postwar housing estates became apparent. Just because we have a housing shortage, we must not build another generation of sub-standard homes.

We urge you to object personally. You can do so on the planning portal. The deadline is Friday 3 November.

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Concessions at Whalebones – but not nearly enough

A new planning application is in for the Whalebones site. The plans have been scaled back from 152 to 114 homes, but in most other respects are similar to the one we objected to in 2019. To be clear: the Barnet Society doesn’t object to some housing to fund reprovision for the artists, bee-keepers and the current tenant farmer, and for maintenance of the estate. But the Trustees want way more than that. Our Committee is minded to object again, and encourages you to submit your own objections before the deadline of 14 November.

Read on to find out our grounds for objection, and how to submit your own.

The saga so far…

The Whalebones site is a surprising and wonderful survival – almost 12 acres of greenery and biodiversity close to the heart of Chipping Barnet. Although not designated as Green Belt, it includes the last remaining fields near the town centre and is integral to the Wood Street Conservation Area (WSCA). Anywhere else in the UK, surely, building over 6 acres of green space in a Conservation Area would be inconceivable.

The WSCA encapsulates 800 years of Barnet history. At one end is St John the Baptist’s church and our original marketplace, chartered in 1199; at the other end, open fields. Their juxtaposition is richly symbolic. Barnet’s growth to national status derived chiefly from livestock: herds were driven across the country to their final pastures on the fringe of the town, then sold at Barnet market. Building over the last remaining fields would brutally contradict several statements in the CA Appraisal Statement and amount to lobotomy of Barnet’s collective memory.

Hill, the developer working with the Trustees of the Whalebones Estate, first submitted a proposal in 2019. It was for 152 homes, 40% of which were to be ‘affordable’. A new building was to be provided for Barnet Guild of Artists and Barnet Beekeepers Association. The tenant farmer, Peter Mason and his wife Jill, would have rent-free accommodation and agricultural space for life. There were to be two new public open spaces including a health and wellbeing garden. A route between Wood Street and Barnet Hospital via a new woodland walk was offered.

Before responding we asked for our members’ views. A decisive majority of respondents – nearly 90% – opposed the scheme, and only three supported it. We therefore objected to the application. The plans were refused permission in 2020, and Hill’s appeal against the Council decision was dismissed by the Planning Inspectorate in 2021.

The latest plans include 114 new homes, of which 40% would again be ‘affordable’. ranging from 2 to 5 storeys in height. The building line along Wood Street would be set back. The blocks next to Elmbank would be reduced, as would be the single-storey studio for the artists and beekeepers. Gone is the health and wellbeing garden. The rest is much as proposed in 2019, but the eastern part of the site would remain in the ownership of the Trustees.

Information can also be found on Hill’s website: https://whalebones-consultation.co.uk/

The Society’s response

Our Committee has drafted the Society’s objection. These are its key points:

  • 114 homes far exceed what is necessary to fund reprovision for the artists, bee-keepers and tenant farmer and maintenance of the estate.
  • The Whalebones fields are integral to the history and character of the Wood Street Conservation Area. Their loss would seriously harm the CA.
  • That would set a very bad precedent for Barnet’s other conservation areas.
  • A development of this scale contradicts Council, London Mayoral and national planning policies that promote the value of open space, the environment and farming.
  • It would be inconsistent with Barnet’s declaration of a climate and biodiversity emergency.
  • The remaining open space would have the character of an urban park, not the rural character it has now – part parkland, part agricultural smallholding.
  • A Woodland Walk would merely replace the permissive path Gwyneth Cowing, the previous owner, allowed across the site.
  • Some buildings would be 5 storeys high, the same as the tallest hospital buildings.
  • Setting back the building line from Wood Street would not provide a visual break between the new houses and Elmbank. The separate identities of Chipping Barnet and Arkley would disappear.
  • The application is unclear about the long-term ownership and management of the public spaces or smallholding (after departure of the tenant farmer and his wife). If 114 homes are approved, the eastern part of the site will be ripe for further development.

Conclusion

If approved, these plans will represent a huge lost opportunity for Chipping Barnet. We don’t accept the applicant’s assertion that some form of agricultural or other green land-based activities would not be appropriate and economically viable. The developer hasn’t explored activities of a kind likely to have interested Gwyneth Cowing. These include a city farm for young and old people, including those with special needs, as just one possibility. Other acceptable uses include education, training and/or therapy in horticulture, animal husbandry and environmental studies, perhaps in partnership with a local school or college.

When this project began in 2015, the Council was seeking a replacement site for one of its special schools. Last year it approved a new school for 90 pupils with Autistic Spectrum Disorder in a converted office block in Moxon Street, with no outdoor play space except on its roof. It is a dismal comment on the priorities of the Trustees and the Council that locating it on part of Whalebones – the greenery of which would have been of profound benefit to the wellbeing and education to the pupils – was never considered.

In our view, any of the alternatives mentioned above would enhance the CA. They would also be in keeping with the spirit of Ms Cowing’s will. On the planning portal, a ‘Master Pipistrelle’ has posted a poignant Ode to Gwyneth. It includes these verses:

Eighteen ninety-nine was the year of Gwyn’s birth
At Whalebones, in Barnet on this green Earth
Was the Cowing’s estate, her manor-house home
A place where both artists and bees could roam…

Plan after plan, they’re ignoring Gwyn’s will
But the People are here, trying to instil
the ambition of Gwyn, for her home to enthral
To remain in the community forever and for all.

Too right! We’re currently consulting our members on our response.

How to object

Submit your own objections directly via the planning portal.

Or you can writing, with the application reference no. (23/4117/FUL) clearly at the top, to the Planning Officer:

Josh McLean MRTPI

Planning Manager

Planning and Building Control

Barnet Council

2 Bristol Avenue, Colindale, NW9 4EW

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Greening Barnet’s existing homes

My web post on 25 September about the crucial importance of minimising carbon emissions from Barnet’s existing housing stock looked at the challenge of upgrading the environmental performance of two houses on the Council’s Local Heritage List. This post shows what can be done to a more typical home in our borough.

No.1 Halliwick Road is an Edwardian semi-detached house typical of many in Barnet. Its owner, architect Ben Ridley, has radically upgraded it with the aim of making it an exemplar of sustainable retrofit on a constrained budget. When it was opened to the public earlier this month as part of London’s Open House Festival, it attracted scores of visitors.

Ben is the founding Director of Architecture for London https://architectureforlondon.com/, a practice with a track record of domestic and larger projects completed since 2009. Several have been published and won awards. He has expertise in Passivhaus design, an approach originating in Germany that through excellent thermal insulation, scrupulous airtightness and mechanical ventilation and heat recovery (MVHR) enables houses to provide comfortable living conditions with minimal use of energy.

Ben refurbished the façades of the existing house and its neighbour so that, seen from the street, they retain their traditional character.

This was achieved by insulating the front brick wall internally with 65mm of wood fibre finished with 10mm of lime plaster. The flank wall and the upper floor to the rear were insulated with 170mm phenolic insulation and coated with a grey render.

Internally, the ground floor has been almost completely opened up. This was not necessary environmentally, but provides a great sense of spaciousness and light, with daylight flooding in on three sides.

A back extension was added to the ground floor with walls of prefabricated 172mm structural insulated panels (SIPs).

Triple glazing was installed throughout. New double glazed vertical sliding sash windows were fitted, and behind them demountable secondary glazing panels are fixed and removed in summer. Continuous curtains provide additional thermal and acoustic insulation as well as privacy.

New windows are simply framed in wood and offer dramatic uninterrupted views of the greenery outside. A low-energy MVHR system ensures a supply of fresh, filtered and pre-warmed air when the windows are closed. Hidden ducts distribute fresh air and extract vitiated air via the roof.

The original suspended timber ground floor was overlaid with large Italian marble slabs for their visual quality and thermal mass. The void below was packed with insulation with sub-floor air vents to avoid condensation and decay. First floor timber joists and boards were exposed and cleaned up, and sound transmission between floors deadened by acoustic quilt. A wet underfloor heating system supplies the little space heating that such a well-insulated house needs.

The staircase has been replaced by a more compact one of plywood. A ground floor toilet is tucked underneath it. On the first floor is a new toilet and bathroom lined with limestone and wood. The existing loft has been converted into a bedroom and TV room.

The use of steel and concrete, which require large quantities of carbon to make, has been significantly reduced, with no steels used in the loft conversion.

The end result is a striking combination of traditional and contemporary craftsmanship that achieves a Passivhaus standard U-value of 0.15 or better (with the exception of the internally insulated front façade). The overall cost was around £250k + VAT – good value considering the extensive floor area (190sq.m.), especially at a time of high inflation and construction costs.

Ben Ridley has shown one way of upgrading an old house environmentally: there are others. But whatever you chose to do, it’s vital to (1) get appropriately qualified advice; (2) assess the whole building, its site and surroundings (even if your project has to be carried out in stages); (3) evaluate the likely costs of different options and possible sources of funds; and (4) use experienced contractors.

That’s easily said but in practice very challenging to achieve. The carbon reduction targets set by the Government are commendably ambitious, but to help meet them the only funding currently on offer to home-owners is grants of £5,000 for the installation of heat pumps. Although the need for better training of designers, engineers and builders has long been recognised, we also have a national skills shortage.

In Barnet, Council has launched some worthwhile initiatives following its declaration of climate emergency in May 2022, but the Barnet Sustainability Strategy Framework focuses, understandably, on improving the energy efficiency of Council-owned property to help achieve net-zero council operations by 2030.

As part of Building a sustainable future for Barnet, the Council also wants to ensure residents have access to the information they need to make sustainable choices. That would be a valuable start, but we’ve yet to find out how they propose to provide it.

Both Council and Government must do much more. As Marianne Nix, a Barnet Society member and house-owner keen to follow best practice says,

‘I can’t see how ordinary families will be able to manage. I can see the consequence – a lot of old buildings will be insulated incorrectly with all the wrong materials being used, and causing more issues and damage to properties in the long run.’

For these reasons the Barnet Society supports United for Warm Homes, a campaign by Barnet Friends of the Earth to petition MPs for:

  1. Urgent support for people dealing with sky-high energy bills.
  2. A new emergency programme to insulate our homes.
  3. An energy system powered by cheap, green renewables.

Please click this link to add your own support.

If you’re wondering what to do about your own home, the following sources of information may be helpful:

I’m most grateful to Ben Ridley for technical information and Dave McCormick for environmental advice on this article.

 

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Barnet’s biggest environmental challenge?

In Barnet, the biggest cause of climate change is housing. Homes emit around 50% of the carbon released in our borough. Radically reducing those emissions by upgrading the environmental performance of our homes is the most urgent and useful thing that many of us can do. It will also generate employment, substantially reduce our energy bills and – done properly – improve our health.

Over two-thirds of Barnet’s housing stock was built before 1944, and over 85% of it is likely still to exist in 2050. Today, the median Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) rating of existing homes in Chipping Barnet is only about 56%. Retrofitting them is therefore critical to achieving Net Zero.

The Barnet Society supports United for Warm Homes, a campaign by Barnet Friends of the Earth to petition MPs for:

  1. Urgent support for people dealing with sky-high energy bills.
  2. A new emergency programme to insulate our homes.
  3. An energy system powered by cheap, green renewables.

Please click this link to add your own support!

The technical and aesthetic challenges of bringing old houses up to modern standards mustn’t be under-estimated. It’s also financially challenging – but will only get more expensive the longer we delay. To illustrate the challenges – and to indicate some ways in which they can be met – this and my next web post will look at a couple of examples in Barnet.

The first is an attractive Arts & Crafts house that is on Barnet’s Local Heritage List, but in need of repair and improvement to reduce its energy consumption.

The second, which I’ll look at in my next post, is a more typical semi-detached house that has just been radically upgraded by a local architect, and which was opened to the public as part of London Open House earlier this month.
Nos. 26 & 27 Manor Road in Chipping Barnet is a pair of semi-detached houses dating from about 1906. The architect isn’t recorded, but the design shows the influence of Lutyens and Voysey. No.27 was the home of Peter and Doreen Willcocks, who were stalwarts of the Barnet Society and Barnet Local History Society. They moved in 60 years ago and the house is still occupied by family.

The future of both houses is uncertain. Being on the Local List they deserve careful conservation, but they’re increasingly expensive to maintain.

No.27 has been well looked-after – not surprisingly, since Peter was a national expert on the Building Regulations. But also unsurprisingly, it is showing signs of age. Fortunately its underlying structure seems generally sound and repairs should not be too difficult. What can and should be done to bring it somewhere near Net Zero standards without losing its beautifully crafted details?

Below are listed some improvements that could be made here, and to many other Barnet houses of similar vintage. However they are purely indicative and no substitute, it must be stressed, for a full survey and environmental diagnosis by a qualified professional.
Southerly-facing parts of the roof could be fitted with photovoltaic (PV) panels to generate solar energy. Although not applicable in the case of No.27, note that it may not be permissible to fit PVs on roofs in a Conservation Area.

Guttering and drains are of cast iron with an ornate hopper-head. They should be kept if possible, or replaced with cast aluminium to similar profiles.

The rough-cast render is essential to No.27’s character. It may need repair or partial replacement, but that must be done with lime mortar to enable the brickwork behind to breathe. In unobtrusive places, it could be replaced with new external insulation finished with a thinner render to match the original in texture and colour. But this would need to be 50-100 mm thick which would have an impact on door and window reveals and cills, and require close-fitting eaves, gutters, downpipes and soil and waste pipework to be adjusted. Where internal insulation can be provided without unacceptable disturbance, all external walls can benefit from condensation-safe internal insulation, e.g. patent render with cork granules and lime skim-coat finish.

External and internal doors and frames are of solid wood with panels, often with their original ironmongery and Classical canopies or cornices above. The external doors would need draught-proofing.

The original lead-paned windows with their ornamental fasteners remain intact. Secondary glazing was installed remarkably discreetly by Peter Willcocks nearly 50 years ago: compare the original living room windows (above middle R) with the secondary-glazed ones in the kitchen (above far R). Today a triple-glazed unit would be considered.‘Slimlite’ and similar thin double-glazing units are available, some fitting into the traditional shallow glazing rebates. They are more expensive than normal double-glazed units but more elegant than secondary glazing.

Much of the ground floor is of timber boards, still in good condition. Underfloor insulation could be inserted between the floor joists, though care is required to retain, clear, and possibly increase the number of sub-floor vent bricks/gratings to ensure a through-flow of fresh air.

Several fireplaces survive, one with a magnificent Classical mantelpiece and surround. Most have been blocked up but include ventilation for their flues. The existing tall chimneys are features of the roof and in fair condition. They should be retained and could form part of a new mechanically controlled ventilation system with heat recovery.

The roof spaces have been partly converted for storage and other use, but the existing structure – and even the vertical sliding shutters to the gable ventilator slits – remain in fair condition. The insulation should be greatly increased, however, and air leakage and condensation eliminated.

The existing gas central heating boiler and radiators have served well for decades, but the boiler will have to replaced before long by some new source – or combination of sources –  of renewable energy. One could be solar panels (mentioned above). Air-source heat pumps (ASHPs) are increasingly being used, though their effectiveness depends on high levels of thermal insulation and airtightness, and often on larger and/or more efficient radiators. Whilst gas and oil-fuelled boilers continue in use, solar water-heating from a roof-mounted solar panel is a good way of mitigating fuel costs. This entails replacement of the standard hot-water storage cylinder with a well-insulated calorifier containing an additional heating coil connected to the solar panel.

The All-Party Parliamentary Group for Healthy Homes and Buildings points out that the introduction of energy efficiency measures must go hand-in-hand with the introduction of appropriate mechanical ventilation that can exchange toxic indoor air with fresh air, and with design measures that improve the overall comfort and wellbeing of all occupants.

To ensure both air quality and economical running, a building energy management system (BEMS) will be needed. But it must be properly installed, calibrated, commissioned and maintained.

Materials and workmanship must also be of appropriate quality. As well as looking right, the results must not impair the environmental performance of the building, for example by creating condensation and mould.

The suggestions above only scratch the surface. It’s vital to understand the construction of a house before specifying solutions, but getting good advice isn’t easy.

As Barnet Society member and sustainability expert Dave McCormick notes, ‘High energy prices might be persuading more people to consider green home improvements, but knowing where to begin is an issue for many.’ Or as Marianne Nix, another Society member and house-owner keen to follow best practice, puts it, ‘Finding suitable builders is like looking for a needle in a haystack. And I’m not sure I know what the needle looks like!’

Looking for that needle – and for expert advisers, designers, builders and funding – will be addressed in my next post.

I’m most grateful to Alan Johnson, Richard Kay and Dave McCormick for their advice on this article.

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The Barnet Vale Festival is coming to Tudor Park on June 25th

The Barnet Vale Festival on Sunday 25th June is a free drop-in community event at the superb but dilapidated art deco pavilion in Tudor Park, Barnet EN5. It is organised by The Friends of Tudor Park and Pavilion (FoTPP), a group aiming to refurbish the pavilion as a new multi-functional hub for the community; and is a Barnet Society project.

Following the success of last year’s Picnic in the Park, FoTPP have organised a festival day to bring together and celebrate the local community.

Put Sunday 25th June in your diary for a day of live music, talks, stalls from local food vendors, an eco “show and tell” and fun for all the family. Festival displays and workshops include:

  • Children’s activities: making models, pavilion drawing, face-painting and treasure trail
  • Your opportunity to learn about the pavilion’s past and suggest what it could become
  • The Flower Bank: growing your own veg
  • Incredible Edible: you won’t believe what you can eat
  • Pavilion memories: local people record their stories

Talks will run from 12pm to 4pm* and include:

  • 12pm: Welcome by Simon Cohen, Chair of FoTPP
  • 12.30pm: History of Tudor Park Pavilion by Dr Susan Skedd, architectural historian
  • 1pm: Enhancing the buildings and green spaces of Barnet, by Robin Bishop RIBA, Barnet Society
  • 2pm: New uses for the Pavilion, by Simon Kaufman RIBA
  • 2.30pm: Regenerating Tudor Park, by Katy Staton LI
  • 3pm: Community Q&A – Regeneration of Tudor Park

* Timing of talks subject to change

The festival is part of the London Festival of Architecture, and is also supported by Friends of the Earth and The Barnet Society. We are grateful for a grant from Barnet Council.



Details:

  • The Barnet Vale Festival: Sunday 25th June from 11am to 4pm
  • At Tudor Sports Ground, Clifford Road, EN5
  • Please walk or travel by public transport if possible: parking is limited

For more information:

To support the pavilion project directly, go to FoTPP’s JustGiving donations page at https://checkout.justgiving.com/c/3434643.

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The London Festival of Architecture comes to Barnet in June!

The London Festival of Architecture (LFA) is a month-long celebration of architecture and city-making that takes place every June across London. This year, for the first time, Barnet is an official destination in the LFA’s exciting and varied programme of events around the theme ‘In Common’. Several are coming up in the north of our Borough.

  • 1-21 June Small Talk – Miniature Chair Exhibition

10:00-21:00 Barnet Museum, Unit 19 The Spires

  • 5, 14, 17 & 24 June Barnet commons – old and new

Barnet Society-led walks in and around Chipping Barnet 14:00-16:30 (further details below)

  • 5 June The Big Build

Activities for under-5s 10:00-11:00, Chipping Barnet Library

  • 9 June Design your dream library

Building activities for 7-11s, 15:00-16:00 New Barnet Library (New Barnet Leisure Centre)

  • 25 June Barnet Vale Festival talks

12:00-16:00 Drop-in community event at the pavilion in Tudor Park (pictured below)

More details about these – and the many other LFA events – can be found on the LFA website.

The Barnet Society is offering two circular walks around some of the almshouse gardens and newer shared spaces in and around the town centre.

We’ll visit (depending on the route) the remarkable Arts & Crafts Thomas Watson Cottage Homes, Ravenscroft Cottages and the modern New Ground co-housing for older women. We’ll ramble across remains of the ancient Barnet Common as well as more recent parks such as Highlands Gardens and Ravenscroft Park. And we’ll pass allotments, climb Whitings Hill and follow the secluded Dollis Brook. All these are inspiring examples of common space across the centuries.

All walks begin and end in the vehicle forecourt of High Barnet tube station. All include parts of the town centre, then head into the countryside – one to the south-west, the other to the north-east. Dates are as follows:

  • Monday 14:00-16:30 5 June – Walk 1 (Town centre and South-West)
  • Wednesday 14:00-16:30 14 June – Walk 2 (Town centre and North-East)
  • Saturday 14:00-16:30 17 June – Walk 1 (Town centre and South-West)
  • Saturday 14:00-16:30 24 June – Walk 2 (Town centre and North-East)

Tickets cost £5 (or £2.50 for unwaged). The maximum group size for each walk is 20, so book your place now!

Each is about 2.5 hours/4.5 miles long including rough (sometimes muddy) paths which disabled people would find challenging, and sturdy footwear is essential – as well as rainwear if the forecast is poor.

We’ll go at a gentle pace, and there will be frequent stops and opportunities to rest. If you have to leave before the end of the walk, TfL buses can return you to the town centre and High Barnet Station.

Refreshments are available in the town, but we advise bringing your own – especially water if the weather is warm.

The Society acknowledges with many thanks the help of a grant from Barnet Council.


Any queries? Please contact me, Robin Bishop, at robinbishop350@gmail.com or 020 8449 0088 / 07913 107046

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The Spires developers must up their design game – and drop their building heights

The Barnet Society’s Planning & Environment Committee has studied closely the latest design proposals exhibited at The Spires on 12 & 15 April. This is a once-in-a-generation chance to revitalise our town centre, but it risks being wasted.

Frankly, we’re disappointed. Back in December last year, we responded to the initial proposals for The Spires with numerous constructive suggestions and cautionary comments. Over three months later, few of them seem to have been regarded.

The Society’s fundamental position is that we could accept around 250 flats if the result would be a real improvement on the present Spires. That would include a wider range of retail and other uses, a more attractive place to shop and hang out, and better bus/car drop-off and pick-up arrangements (amongst other things).

Unfortunately, the current scheme doesn’t seem to offer such improvements. Benefits to the public realm are at best vague or limited, and in some cases the proposals would be detrimental. Basic information on the new homes, transport, sustainability and the visual impact on neighbours and conservation areas is lacking, but is essential if the developers are to get community support.

We’ve told them our reasons for disappointment – and if you care for the future of our town, please submit your own comments. There’s no deadline, but the sooner you do so the better. You can view the exhibition boards here. Then

The Society has four particular concerns:

Building height

The proposed 5 & 6-storey blocks along the south side of Spires Walk would overshadow the precinct to a completely unacceptable degree. We are also very concerned about the visual impact of the 4, 5 & 6 storeys proposed north of the Spires Walk, on the multi-storey car park and behind Chipping Close, and would have to see verified visualisations from key view-points before commenting further.

Transport

No attempt has been made to improve the present unsatisfactory – and sometimes hazardous – arrangements for buses, car drop-off or pick-up and pedestrian crossing. The scheme also depends on highly optimistic assumptions about car parking demand. Credible transport studies must be made available.

Housing

The almost complete absence of plans, sections and other information about this major component of the scheme is astonishing, and prevents us adding to the numerous comments we made on the subject in our submission last year. We should point out that compliance with the London Mayoral and Barnet Council housing design standards will be essential, not simply the Nationally Described Space Standards referenced on the exhibition boards.

Trading continuity

The lack of information about phasing of building works and temporary decanting of existing businesses, most of which are essential for the regeneration of the town centre, is worrying.

We also have comments on other points:

Permeability

New public pedestrian connections between the development and Bruce Road, and High Street (via the alley between Nos.131 & 133) are desirable.

Mix of uses

We like the idea of a ‘varied offer of retail, F&B, leisure and cultural’ and ‘active community & retail space fronting onto the High Street’ (or is that meant to mean St Albans Road?), but need more detail. ‘Changing places’ and able-bodied public conveniences should also be provided.

Market

We welcome the extra space proposed for the market if demand increases.

Spires Walk

The width between the proposed 5 & 6-storey slabs appears little wider than the smaller of the existing courtyards, and much less than the 21 metres recommended for residential visual and aural privacy. As well as its almost continuous overshadowing (mentioned above), we regret the removal of most of the existing protection from rain.

A further observation: this design would remove the variety and element of surprise that gives the present precinct much of its character. That would be replaced by a long, straight vista focusing the westward gaze on…the anticlimax of the car park entrance. A more inspired townscape gesture is called for.

Green space

The plans indicate plenty of greenery, which would be welcome, but according to the exhibition panels only 80 sq.m. is additional, which seems meagre for a site of this size. Does it include the ‘communal garden’ and its adjacent new greenery? Who would be able to access it, and how would it be kept secure?

Play space

Provision for children’s play is equally ambiguous. We are promised improvement to the green to create a ‘playable’ space. But which green is meant: the new ‘communal garden’ or the Stapylton Road pocket park (which is outside the development site)? And would it be a purpose-designed play area?

Sustainability

The environmental measures offered are heading in right direction, but are ad hoc and unambitious. A project of this size is an opportunity for a more holistic and integrated scheme. Robust assurances on air quality will also be needed, during and after construction.

Unless the development team up their design game – and drop their building heights – the impression that they are prioritising residential units and private profit over public benefit will be unavoidable.

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Healthier homes – what can Barnet residents do?

Despite the pace of new building in Barnet, most of our existing homes fall well below the environmental standards we need to meet to avoid climate catastrophe. At last week’s Barnet Society debate on Better Homes for Barnet, Dave McCormick of Barnet Friends of the Earth gave advice on what residents can do to save energy, minimise waste and make Barnet more sustainable. Below is a summary of Dave’s presentation.

We can probably all agree that we want new housing developments to be “healthy homes”, but are our existing homes healthy?

Homes in Barnet are the source of 48% of carbon emissions and most of the existing housing stock was built in the last century when climate change and biodiversity loss were less prominent issues. Unhealthy homes are homes that can harm our health and the environment – making our homes healthier can lead to healthier people, communities, and nature. So, what are the issues and what can we do?

Barnet is within a water-stressed region of the UK as we are extracting water from our environment faster than nature is replenishing our water resources. To avoid water shortages our water companies need to reduce leaks from pipes and we need to reduce the amount of water we each use per day by about a third. Shorter showers, turning off the tap when brushing teeth, using a bucket rather than a hose when washing the car are all simple things that we can do to reduce consumption. Fixing dripping taps and leaky loos takes a bit more effort and costs some money but can make a big difference. And when legislation for water labelling is finally introduced, we will be able to make better informed decisions about what products we buy.

Over 70% of our homes have gas central heating – a major source of emissions. We need legislation to make it easier to expand local renewable community energy, and help to change how we heat our homes. While we wait for this, we can improve insulation, turn down the thermostat and turn off radiators in unused rooms. All will help reduce our energy bills and our emissions.

Cooking on gas hobs contributes to carbon emissions and indoor air pollution that can harm our health. Switching to induction electric hobs is a good solution but meanwhile boil water in a kettle then put it into a saucepan for cooking and use saucepan lids to reduce gas use. When cooking, make sure the kitchen is well ventilated to help disperse pollution.

If we manage to stop our homes leaking heat we then have to ensure that lack of ventilation doesn’t lead to mould which can damage our health. Indoor air quality is becoming a growing area of concern.

Our households create a lot of waste and in Barnet, less than 30% of it is currently reused, recycled or composted. Rather than focusing on more frequent waste collection, the starting point should be to reduce the amount of waste and compost as much as possible at home (hot composters are good for this).

We all buy a lot of stuff – buying less can help reduce waste and reduce the emissions and water used in making the things we buy.

Food production is a significant source of emissions and freshwater use. Halving our meat and dairy consumption can cut agriculture emissions by between 20-50%. A vegan diet isn’t for everyone but we could all try to eat less meat, eat seasonable local produced food and grow our what we can in our gardens or windowsills.

There is lots we can do at home. We can also encourage others to act and support (and ask our councillors and politicians to support) the following initiatives that are aiming to address the issues around Healthy Homes:

The Healthy Homes Act,  Local Electricity Bill,  United for Warmer Homes (a Friends of the Earth initiative with a local petition).

We face a climate and biodiversity crisis and across our Borough, there are many volunteer groups trying to inspire and educate residents to take simple steps to make our homes healthier, reduce emissions, consume less and protect and enhance nature.

Community gardening, such as Incredible Edible in New Barnet, helps people learn about growing food and plants, composting and bug hotels in a social setting that improves well-being. Projects to plant pollinator bulbs and seeds help improve local biodiversity and Goodgym helps people get fit while doing good.

Community events such as “eco-show and tell” share ideas and get people thinking about what sustainability means for Barnet. This year, East Finchley Community Festival in Cherry Tree Wood aims to replace use of diesel generators with green alternatives – something other parts of Barnet could learn from.

Community action can make a big difference to making our homes, our communities and nature healthier. To succeed, whether it is designing and building new homes or maintaining and improving existing homes, sustainability needs to be at the heart of all we do.

How can we put this into action in Chipping Barnet?

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Typical – wait ages for a decent modern housing scheme, and two come along at once!

After years of dereliction, Barnet Homes have published proposals for sites in Moxon Street and Whitings Road for public consultation. The designs are better than previous schemes for the same sites approved several years ago, but never built. They’re also more imaginative and sensitive than almost any the Barnet Society has seen for a long time. We support them, and hope you will too.

Barnet Homes got the latest plans off to a good start by arranging early public consultations, well before the planning applications are due to be submitted in spring, and by appointing good and experienced design consultants.

Both design teams are led by Peter Barber Architects, who have an excellent record of inserting attractive housing on awkward urban sites. In Barnet they’ve designed the modest Brent Place off Mays Lane; Edgewood Mews, Barnet’s answer to the Byker wall, alongside the North Circular; and the dramatic Pegasus Court in Colindale. The landscape designers for both projects are Staton Cohen, a practice based in Barnet Vale.

Together, the two schemes will offer 50% market and 50% affordable housing, but the mix will on each will be different, as will be the size of units and the balance of flats and houses with gardens.

The Whitings Road site (above) is relatively straightforward, the main planning requirement being to avoid overlooking of adjoining neighbours and Whitings Hill Primary School. The plan does this by clustering 35 homes, mainly 3 & 4-bed houses up to three storeys high with gardens, around a communal green.

The Moxon Street site (above) is more complicated. Half of it is within the Wood Street Conservation Area and it adjoins a Grade II Listed Georgian house. On Moxon Street, the former Checkalows building will be retained and extended, and a new building in similar style will fill the gap next to the listed house. The ground floors will provide small commercial premises with three flats above. Behind Moxon Street, 18 more 1 & 2-bed units will form an L-shaped mews, no higher than two storeys, linking to Tapster Street.

As usual with Peter Barber, the buildings are cleverly designed to maximise accommodation but minimise intrusion into their neighbourhoods. The predominant material is traditional brick, but the facades have a variety of windows and rooflines to provide individuality.

We made encouraging comments on the initial proposals in December. In the light of public comments, modifications have been made and a second round of public consultation is currently being held on both schemes. Only slight amendments have been made at Whitings Road, but at Moxon Street the plans have been developed to meet some criticisms.

We have only minor concerns at this stage. At Moxon Street, using three types of brick will look too ‘busy’; and while the widely differing window sizes and shapes are fun, they might quickly seem dated. At both sites, the flat roofs and varied rooflines are visually interesting but tricky to keep weatherproof. The units are mostly quite small with some strange room layouts. Achieving adequate privacy, daylight and private amenity space will be challenging. The net-zero ambition is admirable, but provision of photovoltaics, air-source heat pumps and a renewable energy strategy is unclear. But these can be sorted out by designers of this calibre.

The deadline for public comments on Moxon Street is Wednesday 15 February, and for Whitings Road Wednesday 22 February. Details can be found here.

If you’re excited by housing schemes like these – or if you dislike them – come and say so at the Barnet Society’s public meeting on Tuesday evening 21 February. Our debate on Better housing for Barnet will be at The Bull theatre, 68 High Street.

Come and ask questions – and suggest solutions – to our panel of speakers which includes

  • Ross Houston, housing lead for Barnet Council
  • Dave McCormick, Friends of the Earth
  • Simon Kaufman & Russell Curtis, local architects with housing expertise

Doors will open for refreshments at 7:00pm and the meeting will be from 7:30 to 9:15pm. Admission: members – free; non-members – £5 donation (or why not join instead?).

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New housing in Barnet – a better way forward

Residents in the north of Barnet have recently felt besieged by new housing developments. We want more – and decent – homes for elderly as well as first-time buyers, but much of what is offered is unimaginative, out of scale and character with our neighbourhood, and mostly unaffordable. Surely we can do better? Brook Valley Gardens – nearing completion – shows one promising way forward.

The Barnet Society is hosting a public meeting on how to improve new and existing housing in Barnet. The debate on What in our back yard? WIMBYS, not NIMBYs! will be on Tuesday evening 21 February at The Bull theatre, 68 High Street.

Come and ask questions – and suggest solutions – to our panel of speakers which includes

  • Ross Houston, housing lead for Barnet Council
  • Dave McCormick, Friends of the Earth
  • Simon Kaufman & Russell Curtis, local architects with housing expertise

Doors will open for refreshments at 7:00pm and the meeting will be from 7:30 to 9:15pm. Admission: members – free; non-members – £5 donation (or why not join instead?)

Brook Valley Gardens is a huge site – over 10 hectares (26 acres) of the former Dollis Valley Estate – and planning approval was granted nearly 10 years ago. But because construction won’t be complete before 2025, and because most of it is hidden from Mays Lane, it’s escaped public attention. That’s a pity: it’s an important and exceptional piece of planning and design.

The project, led by Countryside Properties, replaces a late-1960s prefabricated council estate that suffered a range of building and social problems. Wholesale redevelopment contentiously involved displacement of some 177 council tenants but secured a net gain of 192 homes. Of its 631 new homes, 60% were for private sale and 40% were affordable housing (managed by housing association L&Q). The community was to benefit from a replacement nursery and community centre including the Hope Corner café. The Society supported the planning application.

We particularly supported the design approach of the architects. The master-planners of the whole scheme, and architects of early phases, are Alison Brooks Architects, and of later phases HTA Design. Both are housing specialists with fine track records including numerous awards.

A key feature of the scheme is the restoration of traditional streets, which makes navigation easy and knits the new housing into the existing neighbourhood. Each street is lined with trees and has a different combination of flats and houses with gardens.

Most of the houses are in two or three-storey terraces, but the twelve different house-types and their arrangement, sometimes in line and sometimes staggered, avoids uniformity. The flats are blockier and up to four storeys high, and often mark the street corners. This provides an interesting variety of massing and roofline, but the development retains a sense of identity through use of the same cream textured brick and a high quality of landscaping.

Although the scale of the buildings is fairly traditional, they’re often quirky in shape and detail. Not everyone will like that, but it’s a refreshing change from either of the dominant styles in planning applications, neither trad pastiche nor blunt modernism.

The result is a surprisingly high density of housing – over 60 homes per hectare, which is twice the density of postwar suburban housing but never feels claustrophobic or overbearing. Building at this density on brownfield land would not be enough to solve London’s housing shortage, but Brook Valley Gardens does demonstrate that high density does not necessitate tall buildings or inhumane environments.

Another strong feature of the scheme’s design is that all the dwellings are being built to Code for Sustainable Homes Level 4, a standard that was unusually high ten years ago. It includes a wide range of measures such as solar photovoltaic panels, rainwater harvesting, biodiversity and electric car charging points, all accommodated unobtrusively.

In short, Brook Valley Gardens displays a quite unusual quality of both design and construction. It sets a standard that other developers in Barnet would do well to follow – and thereby avoid the acrimonious planning battles that have raged from High Barnet Station to Barnet House in Whetstone, and from the Victoria Quarter to Cockfosters, and that now threaten The Spires.

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Barnet open spaces exemplify the importance of the Green Belt

These are critical times for London’s Green Belt. But Barnet still has many open spaces where the illusion of countryside is remarkably unspoiled. Eight of them – all in Totteridge or Mill Hill – are on new videos that you can view on the website of the London Green Belt Council (LGBC).

That they survive at all is partly thanks to the Barnet Society’s efforts over eight decades. In 1945 it was founded to save the fields around Chipping Barnet from being built over for 40,000 houses. We’re longstanding members of the LGBC, which helps us fight inappropriate developments in the Green Belt – often (though not always) successfully.

In these crucial days when Liz Truss and her new cabinet have yet to confirm their policies towards the Green Belt and house-building targets, the LGBC needs to get its messages across more effectively. It has around 100 member organisations, but needs more members and a higher profile.

The videos are intended to raise the awareness of the public and government and recruit new supporters. In them, LGBC Chair Richard Knox-Johnston explains why retaining the Metropolitan Green Belt is so vital now for the health of both the environment and each of us. He speaks with enthusiasm and authority reminiscent of Richard Attenborough.

In Richard’s introductory clip, he says that his passion for the subject was ignited half a century ago when, as a young Bromley councillor, he represented a ward that was largely Green Belt. In the subsequent clips, he identifies key reasons for its protection:

  • Safeguarding our mental health
  • Stopping urban sprawl
  • Securing food supply
  • Providing opportunities for leisure, recreation and sports
  • Enhancing biodiversity

He concludes by demolishing the fallacy that new housing in the Green Belt is affordable.

Richard’s messages are especially urgent today, when local councils in London and the Home Counties are currently planning to allow building on more than 48,000 acres of the Green Belt, according to a major new report by the London Green Belt Council (LGBC). ‘Safe Under Us’?. That’s huge: the equivalent of the combined area of the London Boroughs of Barnet, Camden and Enfield – or 60 Hampstead Heaths. You can read about the threat here.

The Green Belt is not referred to in the government’s Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill (LURB), which is working its way through Parliament. Although it’s theoretically protected by national and local government policies, ‘Safe Under Us’? shows how ineffective they are. There are also frustrating inconsistencies between government and council policies and decisions made by the Planning Inspectorate about new developments. The LURB is our best hope of bringing coherence to the planning system and reinforcing protection of the Green Belt – but it has worrying flaws and omissions that the Society, LGBC and our MP Theresa Villiers are lobbying to remove.

Enjoy the view video clips of Barnet’s eight lovely Green Belt locations without leaving your home – but even better, make the effort (if you are able) to walk them yourself!

The filming went like a midsummer dream. On a perfect day (before the worst of last summer’s heatwave) I drove our small crew around the locations. Richard spoke unscripted and needed very few retakes. The videos were shot, recorded and edited most professionally by Jayd Kent of Simply Graphics.

And we found time for a nice lunch at Finchley Nurseries – in Barnet’s Green Belt, naturally.

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London is set to lose 48,000 acres of its local countryside

Local councils in London and the Home Counties are currently planning to allow building on more than 48,000 acres of the Green Belt, according to a major new report by the London Green Belt Council (LGBC). That’s huge: the equivalent of the combined area of the London Boroughs of Barnet, Camden and Enfield – or of 60 Hampstead Heaths.

It is a shocking statistic, especially when the government – including both Conservative leadership contenders Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss – claims to be committed to protecting the Green Belt. Our own MP, Theresa Villiers, has called the situation ‘very worrying’.

The report ‘Safe Under Us’? The continued shrinking of London’s local countryside, 2022 shows that altogether the amount of Green Belt land offered up for development has increased by a massive 127% since 2016, when the LGBC first started tracking threats to London’s local countryside.

Land around London began to be safeguarded from the interwar sprawl of London’s suburbs in the 1930s, and in his 1944 Greater London Plan, Patrick Abercrombie proposed a ring of greenery around the capital. In 1945 our Society was founded to protect the fields around Chipping Barnet from being built over for 40,000 houses. In 1955 the Green Belt was enshrined in planning law, leaving us surrounded on three sides by greenery (see map below).

Since then the Green Belt has been a vital ‘green lung’ for Londoners seeking respite from their urban habitat. More recently, the vital role that open countryside plays in biodiversity, flood prevention and climate change mitigation has become obvious. The Covid-19 pandemic proved its enormous value to people’s health and wellbeing. And the Ukrainian crisis reminds us of its importance for food security.

‘Safe Under Us’? details the extent of Green Belt loss under the Local Plans currently being drafted by every Council. It points out how all of the region’s housing needs could easily be met by building on brownfield (previously developed) urban sites instead. The full report can be read here.

The report highlights the fact that many councils are still using housing figures based on out-of-date (2014) population and household projections from the Office for National Statistics when more recent and accurate Census figures show a marked slowing-down of population increase. Far fewer houses are actually needed than are currently being planned for.

Furthermore, adds LGBC Chairman Richard Knox-Johnston, “It is a fallacy that building in the Green Belt will provide affordable homes. New development in the Green Belt is mainly 4 or 5-bedroom homes built at very low densities since those are the most profitable for developers to build, so not providing affordable homes for young people.”

The counties of Hertfordshire, Essex and Surrey account for two-thirds of all the current development threats. Barnet is one of the least offending planning authorities, planning to build 576 homes on a mere 133 acres of the Green Belt. Fortunately, most of these are previously-developed land in Mill Hill (the former National Institute of Medical Research and Jehovah’s Witness sites).

Despite Barnet’s policies on protecting the Green Belt and environment, however, over the last five years around 40 planning applications have been made to build on Green Belt in or near Chipping Barnet. Most are to replace existing buildings with modest residential developments, but some cause us considerable concern. They include substantial gas and electricity plants off Partingdale Lane. The former was withdrawn and the latter refused permission – but Harbour Energy has just appealed against the latter decision, so that threat remains.

And Barnet’s draft Local Plan includes a proposal for a large leisure hub in the middle of Barnet Playing Fields – which are designated Green Belt – despite similar facilities being available for community use in two nearby schools.

The Society watches such cases closely. We’re strengthened by being longstanding members of the LGBC, and of its sister organisation, the Council for the Protection of Rural England (CPRE). Several of our Committee Members are actively involved with the LGBC: Derek Epstein is its Membership Secretary, Simon Watson manages its website and I’m on its Executive Council. Derek and I contributed to ‘Safe Under Us’?.

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Victory for New Barnet residents over Victoria Quarter development

After a nine-day Public Inquiry last month in Hendon Town Hall, a Planning Inspector has dismissed Citystyle Fairview’s appeal against Barnet Council’s refusal of 539 flats on the former gasworks site. It’s a major victory for New Barnet Community Association and its supporters, including the Barnet Society, with important implications for other big developments in our neighbourhood.

John Dix of NBCA commented, “We are pleased with the Planning Inspector’s sensible and considered decision and hope that the developers will now actively engage with the community to develop a scheme which in more in keeping with the area and exemplifies good design. It should not be forgotten that if the developer had progressed the scheme approved in 2017, 371 homes would now be providing good quality accommodation for local families. The community has to be at the heart of any new development and an aspiration for quality is something that should be embraced.”

In 2020 Fairview decided that the site could accommodate many more flats, and applied for permission for 652 units in blocks up to 10 storeys high. Following local outcry and planning refusal, they returned with a reduced scheme for 554 units in 13 blocks ranging from four to seven storeys high. 800 members of the public objected.

In March, the Council rejected that proposal by 9 votes to 1 (with 1 abstention), chiefly on the grounds that it would be harmful to the character and appearance of the area including the adjoining Victoria Recreation Ground.

The Barnet Society objected to both applications. Although we’ve long supported housing on the site, we argued (amongst other points) that the mix should include more family homes, preferably with gardens. Our most recent web posts on the subject can be read here and here.

The two weeks of the Public Inquiry were intense and demanding for NBCA, who had opted to be a ‘Rule 6 party’. That required John Dix & Fiona Henderson (far R in top photo) and Karen Miller (R in photo below) not only to do a huge amount of preparation, but on almost every day of the Inquiry they had to make detailed statements about social and technical aspects of the proposals, grill Fairview’s expert consultants and endure hours of torrid cross-examination by Fairview’s QC.

Goodness knows how much time – and cost – the whole process must have involved.

On Day 3, the Inspector invited comments from other interested parties. Powerful statements were made by Councillor Phillip Cohen, Cllr Edith David, Cllr Simon Radford and Colin Bull of Cockfosters Local Area Residents Association (CLARA) – which has successfully resisted high-rise development of their tube station car park. And on Day 6, Theresa Villiers MP also spoke passionately against the proposal.

The Barnet Society had already submitted a detailed representation, but I took the opportunity to emphasize a couple of key points.

Firstly, back in 2010 we’d been impressed by the Council’s exemplary New Barnet Town Centre Framework, which was based on local consultation and set out a clear direction for development of the former gasworks site. Out of that had grown the mixed housing proposal that was granted planning approval in 2017, in which NBCA had been proactive.

I also made the point that, as a former architect and RIBA Client Design Adviser, I acknowledged that what was acceptable in 2017 might need updating in the light of technical and other developments. However, the latest scheme was a generic international modernist solution that had nothing in common with New Barnet’s character. It was a design approach that had been discredited when I was an architectural student over half a century ago, and New Barnet deserved better.

The Inspector’s verdict was clear: “Overall, I consider that the sheer scale of the proposed development would cause a dislocation within the area, inserting an alien typology of larger mass and scale and disrupting any sense of continuity between the areas to the west and east of the site. To my mind the existence of the taller buildings in the town centre cannot be seen as a compelling precedent for such an intrusion. These latter buildings are only on one side of the road and there is a considerably greater distance between them and the four storey buildings opposite.”

He also considered aspects of living conditions such as sunlight, daylight, noise, overheating, playspace, parking and refuse, and concluded, “Whilst none of the above issues are necessarily fatal to the scheme in isolation, taken together they do not indicate to me that the scheme can be considered to be of good design.”

East Barnet ward Councillor Simon Radford stated, “I am delighted that the Fairview appeal has been rejected. This is vindication for our campaign against tower block blight and overdevelopment. The Save New Barnet campaign have been steadfast in pointing out the various flaws of the scheme, and I was delighted to join them, along with my colleagues Cllr Cohen and Cllr David, in sharing our thoughts with the Planning Inspector about the potential for flats to overheat, the poor design of the development more generally, and concerns about how affordable these flats would really be.

“I am really proud that this new Labour administration will be bringing planning back in house, rather than continuing with the Tories’ outsourcing of planning to profit-seeking companies like Capita. This way we can have a genuinely democratic process to oversee developments and create developments that deliver genuinely affordable housing while being in keeping with the character of local communities. Today is a good day for East Barnet!”

The decision also has considerable significance for other sites across suburban Barnet and neighbouring boroughs, especially those close to transport hubs.

Nick Saul, a member of the Society’s Planning & Environment Sub-Committee, observed that the Inspector’s grounds included impact on the suburban nature of the Victoria Quarter’s surroundings. “That should indicate that TfL’s proposal for tower blocks at Cockfosters was a catastrophic breach of the policies and principles applied by the Inspector. That also applies to High Barnet Station.”

“The decision also has implications for the probable redevelopment of The Spires. It could also count against the plans exhibited for public consultation last week for a 7-storey redevelopment at 49 Moxon Street, as well as for the nearby commercial buildings that would likely face copy-cat proposals if No.49 were to gain planning permission.”

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Help us save the grand old lady of Lyonsdown Road

Urgent action is needed to save 33 Lyonsdown Road following Barnet Council’s recent decision to allow its demolition. Together with local residents, the Barnet Society has been campaigning since 2017 to save this beautiful Victorian villa but the owners have used the permitted development route to apply to knock down the locally listed building.

Local residents are horrified that the council has allowed demolition of one of the finest buildings in New Barnet. One resident wrote that the proposed demolition was ‘very very sad … devalues [the] area and our cultural history means nothing.’ She added: ‘nothing seems to matter but building more soulless flats.’

We need your help to persuade the owners, Abbeytown Ltd, to change their plans to bulldoze this much-loved building, which they want to replace with a block of flats. The Barnet Society has written an open letter to Abbeytown to ask them to reconsider, which you can view here. We asked them to meet us and local residents last year to talk about the scope for a conversion scheme, but we heard nothing. Today we renew that call and invite you to write to the company at their head office:

Abbeytown Ltd

Martyn Gerrard House

197 Ballards Lane

London N3 1LP

Our last report on the case was in April, when the owners’ latest plans for redevelopment were thrown out by the government’s Planning Inspector. That good news was then undermined by break-ins at the property. It was later boarded up.

In June, permission to demolish was granted under the permitted development (PD) procedure, allowing small-scale changes to buildings without the need for the full process. But PD has been expanded by the government in all sorts of ways. The shocking decision to allow the demolition of 33 Lyonsdown Road was made, Barnet Council admitted, ‘by default’. It was not taken on the merits of the case on planning grounds; nor was it referred to the Planning Committee. The officer handling the case told the Society that, while we were welcome to submit comments, the Council was ‘not able to make our own assessments or consider comments from any parties in this determination’.

We highlighted the risk to the building early last year, saying the permitted development procedure means that the Council cannot consider keeping a locally listed building if a proposal to replace it is submitted. That process is enshrined in the National Planning Policy Framework. We told the Council that they could make sure that the decision couldn’t be taken away from them like this by imposing a block on demolition via an Article 4 direction. Councils – Barnet included – use these all the time to protect conservation areas and other historic assets. Barnet refused. We asked Councillors to intervene and they said there was nothing they could do. Their inaction runs counter to the Council’s recent declaration of a climate emergency, given the needless release of embodied carbon as a result of demolition and rebuilding.

The building is the last remaining of the large architect-designed houses of the 1860s which set the character of the Lyonsdown area. The house has featured in multiple Barnet Society webposts over the last few years and was picked up by the Victorian Society, SAVE Britain’s Heritage and the Nooks and Corners column in Private Eye.

Local historian Dr Susan Skedd researched the fascinating history of the house, discovering who designed it – Arthur Rowland Barker, an architect with a national-level practice, who settled in Southgate and was a prominent figure in the area – and the later history of the house when it was a refuge home run by the Foundling

Below: The Renaissance-style plaque of the Madonna and Child over the main door to the house

Today, the house is boarded up and down at heel. What a contrast with how it looked less than a decade ago, when the window frames were smartly painted, the lawns mown and the hedges clipped. It was then in the ownership of the Roman Catholic Society of African Missions, who in 2015 sold it to Abbeytown Ltd, a Finchley-based property development firm, whose directors include Simon Gerrard, Managing Director of Martyn Gerrard estate agents.

The Barnet Society is convinced that such a well-built house could be repaired. Local residents agree, as did the property guardians who lived there until last year. They loved the place and had made it a haven for ‘boho creatives’. When Abbeytown gave the guardians notice to quit, they told them that it was no longer safe to live there because of the condition of the building. Now the company says the building has two tenants living there.

Abbeytown have not said what they intend to build in its place after demolition. They will need planning permission for that. Their last two applications to put up a block of flats were turned down by the Council. On both occasions, Abbeytown appealed but Barnet’s decisions were then endorsed by Planning Inspectors. It is deeply saddening that Barnet’s officials should roll over so easily this time.

The Barnet Society has argued all along that this striking landmark building with its elegant interiors should not be demolished but repaired and converted to flats. There is scope for a sympathetic extension or a newbuild element in the garden among the splendid trees. Local people have clearly voiced their view that another block of flats is not what they want to see.

Our campaign to save the building has attracted the support of national heritage bodies. The Victorian Society has written: ‘The Victorian Society is fully supportive of the Barnet Society and enthusiastically echoes its continued calls to see this handsome, locally significant building preserved and sympathetically adapted for future use. Although the demolition of the building is now permitted, while it still stands, it is not too late for a change of approach to the redevelopment of the site’.

SAVE Britain’s Heritage commented: ‘SAVE is disappointed by Barnet’s Council’s decision not to resist the demolition of this attractive villa, a building the Council only recently added to its list of locally listed buildings.  The case exemplifies the misuse of permitted development rights to demolish structurally sound historic buildings, regardless of their potential for re-use and conversion. This villa could be converted to provide much needed and characterful housing, making use of the remarkable interior features that survive.  Instead these will now be condemned to the rubbish tip.’

Please copy us into any correspondence with Abbeytown at info@barnetsociety.org.uk.

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Green Belt reprieve from Mill Hill power plant proposals

Barnet Council has refused planning permission for a 50-megawatt electric battery array in the green heart of the borough. An earlier application for a gas peaking plant nearby was withdrawn last year. Mill Hill’s Green Belt has been saved for the moment – but if the UK is serious about reaching zero-carbon, an alternative may still need be found somewhere in the vicinity.

Tucked away on pastures north of Partingdale Lane and mostly screened by woodland is one of Barnet’s visual surprises – a National Grid substation that looks as if it recently landed from an alien planet. In fact it’s been there for years, largely unnoticed except by walkers or horse-riders. Equally surprisingly, it sits on Barnet’s Green Belt and a site of Metropolitan Importance for Nature Conservation (SINC).

The site first came to the attention of many Barnet residents in 2019, when TNEI applied to build a gas peaking plant, increasing the footprint of the substation by some 25%, on the east side of the existing National Grid plant. TNEI’s justification was that it “would help to ensure that National Grid is able to ‘keep the lights on’ in the UK as the electricity system strives to maintain the balance between supply and demand while rapidly decarbonising.” Following over 400 objections, and perhaps a rethink about gas, the proposal was withdrawn a year ago.

Meanwhile Harbour Energy had submitted another application, to install a battery storage facility including 20 battery containers (each nearly 14m long and 3m high) and 10 inverter and transformer stations, plus security fencing and other associated works, on the west side of the plant. Harbour argued that the proposed development “would store power from the Grid at times of excess supply and would feed this power back into the grid at times of high demand/reduced generation capacity.” They claimed that no other suitable sites were available in or around Barnet.

This time there were 912 objections. They included one from Theresa Villiers MP on the grounds that, although outside her present constituency boundary, the battery array would adversely affect her constituents. She and others were very concerned about nitrogen oxide emissions, air and noise pollution, and their impact on natural habitat, wildlife and ecosystems. Most were also opposed to any encroachment onto the Green Belt or SINC.

That was also the Barnet Society’s chief concern. The site is part of a wonderful tract of fields and woods that survive between Totteridge and Mill Hill, much loved by the residents who live around it and walk or ride across it.

We didn’t dispute the growing demand for energy, but battery storage and power generation aren’t listed among the ‘very exceptional circumstances’ permitted by the National Planning Policy Framework. In our view, the development would only be justifiable as part of a coherent regional energy strategy that included detailed evaluation of alternative sites, endorsed by full public consultation and political support. None of these were evident. Approval would set a damaging precedent, opening the door to ad hoc proposals on other Green Belt sites.

We therefore welcomed the unanimous refusal of the application by Barnet’s Planning Committee B on 30 March, contrary to the Planning Officer’s advice to approve it.

The conflict between our environment and our demand for energy will go on. The government’s recently-published British Energy Security Strategy is too high-level to help in situations like this. It acknowledges planning issues, but doesn’t mention Green Belts once.

The threat to the Green Belt in Mill Hill has been beaten off, at least temporarily – but it’s under attack elsewhere. As I write, a proposal has been submitted for up to nine houses on farmland by Mays Lane, and a second application is in for Arkley Riding Stables off Barnet Road (this time for three, not four, houses). And a field by Hendon Wood Lane has yet to be cleared of builder’s mess after years of illicit use as a yard. The Society can’t drop its guard.

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New special needs school approved in Moxon Street office block

Last night Barnet Council’s Strategic Planning Committee unanimously approved conversion of the existing building into a 90-place school for pupils with Autistic Spectrum Disorder (ASD), despite concerns on the part of the Barnet Society. We wish it well, however – and hope it will trigger use of King George’s Fields for outdoor education, and perhaps a Forest School.

The Windmill School is sponsored by Barnet Special Education Trust (which already runs Oak Lodge School in East Finchley) and will be the first publicly funded school for Autism in the Barnet area. Public consultation on the proposal opened last October, with an exhibition in Tudor Hall. The scheme was described by Nick Jones here.

The origins of the proposal go back to 2017, when the Trust began searching for a suitable site for a second school. The offer of Department for Education funding to acquire a site, design and build a new school was never going to be turned down by the Council. Barnet is short of places for children on the Autistic spectrum and many sites were considered – though not, apparently, the Whalebones estate, which some would regard as an ideal site for a school, especially one wishing to develop an outdoor curriculum.

By 2021 the search was getting desperate. The Council rejected our suggestion of converting Grasvenor Avenue Infant School, which is due for closure. Its plan is to utilise the premises as an annex to Northway Special School. Due to the demand in Barnet for specialist places for ASD, both sites are apparently required to meet the demand.

No.50 Moxon Street was deemed the only remaining option. Over the last decade, numerous new schools and academies have been accommodated in redundant commercial and industrial buildings, often on confined urban sites. Where cleverly adapted, they can work well. But since most lack much in the way of outdoor space, they generally depend on timetabled access and imaginatively landscaped play terraces to compensate.

And while they can work for able-bodied and orderly pupils, this is often not the case for those with ASD. Their behaviours are often solitary and challenging, and so require more personal space than other children. Compounding the problem, Windmill School would have a very wide age range, from 5 (but sometimes cognitively younger) to 19. Each age and ability group would need its own appropriately designed and sized play facilities, which could not readily be shared. It’s also increasingly being realised that natural outdoor environments are particularly beneficial for those with ASD.

At Windmill, most outdoor needs will have to met in a rooftop playground that is only about 20% of the DfE’s minimum area recommendation for a school of this size and type. This causes us deep concern. The Trust’s Development Director, Ian Kingham, admitted to the Planning Committee that the playground was “woefully under area” but said that it was “the best option we have”.

Mr Kingham also asserted that the costs of transporting pupils to nearby outdoor green space “would not be a material factor”. But enabling children with ASD to access them safely requires commitments of time and staffing that most schools find hard to fund at the best of times. Sadly, because of the 2.5-metre solid wall around the rooftop playground, the nearby greenery will be almost invisible during normal play-time.

Those were the main reasons our Society Committee was concerned, but before deciding, we canvassed our members. For every member in favour, 14 opposed it. So we felt we had to object to the planning application, much though we like the principle of an ASD school.

It would be great if the Council’s decision galvanised the planners, Town Team and Chipping Barnet Community Plan to do something to improve connections from the town centre to King George’s Fields. Our existing woodland is potentially a marvellous Forest School only 50 metres from Moxon Street – but there’s currently no direct access between the two. Before long, proposals are expected for 49 Moxon Street, the property that blocks the way. It could be made a condition of planning approval that a public right of way is granted across the site to enable Windmill pupils – and the public – to benefit from the beauty and educational value of one of Barnet’s wonderful natural resources.

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Sunset View win at appeal vindicates Council and Barnet Society persistence

Eighteen months ago, the Barnet Society wrote that flouting of planning laws at 1 Sunset View and 70 High Street would be tests of Barnet Council’s will to enforce its planning decisions. Both owners appealed against Enforcement Orders, and both have lost. The decisions are significant victories over the degradation of Barnet’s Conservation Areas.

 

The saga of 70 High Street, which is within the Wood Street Conservation Area, was described in our web post last October. A Planning Inspector ordered the building, which exceeded its approved height by about 1.5m, to be demolished and the previous building to be reinstated.

A new planning application (no. 22/0835/FUL) has recently been submitted. Despite the inspector’s stipulation that the building be rebuilt as it was before, the new owners propose just to reduce the roof height but retain most of what has been built. The resulting facade is a poor effort which still clashes with its neighbours. We will be submitting comments shortly.

No.1 Sunset View was one of the best and most prominent houses in a road that is a North Barnet classic of garden suburb design, master-planned and largely designed by local architect William Charles Waymouth in the early 20th century. The houses are attractive variations on Arts and Crafts themes, and together comprise an unusually complete and high-quality development for its period. It’s an important part of the Monken Hadley Conservation Area.

The Society got involved almost five years ago, when a planning application was submitted to make drastic alterations and additions to the house. It was strongly opposed by local residents and the Society, and was withdrawn. We nominated the house for addition to the Council’s Local Heritage List, and in July 2019 it was formally Listed. The Council’s citation draws attention to the “considerable variety of well-crafted brickwork, door and window details…unified by consistency of materials” and mentions its attached garage, something of a novelty in the early days of mass motoring.

In 2018 another application was made, but refused. A third application was less damaging than the previous two but was still opposed, though this time it was approved.

In spring 2019 work started on site, but we became concerned when the original brown roof tiles were stripped off, smashed and replaced with red. When unauthorised rooflights appeared, the planners served a Breach of Condition Notice. You’d think that might have been a warning to the owner, but apparently not.

Over following months, the rear balcony was demolished and chimneys rebuilt, but not exactly as before. Original Crittall windows were replaced with clunky uPVC. New side windows appeared. The traditional front door was replaced with a modern one. The integral garage was rebuilt – taller than before, and with a new window behind fake garage doors. The freestanding garage in the same style as the house was demolished and replaced with a wider, more modern garage with an up-an-over metal door. The low brick front garden wall was replaced with high railings. The front garden was covered with concrete paving blocks. The attractive Arts & Crafts interior was gutted.

None of these changes were in materials or style faithful to the original, and none was made with planning consent – a requirement in Conservation Areas. Cumulatively, they seriously eroded the house’s original quality. The Council issued several Enforcement Notices, and in November 2020 the owner appealed against them.

Finally, after a 15-month wait, a Planning Inspector has upheld all but one of the Council’s Notices. The bricks used in the extensions can stay, but all the other features must be removed and replaced to match the originals. The owner has six months to do the work.

Sunset View resident Bill Foster commented,

“It is great news that the Planning Inspectorate has ruled in favour of Barnet Council’s Enforcement Notices and many of No 1’s architectural features that were removed will have to be restored. Hopefully this will also send a clear message to anyone else seeking to make inappropriate alterations to buildings in a conservation area that they won’t get away with it. We are very grateful to the Barnet Society for all the support given to us over the past five years.”

Both 70 High Street & 1 Sunset View have been important victories in the cause of protecting the Conservation Areas. They have demonstrated that the planning system can be brought to bear against demolition (or partial demolition) of heritage assets without consent and building something which flies in the face of what has been given consent. Both cases have been a huge waste of time (and money) because we shouldn’t have to defend what is so clearly expressed in the law and the planning system. We hope the outcomes will serve to increase awareness of this, and show developers that Barnet is not a pushover.

A better approach to building in a Conservation has recently been illustrated at the other end of Sunset View. Last year, the owner of another of the street’s charming houses wanted to replace its porch and make some other modifications, and consulted the Society on their design. We made some constructive suggestions – and lo! Some changes in keeping with both house and street.

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Majority of Barnet Society members oppose new autistic school in Moxon Street

The Barnet Society has consulted its members about the current planning application to convert a former office block into a school for pupils with Autistic Spectrum Disorder (ASD). 83% of respondents opposed the application, and only 6% supported it. We have therefore decided to object to it.

The Society does so with some reluctance. We would welcome a new school of this kind in Chipping Barnet – but not on a site that’s so confined that the only playground for 90 pupils is on the roof and one small balcony. Torn between the undoubted needs of the pupils and the serious weaknesses in the design, we considered the case important enough to consult our membership.

The response rate was nearly 17%, unusually high for a survey of this kind. A total of 66 responded: 55 wanted us to object, and only 4 said we should support the application. With this clear mandate, therefore, the Society has submitted its objection to the proposal.

It is important that we explain our reasons to readers. They can be summarised as follows:

1. Vehicular movement is unsatisfactory. The school’s 9 buses and 9-10 parents’ cars would all arrive and depart at similar times. When school closes around 3-5pm, Moxon Street is busy with traffic. The additional vehicles would cause serious local congestion.

2. Minibuses and taxis would stack around the building’s single-lane slip road to drop off and pick up pupils, with private cars required to use Moxon Street car park. This management problem would be exacerbated by the very wide age range and sometimes challenging behaviours of pupils.

3. Permanent staff would use nearby public car parks. But staff visiting for only a few hours would find the shortage of on-site parking very inconvenient and time-wasting, especially for those needing to carry equipment.

4. The façade shows little of the colour and imagination expected of a 21st-century school. The proportions of the sloping rooftop and entrance are clumsy; features such as the sports hall “box” could have been treated with higher quality materials or colour; and materials generally are basic and cheap.

5. The external environment and facades would offer disappointingly little “greening”.

6. The long internal corridors with no natural daylight could be oppressive for children, and result in lights being on all day and high energy costs. The internal group rooms appear to have no glazed panels, which would be claustrophobic.

7. The area of the rooftop playground is only about 20% of the DfE’s minimum recommendation for a school of this size and type. This causes us great concern, particularly in a school with pupils whose ages range from 5 to 19 – and are therefore unable to share different-sized play facilities, and with behaviours that are often solitary and challenging – and so require more personal space than other children.

 

8. Not only is the outdoor play tiny for the number of pupils – even if they access it in shifts – it would be sadly short of greenery and views except of the sky. Given the proven benefits of a rich outdoor environment for all children, and especially for those with ASD, our concern is all the greater. Some wonderful outdoor environments have been created for schools and nurseries in recent years – and some imaginative rooftop playgrounds – but this would not be one of them.

9. There is no clear strategy for giving the children access to off-site green spaces and play facilities to supplement the shortage on site.

10. The school would overlook habitable rooms of nearby dwellings in Hornbeam Court & Laburnham Close.

11. We’re not convinced that the search for an alternative site has been sufficiently thorough or smart. To take just one example, Grasvenor Infant School, which we understand is closing soon and has good outdoor play space, has not been considered.

We believe the proposed site is fundamentally unsuitable for 90 all-age pupils with ASD. To succeed, substantial design improvements would be essential. Otherwise we’re concerned that the premises would become an enduring problem for staff, pupils and parents/carers, leading to high operating costs, unhappy users and ultimately failure.

You still have an opportunity to register your own comments: public consultation is open until Friday 28 January 2022. The planning application reference is 21/6488/FUL, and you can find it here .  On the Documents page, the Design and Access Statement gives an overview of the scheme.

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Alston Road threatened by new permitted development apartment block blight

Recent years have seen a wave of roof extensions across Barnet, usually providing extra space for existing homes. Richard Court in Alston Road (above) exemplifies a new variant of Permitted Development introduced by the government last year. You have until Thursday 23 December to oppose it, and below we tell you how to do so. 

Continue reading Alston Road threatened by new permitted development apartment block blight

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Goodbye to our Green Belt?

Above is the Green Belt between Barnet and St Albans. It’s the site of Bowmans Cross, a new settlement planned by Hertsmere Council. It will eventually have 6,000 homes for around 15,000 people – nearly as many as live in High Barnet ward. It will be a net-zero carbon, self-sustaining community, and the sketch above shows lots of trees. But if Hertsmere’s draft Local Plan is accepted, over 10% of Hertsmere’s (and also effectively Barnet’s) Green Belt will be lost forever.

Bowmans Cross is a showpiece of the Plan, which is currently out for public consultation. Another is a 63-hectare Media Quarter east of Borehamwood, which it is hoped will provide thousands of jobs. Other proposals include 2,770 houses in and around Borehamwood, 900 on the fields south of Potters Bar and 225 at South Mimms village (to list only those close to Barnet).

Good news for Barnet is that no new building is planned for the countryside south of the M25 and east of the A1. The media work opportunities will be welcome, to Barnet as much as to Hertsmere residents. But the Plan is vague about crucial details, and there’s much to cause concern:

  • Well over 10% of Hertsmere’s Green Belt will be built over.
  • At the low housing densities proposed, few homes are likely to be affordable.
  • About half of the new housing is to be built on brownfield land, but the proportion ought to be higher.
  • Little information is provided about Bowmans Cross, a new town half the size of Borehamwood and seven-tenths that of Potters Bar.
  • The economic case for a massive Media Quarter, or its long-term viability in a distributed digital age, is unexplained.
  • How Hertsmere residents will be prioritised for either housing or jobs isn’t stated.
  • Very little is said about transport, which will be vital to the Plan’s success, especially in semi-rural areas.
  • There is a potentially serious conflict with Enfield’s Local Plan over land use around M25 Junction 24.

We sympathise with Hertsmere’s predicament. It has to meet an ambitious government housing target, yet 79% of its area is designated as Metropolitan Green Belt, where development is only justifiable under very exceptional circumstances. But how hard has Hertsmere’s looked at its housing need and re-use of its brownfield land?

Its housing target is for a minimum of 760 new homes a year, or at least 12,160 homes by 2038. That’s based on the South West Herts Local Housing Needs Assessment, which appears not to have been challenged. Those who’ve been following the U-turns in the government’s proposed planning reforms will wonder how robust such figures are. The results of the 2021 Census are urgently needed to substantiate predictions of continuing population growth in the South-East, post-Brexit and post-Covid.

There’s also the question of whether Hertsmere’s houses will meet its own needs. It’s not explained how existing local residents will be prioritised. New homes near Barnet are almost certain to be cheaper and more spacious, internally and externally, than in Barnet itself. They’re bound to attract young couples and families struggling to afford property in our area. It would be ironic if much of Hertsmere’s new housing ended up benefitting Londoners at the expense of its own residents.

A further doubt surrounds affordability. The Plan says that 35% of new homes will be affordable, but CPRE research shows that only a tenth of homes built in the Green Belt are affordable, and these are rarely for social rent.

The Plan says, “The strategic green belt will be protected…and improvements made to the countryside and biodiversity to offset the impact of development.” That glosses over the fact that at least 10% of Hertsmere’s present Green Belt will be sacrificed to the developments listed above. Across the borough, the total will be greater, but the Plan is silent about the figure.

It‘s unclear how rigorously Hertsmere has investigated the alternative of re-using brownfield land. Table 3 in the Plan claims that 6,020 new homes – nearly half of its 15-year total requirement – would be on urban sites. According to its Table 2, 2,765 of such sites are available excluding smaller villages/hamlets, which seems scarcely credible. If true, it’s good news, but no brownfield register is mentioned to substantiate it.

If that brownfield land were to be redeveloped at densities equivalent to, say, the award-winning Newhall in Harlow – i.e. no more than four stories high, at 22 dwellings per hectare – even more of Hertsmere’s housing need could be met without resorting to Green Belt land. Alternatively, doubling the density currently proposed for Bowmans Cross (under 10 dwellings per hectare) would have a similar beneficial effect.

For Barnet residents, 900 homes on Green Belt separating Potters Bar from the M25 will be saddening. Not only do the present fields provide an attractive working agricultural landscape between Potters Bar and Barnet, they link visually with Bentley Heath, Dancers Hill, Wrotham Park, Dyrham Park and other greenery to create a panorama that’s much greater than the sum of its parts. The Baker Street and Barnet Road motorway bridges will make dismal southern gateways to the new housing, and it’s hard to imagine a pleasant life in the shadow of the M25.

For Hertsmere residents – and for Hertsmere Council – all this should be even more worrying. The London Green Belt Council’s report earlier this year ‘Safe Under Us’? revealed that 233,276 homes have already been given, or are seeking, planning permission in the Metropolitan Green Belt. Such has been local concern that several councils have been voted out of office or lost overall control, and the government has lost its parliamentary seat at Chesham & Amersham.

Another weakness of the planning process is illustrated by a potentially serious conflict with Enfield Council’s draft Local Plan. Hertsmere is designating land south-east of Junction 24 for wildlife. But Enfield’s Strategic Policy SP E1 allocates 11 hectares close by for industrial use. Furthermore, Enfield casually mentions that it would “seek to deliver the redevelopment of the wider site (in LB Hertsmere) to provide a coordinated employment offer”. This would detrimentally impact not only wildlife but also existing and proposed residents of Potters Bar.

 

The Media Quarter needs critical scrutiny. It will be vast – 63 hectares – and will have 34 sound stages, many times more than currently exist in Elstree & Borehamwood. The future for TV and film may look bright today, but for how long will digital industries continue to rely on centralised production? Unless the Mass Rapid Transport system tantalisingly mentioned in the Plan comes to pass, moreover, access will depend largely on two motorways, one of them notorious for traffic jams.

Transport is a major weakness of this and most of the Plan’s proposed developments. CPRE research shows that people living in Green Belt developments are tied to owning and using cars, as well as being stuck with the cost of commuting, creating further financial stress for families on low incomes. Hertsmere already suffers from poor public transport to and from its outlying estates and villages, but travel occupies only 10 out of 245 pages in its Plan.

A couple of final points from a neighbourly perspective. Firstly, Barnet already suffers from road and parking congestion caused at least partly by the rising number of commuters from Hertfordshire into London. Building new homes and workplaces near our border seems certain to exacerbate that.

Second and lastly, our Society was founded in 1945 specifically to protect the countryside around Chipping Barnet. In 1947-8, our then Treasurer E.H.Lucas researched and wrote Rambles Round Barnet & Rambles in South Hertfordshire, both of which were published by the Barnet Society. The majority of the walks follow public footpaths in Hertsmere, and have benefitted from its careful stewardship. Several generations of Barnet residents have learned to love countryside that is now planned for development. The footpaths may be safeguarded, but without their green environment they will offer a tragically diminished experience.

If residents of either Hertsmere or Barnet object to the draft Plan, it’s vital for them to do so by 6 December; after then, no changes of substance will be possible.

Hertsmere’s draft Local Plan can be found at:

https://www.hertsmerelocalplan.com/site/homePage

The deadline for public comments on it is 5pm on Monday 6 December.

The Barnet Society will be submitting a response, but you can also do so yourself as follows by:

  • completing an online survey under the Have Your Say tab on the plan’s bespoke website here
  • submitting comments via the consultation portal also available on the website
  • emailing local.plan@hertsmere.gov.uk
  • writing to Local Plan Consultation, Hertsmere Borough Council, Elstree Way, Borehamwood WD6 9SR.

 

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The Lyon roared – but the developer is biting back

Back in February the Barnet Society thought it had helped save this remarkable Locally-Listed Victorian villa, when the Council unanimously refused its demolition in favour of 20 flats. But the developer has appealed against the decision, and you have until Wednesday 29 September to add your voice to preserve this building from the wrecking ball.

You can read about the dramatic refusal of the planning application in February here:

https://www.barnetsociety.org.uk/lyonsdown-roars

We knew that might not be the end of the story. The developer, Abbeytown Ltd, gave the property guardians notice to quit in March and has not responded to a letter from local residents inviting discussion about conversion of the building rather than demolition and redevelopment. As a result, this architectural gem currently stands empty and at risk of damage and decay.

Prestigious national heritage bodies agreed that demolition would be a disaster. In its support for our cause, the Victorian Society affirmed that “the building is of real architectural quality and interest” and that its loss “would have a detrimental impact on the local area”.

SAVE Britain’s Heritage also opposed “needless demolition” and questioned why no case had been presented for re-use of this Locally-Listed 1866 Victorian villa. The campaign also caught the eye of Private Eye’s ‘Nooks and Corners’ which reported in its 16-29 April 2021 edition that “Fears are growing for a large and unusual Italianate Victorian villa in New Barnet”.

The development of New Barnet began in 1850 when Barnet Station (now plain New Barnet) opened, and everything started to change in the area. No.33 – originally named ‘Oakdene’ – was one of the early, and grandest, villas to be built. As well as its striking external appearance with a unique bridge porch/conservatory entrance from Lyonsdown Road, many of its impressive Victorian features and fittings survive unaltered.

Today, it is one of last – and certainly the most characterful – left in a neighbourhood that is being gradually overwhelmed by new identikit apartment blocks and multi-storey office conversions. If New Barnet is to retain a distinct identity, it’s vital for rare survivals of such quality to be kept. At a time of climate crisis, it also makes sense not to waste all the carbon it embodies.

The colourful history of no.33 has been researched by local historian and Society Committee Member, Dr Susan Skedd. She has unravelled the fascinating evolution in its use, from upper-middle-class house, then a spell as a home for single mothers and children, then an African Catholic missionary HQ and most recently as affordable housing for young creatives.

Moreover, original sales documents in the British Library reveal that its architect was Arthur Rowland Barker (1842-1915), who had a portfolio of projects in and around Barnet. He trained with the leading church architect Ewan Christian, who designed Holy Trinity Church, Lyonsdown (1866). This connection probably introduced Barker to the area, and it was around this time that he established his own practice and designed Oakdene, the neighbouring villa ‘Lawnhill’ (demolished) and the new south aisle of St Mary’s Church, East Barnet (1868-69).

In 2020 we succeeded in getting No.33 added to Barnet’s Local List on grounds of its

Aesthetic Merits, Social and Communal Value, Intactness and Architectural Interest. To that should now be added its Historical Interest and its Rarity.

To avoid its Rarity turning into Extinction, we’re working with local residents to put up the best case we can to the Planning Inspectorate, which will adjudicate the appeal. Our main objections are that:

  • 33 is a unique local architectural and historical asset that deserves be saved.
  • The building is ideally suited to re-use.
  • To demolish it and build a new block would be environmentally wasteful.
  • The proposed replacement block would be overbearing, austere and inappropriate.

The Barnet Society and Lyonsdown Road residents will be submitting representations, but the more who do so, the better. Please find a few minutes to submit your own objection by contacting the Planning Inspectorate by Wednesday 29 September via:

Be sure to quote the appeal reference no. APP/N5090/W/21/3272187 and provide your own name and address.

You’re welcome to use the Society’s points, but preferably use your own words. Many thanks!

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Local enthusiasm for tree planting, restoring the Tudor Park pavilion – and a new edition of Rambles Round Barnet?

On Tuesday 13 July, the Barnet Society held its first Open Meeting on topical local issues via Zoom. Around 50 members of the Society and general public participated. This is what we discussed.

Welcome

Frances Wilson introduced herself as the Society’s first Rotating Chair and thanked everyone for joining to discuss issues in more detail than was possible at the AGM and in an informal fashion within the confines of Zoom.  The AGM was the first time we had held a mass Zoom meeting, which seemed to go fairly well thanks to Simon Watson our Website Officer, who fortunately is here again to sort out any technical issues. The invitation indicated the four topics under discussion: tree planting, Tudor Park Cricket Pavilion, Rambles 3 and an update on planning and the environment.

Tree planting

Robin Bishop said the Barnet Society had a proud tradition of planting trees, including plantations on Whitings Hill in 1995 led by Jenny Remfry, in 1998 Lee’s Trees  (inspired by David Lee), the line of London Planes  and Norway Maples on Barnet Hill from Underhill to Milton Avenue, and recently along the High Street.

We would like to finish the job on Barnet Hill and have planted 125 of a planned 300 hawthorns screening Vale Drive Health Authority and St Catherines School. On 17th January’22, which is the Jewish New Year of the Tree and with the help of Kisharon, we would like to plant more hawthorns to complete the job and have received a donation of £200 towards the cost of saplings.  We will need volunteers to help organise and plant them.

Suggestions from Members

Susan Marcus said before we plant anything we must ensure there is a 10 year management plan to ensure the trees will be maintained and this should be costed. She said we should concentrate on parks rather than look for other areas.  Willing to be on Working Party.

New Barnet – Junction by St Marks Church Meadway/Potters Lane.- This is currently a very neglected site but very prominent and would not take too much effort to improve it. Simon Watson happy to assist and Leyla Atayeva said she would be happy to assist as she lives in St Marks Close.

Meadway Open Space  – ( stretches from Meadway to Potters Lane and follows the underground). This too would be a suitable area to plant trees.

Andy Bryce said he was an architect and asked if we had any advice from landscape architects or tree specialists.  He said he may be able to suggest a contact.  He also said schemes should link up.

Robin said one of the suggestions in the Community Plan was to provide signposts from the Town Centre showing 10 minute walks to various green areas, e.g. Whitings Hill.

Susan Skedd suggested we walk around the area with a landscape architect and someone who could advise on different species to encourage birds and other wild life.

Quinton Dighton said U3A are hoping to plant 1,000 trees this year so perhaps we could work together.  Robin asked them to let us know who to contact at U3A.

Barnet Council are considering planting tiny forests and making a Regional Park near Moat Mount.

Robin welcomed all these suggestions and said we needed to co-ordinate them. He suggested people contact him via the Society website info@barnetsociety.org.uk.

Tudor Park Cricket Pavilion

Simon Cohen said he had organised a survey to find out what people thought of the disused cricket pavilion which had been unused for years except for storing garden equipment for the Parks Dept. 1,000 people took part in the survey and 98% wanted to see it re-used as a community space or café. Simon Kaufman carried out a structural survey and confirmed it is in a terrible condition.  There is a kitchen, male and female changing rooms and showers but all in a dreadful condition and would require complete replacement.  Plus needs re-wiring and replumbing. Cllr David Longstaff visited and put in a successful bid to the Council of CIL funding to restore it.

The Council will provide £200,000 over 2 years to make it fit for a Commercial lease. This is ambiguous and residents must put forward ideas to guide them in the right direction. Also the refurbishment will require more than £200,000 so we will have to fund raise to pay the extra costs.

Simon said we need to set up a ‘Friends of Tudor Park’ Group to give us more influence and to develop our vision and suggested if attendees were interested they contact him via his email address or the Barnet Society Website.

Suggestions from Zoom attendees:

Rahim Alibhai said he and his friends worked with a group of autistic children and said it would be ideal for their use. He also said it should be multi-use and could be shared with AA, art groups, socialising groups and St Johns Ambulance could be a really good community hub. He said his autistic children group was very big and could support children and parents and have professionals there.

Simon said it should be made a condition of the lease that it be available for community use perhaps 3 hours a  night. Andy Byrne asked if the Council have anything in mind but Simon said he did not know.

Jenny Remfry suggested it could be used for children’s parties or the allotment growers close by.

Nikki Rice lives in Chester Avenue and said it should be used as community space such as Toddlers Group, Music Group and happy to help. Suggested solar panels on the roof to help with funding.

Ben Nahum owns a bagel factory and lives nearby and said he would be interested in providing a café and it could be used as social hub during the evenings. Has spoken to Gail Laser & Robin Bishop in the past and will email them so they have his contact details.

Aviva Driscoll asked what size is the interior space? Simon Kaufman said 277 square meters and you could get 80-100 people sitting in main space perhaps for weddings or bar mitzvahs. He also thought it could be used as a flexible space so could have more than one activity at a time. He made it very clear £200,000 would make the building safe so the challenge is to raise the money to carry out the rest of the work.  He suggested we could look at grants such as Environment or Sports.

Foot Golf is also on the site so they should be involved.

Simon said anyone interested in helping with this project should contact him via simon.sjc@btinternet.com  or the Society website info@barnetsociety.org.uk.

Rambles 3

Simon Kaufman showed a copy of Rambles 1 which was originally published in 1948, published in an expanded version in 2012, and has just been reprinted as a Limited Edition. He said following the lockdown there has been an increased interest in walking and the local countryside so the Society were keen to produce an up to date user friendly booklet using the GPS App. But we need help from others.

Simon then showed some slides:

Source of information – Best routes for walks around Barnet, History of Chipping Barnet, Important buildings and landscapes in Barnet, Facilities and local attractions for families with children.

This would be a way to promote the Society to new and prospective members and raise funds.

He outlined who would use the booklet such as walkers, cyclists, families and wheelchair users.

He  outlined the Geographical scope suggesting about 3.5 kms to 7.0 kms from Barnet Town Centre.

We would consult with Members to find their favourite places and walks, and contact Ramblers Ass, Chipping Barnet Community Plan, Green Ring, Local Authority Footpaths, Open Spaces Society and Barnet Museum.

Suggested New Routes – Victorian Barnet, Historic Barnet, Edge of London, Green Spaces (parks) Monken Hadley/Trent Park, Moat Mount.

Simon suggested we re-interpret Lucas’s Walks as some are quite difficult to walk due to changes that have taken place. Thought we could consider Wrotham Park and The Shire, Darland’s Lake, North Mimms & Potters Bar, South Mimms to Broad Colney.

Simon showed examples of other walkers publication but also suggested Topo, GPS app and Google Maps which are used by Ramblers Ass.

Following this presentation Simon said there was a lot of enthusiasm for the project but there is a lot of work and we will need help with:

Graphic Design

Walking routes – taking notes and photos

Digital structure

GPS or Google Mapping

Organisation of book printing and sales

Suggested places to go and things to see.

Anyone interested in helping or with suggestions should contact Simon through our   Website info@barnetsociety.org.uk and label it Rambles 3.

Les Bedford said it was an excellent presentation and we need to all pool our knowledge.

Planning and environment update

Robin Bishop said the biggest threat currently was the proposed ‘reforms’ to Planning Legislation which would tear up the current planning system. It would expand permitted development in order to build more housing and there would be no public consultation once areas have been designated for growth, so local residents would be unable to object. There is a need for more housing but it needs to be proportionate and sympathetic to the neighbourhood.

Current schemes where we have objected

The Victoria Quarter – We objected to this scheme where the Developer proposed 650 flats, there was a lot of local opposition and the Council reflecting this opposed the scheme unanimously against the advice of the Officers. This is ongoing and the Developers have now proposed another scheme of 554 units and reduced the height of the tower blocks but we are still critical and will oppose it further.

33 Lyonsdown Road – This is the last surviving Victorian Villa which The Barnet Society successfully had placed on the Local List. The Developer wants to demolish it and replace it with 20 flats. We opposed this proposal along with many others including the Victorian Society so it has had a lot of publicity and was refused by the Council. However the owners may appeal and in the meantime they are allowing the building to rot.

Whalebones is another scheme we opposed and again the Council refused Planning Permission but the Developer has appealed to the Planning Inspectorate. We have submitted a strong representation and will attend the public inquiry at the end of August.  Robin thanked Guy Braithwaite, Bill Foster and Nick Saul for their help. Robin emphasised how key Whalebones was to the identity of Chipping Barnet.

The Local Plan – Jenny Remfry said this is currently on display in the local library for residents to provide comments. There are 3 sites shown in Chipping Barnet. Whalebones, High Barnet Station with blocks 8 storeys high with commercial and a hotel proposed and MOD land in St Albans Road as the Territorial base may be put up for sale with room for 193 flats.  There would have to be an archaeological dig first. Robin said we have been working on this for 2 years with BRA and FORAB and it has been adopted by the Council subject to public consultation which is now taking place. Jenny thought it was a good plan.

There were no further questions so Frances reminded everyone to look at Robin’s regular P&E report, which appeared on the website roughly every 2 months, in order to keep up to date and let us know their opinions.She thanked everyone for coming and Simon Watson for providing the technical support, asked those not already members to join the Society, and asked anyone wanting to help to contact us via our website: info@barnetsociety.org.uk.

For Robin’s reports plus Society submissions on Barnet’s Local Plan and other major planning and environmental topics, go to Our Work on our website.