“ Great to see the strong and unequivocal Barnet Society Whalebones objection on the planning portal. Beware of comments praising with feint damnation. And I agree with the comments made by Pat Fuller. If anyone feels they have an objection about this make it on the barnet council planning portal – google the site, dive in and search for “Whalebones” and make your views a matter of public record to be counted and considered by the council committee.
Just about every planning policy insists green open space in towns and cities should be left as green open space rather than built over. When the space in question is miraculously preserved farmland it should be even more sacrosanct. The obvious benefits to towns and cities of improved air quality and general environmental issues are generally accepted.
What it faces now is not death by a thousand cuts but rather about four. If this application isn’t stopped we inevitably lose the whole site one slice at a time. Some people may suggest the benefactor Miss Cowing would have reluctantly approved the previous development although, having been acquainted, if she was alive I for one would never have dared suggest such a thing to her face. This is simply another chunk sliced off it and no such interpretation of Miss Cowling's intentions is possible.
What we seem to be losing is farmland traded for a couple of areas of parkland while keeping facilities for some local organisations. Even in itself such a change of use would have to be considered critically even if it wasn’t a sweetener for the building on yet another field beside it.
We would now only have to wait an indecent period before further development on either another chunk of the trust’s land or the grounds of Whalebones House are suddenly declared unavoidable. That could quite predictably be because of the public open space conflicting with the security of community group facilities.
Whenever money can be made from land in some sort of established historical use that would otherwise be impossible to change suddenly that use is presented as unsustainable. Market traders, bakers and small holding farmers can’t be found even if this shortage is unique to the immediate vicinity of the vulnerable property.
Where there is money to be made there is a will to find a way to make it. It makes no difference whether the land is owned by international investors, a local worthy or held in some form of trust.
Rule one of managing land bequests is to not to set them up with amenities that can’t be funded from income. We are expected to believe that money from the sale of the land to build on will guarantee an income in perpetuity to fund these open spaces. Why is that such arrangements always seem to fail?
The existing users alongside a smallholding with its limited income from agriculture multiplied by public access as a cash stream is a successful model operated in many parts of the country. Farming requires some sensitivity waiting for the right season to sew crops to come in its own good time. Perhaps the season for such a change is not here yet. It must not be hurried, but it will come if the opportunity for it is still here.
This site is perfect for such a venture being right in the town but completely unspoiled and completely rural. Such a treasure could be passed down through the generations. The proposed mini-parks would predictably fail in very few years and we will be back exactly where we are now, with another planning application for another part of the estate. ”