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Dear Members, Here are some updates, news and information: | |
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Today we received the excellent news that Comer Homes' appeal against Barnet Council's refusal of their plans to double the size of the NLBP development was DISMISSED by Christa Masters MA (Hons) FRTPI - the Inspector appointed by the Secretary of State.
You can download her report here.
Of course, Comer Homes still have outline planning permission from for their 2015 design (amended 2017 and granted in Jan 2020) to build 1,350 homes, and they may try to make more changes when they submit detailed designs.
Thanks to everyone who supported this campaign - our local ward councillors, our MP, and many residents. | |
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East Barnet Community Festival | |
The free, community festival was cancelled last year and really struggled to gain enough funding to be viable this year, but is now planned to go ahead on 28th to 30th June: | |
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EB councillor Edith David has just confirmed they have gained additional funding from the Council to help.
Chair of the Festival Committee Christine Shields writes:
"East Barnet Festival is very grateful to the council for a supplementary £5,000 grant to cover additional technical costs in staging the event. We are very relieved, as all the costs have risen since 2022 and covering the increases is becoming more and more challenging. This, along with a generous uplift from our major sponsor, a local charitable trust, means that the festival can now go ahead.
But we still need support from advertisers, volunteers to help on the day, and most importantly, your attendance: Please put the dates 28-30 June in your diaries now. Look forward to seeing you then!" | |
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Some weeks ago I sent a Council bulletin which is sent to councillors called "The Week Ahead" and I asked if people thought it was useful. Only one person replied, so this is for you! You can read or download this week's bulletin, which Jennifer Grocock sent to me here.
I've also featured the Community Together Network bulletin from time to time. You can read the latest one here.
Please let me know if these are of interest or not. Thanks. | |
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It was mentioned at our AGM that the council have been making progress with removing the abandoned vehicles in the Village car park, and members said it is actually becoming easier to find a parking space. | |
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The above is a tweet by EB Police | |
Today, East Barnet Police tweeted (X'd?) that they are keeping an eye on the car park as it is a potential dumping site. There do seem to be a few empty spaces there... | |
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In a recent newsletter I asked for ideas for new signage to welcome people to East Barnet Village. A few people responded, the most popular idea being to use an image of the clock tower above McKinnons post office in the centre of the Village... | |
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Apparently the clock tower was salvaged from the Old Clock House, Dudmans House when it was demolished in 1925, and installed on top of Clock House Parade which was built there.
Other ideas were: - An oak tree or oak leaves (Oak Hill Park)
- A cat (Cat Hill)
- A bridge (Cat Hill’s name may derive from Katbrygge, a medieval cattle bridge that crossed the Pymmes Brook)
- A knight on horseback (ghost in the park)
- St Mary's Church tower
- The Prince of Wales pub
- The old East Barnet coat of arms
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I sent an alert on Monday that our MP Theresa Villiers had been told that the Council are thinking about installing bus lanes on Cat Hill. Most people thought this was an early April fool, but no, they are actually serious! I collected people's thoughts in a little survey, both in EBRA and on local Facebook groups: | |
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Many of the comments were quite hilarious, pointing out that Cat Hill is simply not wide enough, and in any case there is no problem to solve - so why not spend the money on repairing potholes, for example. I've forwarded the results and verbatim comments to the EB local councillors and our MP, so they can hopefully stop the council wasting any more of our taxes on this crackpot idea. | |
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The council's strategic planning committee approved the Victoria Quarter planning application on Wednesday.
John Dix (one of the hard-working Save New Barnet team) wrote on Facebook:
"From a personal perspective I am seriously concerned how the views of Labour committee members appear to have shifted fundamentally in the period between the last meeting and last night.
Cllr Young dominated the meeting with his views and some of the conditions he proposed appear entirely unenforceable such as using energy from the solar panels to fund the cooling costs in the affordable rent flats. His comparisons with the extant scheme were also entirely misleading. No one was saying they must build the extant scheme exactly as approved; the townhouses were gone and replaced by flats to allow additional affordable units. What the community said repeatedly was that if they were going to amend the scheme, the flats had to be a decent standard.
Last night the Labour members of the committee accepted that the flats could be inferior, especially for London affordable rent tenants, because they should be grateful to get a home. The fact that the homes would suffer from noise, overheating, below guideline daylight levels and rooms that would be difficult to fit furniture into was just the price to pay to get a home.
Issues such as the lack of infrastructure, especially GPs surgeries and the amalgamation of the Addington Practice into East Barnet Health Centre was entirely ignored.
I know that our three local cllrs, Simon Radford, Phil Cohen and Edith David have been exceptionally helpful and supportive of the community but last night they were badly let down by their colleagues. We all wanted great homes to be built on this site. This decision condones poor design and that seems unforgivable."
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I said in the previous newsletter that I have decided to stand down from the multiple roles of secretary, membership secretary, treasurer, newsletter editor, website and Facebook curator, etc.
I said I would be delighted to hand over these roles to some younger people to keep the Association running, and asked if anyone might be interested, so we can have a chat about what the roles involve, and perhaps start working together for the rest of this year.
Nobody at all responded.
EBRA's constitution does cover dissolving the Association, so I will be discussing with the Committee over the coming months how we will achieve that if no help comes forward. | |
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