Tuesday 9 June 2015

Royal Brunswick Park - 1600 homes on North London Business Park

Barnet are terribly keen to vacate North London Business Park (NLBP) and Barnet House and relocate to a sparking new office at Colindale. You can read the report here.
 This will cost £36.3 million to build with interest at 3.34% over 30 years. The report says that in the long run it will save money and we won't have to keep paying rent although my reading of the business case is less clear.  I kept scratching my head to understand why they wouldn't remain in Building 2 at NLBP and Barnet House until the full impact of outsourcing all of the council services is clear at which point we might not need the 90,000 sq ft of space in these new offices.

Today I happened to be looking through council decisions which are taken by officers and came across this and pennies began to drop.
You can read it here.
What this tells us is that Barnet have entered into an agreement with Hindale Limited (two directors Brian and Luke Comer) whereby Hindale will pay Barnet £105,364 for officers time to prepare a site development brief and to provide pre application advice to inform the preparation of the planning application for the site.

So what you may say - the site is designated as a Strategic Employment Location in the Mayor's London Plan  March 2015 so what's the problem. Well the problem is that the proposal is to develop 1600+ homes on the site along with the re-provision of the St Andrew the Apostle Greek Orthodox school.

I know new homes are important but so are jobs and the correct balance needs to be struck here.

With such a massive potential development why has this decision been buried away on the website. Surely the community should be alerted to what is being proposed and Barnet's apparent desire to assist Hindale/ Comer in this development.

I hope for her sake that Cllr Lisa Rutter is fully aware of these proposals coming on top of the complete dogs dinner that is the Abbotts Depot on Oakleigh Road South and the apparent involvement of the Comer brothers in that site. (see the latest statement from barnet labour group on the matter here)

There is something very seriously wrong in Barnet.

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9 comments:

  1. Mrs Angry9 June 2015 at 18:08

    Simply incredible. Except - it isn't, in this borough, it is exactly as you might expect.

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  2. Anonymous12 June 2015 at 10:25

    This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

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  3. Don't Call Me Dave16 June 2015 at 21:18

    The Council was warned against moving from the Town Hall to NLBP but, as usual, they knew best.

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  4. Anonymous17 June 2015 at 20:53

    so the Comers will pay for officers time (AKA Capita employees) to prepare the development brief. another (or the same employees?) of Capita, made the price evaluation for the for the Comers Abbot depot. conflict of interests, anyone?

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    Replies
    1. spurs1234 February 2016 at 21:33

      don't worry capita will charge comer homes and Barnet at the same time , nothing changes.

      Delete
  5. Unknown2 December 2015 at 18:26

    Are the details of the proposed development at brunswick park avaliable online? I have searched but this is the only page that seems to even mention it. I missed the open day they had there.

    Thanks

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    Replies
    1. Mr Reasonable3 December 2015 at 08:07

      I haven't seen it anywhere else but was told about a recent exhibition which I was unaware of. I am worried that this is being progressed without sufficient public consultation and with such a large development in this area it will have a significant impact on local services and resources.

      Delete
  6. Mr Reasonable9 December 2015 at 10:15

    Hi Anonymous, Further to my response of 3 December last night the planning brief for NLBP was published http://barnet.moderngov.co.uk/documents/s28078/Appendix%201-North%20London%20Business%20Park%20Draft%20Planning%20Brief.pdf and it will be discussed next Wednesday 16th December at 6.30pm The officers report says that consultation will begin in January 2016. Hope that helps.

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  7. Rosie Longstocking4 February 2016 at 22:50

    That is so strange. Mike and I went to check an old playing field and realised it backed on to the the NLBP. A friend said it was the old STC playing fields. CCTV notices everywhere.

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