Letter for publication: Mill Hill affordable housing
Over recent months, we have heard a lot in your news and letters columns about the problems of overdevelopment in Colindale and West Hendon, including the lack of affordable housing in the huge schemes being built (or on the way) in those wards . However, we have heard little about the pressing housing and development issues in Mill Hill. the Conservative Mayor and Barnet Council have designated Mill Hill East as an area for ‘greater intensification, ’ with little thought to the consequences – and in particular the need for affordable homes as part of these huge developments.
The Mill Hill Preservation Society’s (MHPS) recent newsletter reports the Society’s discussion with a developer of a large site in the area. They asked about where the element of affordable housing would go, only to be told that the site was not appropriate for ‘lower end prices’, which homes should be removed from the area. The Society comments, ‘in so many words developers see Mill Hill as being sectioned off for the rich’, and that the council ‘seem to condone that approach as well’.
It was therefore really refreshing to read that the MHPS intend to push hard for the 40% affordable allocation set out in the Mayor’s London Plan and Barnet’s own Core Strategy ( even though this requirement has been honoured only in the breach by the council in recent schemes) so that Mill Hill can have a balanced, mixed community through retaining a mixed housing stock , which has been an important characteristic of Mill Hill and that we should hang on tightly to this quality.
I applaud the MHPS for their enlightened determination both to resist the council’s and developers’ ‘ghettoisation’ of the Borough by separating rich and poor, and to maintain the vibrant mixed community which has made Mill Hill the exciting area that it is, with a fair chance for both wealthy and less well off residents to live harmoniously together. As they say, ‘ Mill Hill has always been a place where people of mixed wealth have rubbed shoulders’. I, for one, will do all I can to back them up. It remains to be seen whether other local politicians who represent Mill Hill will rise to the Society’s challenge, too.
Andrew Dismore AM
Labour Candidate for Hendon and London Assembly Member for Barnet and Camden
