Ark Academy and Underhill Stadium site Stage 2 representations
Planning Report D&P/3982a/TT Planning Application no. 17/4840/FUL: Ark Academy and Underhill Stadium site
7/11/2017
I am writing to urge the refusal of this application under the stage 2 planning process.
The application was passed at Barnet Council Planning Committee on 25th October 2017.
The first planning application to build a secondary and primary school was turned down by the Council with one of the grounds being “no exceptional need demonstrated in the locality”. That correct position still prevails.
1) Legality of the decision
I have already written to the Barnet Chief Executive, challenging the legality of the decision. In introducing the item as the lead officer, Val White, School Skills and Learning Lead Commissioner, emphasised that the proposed school was to be funded by central Government, the DfE. She forcefully made the point that if the application was refused, and the Council wished to provide a school elsewhere, then the Council would have to fund it from its own resources.
Who pays for development is not a relevant planning consideration and should have formed no part of the officer’s introduction, nor of the decision of the committee, yet this statement by the officer was not corrected or questioned by the Chair or the Committee clerk or the legal officer, which it should have been.
The officer clearly intended to influence the outcome of the decision by this statement, in which she succeeded, as the application was passed by a majority of only 1 vote, having taken into account a clearly irrelevant matter.
Moreover, the promoter of the scheme, in her presentation to the Committee, said that the proposal was supported by the head of the nearby school, The Totteridge Academy. This was not true. The Totteridge Academy does not support this application, again a statement that was not corrected by the officers.
2) Stage 1 issues:
- Land use in principle: green belt: inappropriate; very special circumstances
- Sports and recreation, playing fields and community use
- Transport
- Climate change
I deal with each of these in turn.
3) Land use in principle: green belt: inappropriate; very special circumstances
I question the suggestion that “very special circumstances” apply to this site, to permit this inappropriate development in the Green Belt. This is claimed to be justified, due to the demand on school places, and the lack of alternative sites.
Dealing with the alternative site issue first, the list of sites produced to allegedly justify this is farcical, as it is clear that none of them was really a possibility, and any cursory look at the list will show it was an exercise in ‘over the eyes wool pulling.’ The survey of alternative sites was undertaken by the applicant subsequent to the Education Funding Agency’s acquisition of the site in early 2015. Given that the site had already been purchased by the Government and offered to the EFA and then the service provider (i.e. the Ark), the objectivity of the alternative site search is dubious. For example, at the time this project was under consideration, there was on the market, or about to be so (as was common knowledge), the Jehovah’s Witnesses site in Mill Hill, which would have given ample space for the school and would have been on the west of the Borough where the demand really is.
Also at this time a compliant use for the Underhill Stadium was a distinct possibility. Saracens Rugby Club were looking for a second (grass) pitch training ground (as their main stadium in Mill Hill as an artificial surface) and secondary stadium, and Underhill would have been ideal for this. In the event they were not approached with this suggestion, and Saracens have now gone to Harrow for their second pitch. Saracens have a very good record of making their facilities available to the community, which opportunity will now be lost.
Moreover, the suggestion of the extent of demand for secondary school places in the area is misconceived and was misrepresented to the Committee. The true demand is in the west of the borough where the population growth is happening and is expected to grow further, not in the east of the borough. To have an additional school is not only to put it in the wrong place and will not provide the places where they are needed. It will not only have an adverse affect on transport and roads (see below) it will also detrimentally affect the existing nearby school The Totteridge Academy, which could have provided the local extra places needed.
Dealing with the arguments in more detail, the Council indicated a catchment area of three miles ‘as the crow flies’; and identified the ‘three mile wards’. In doing so, they took no account of the walking and public transport links. They included in the wards, for example, Mill Hill ward which has always been considered as a ward in the west of the borough, referring to the development sat the NIMR and Millbrook Park sites; and is separated from the east by Totteridge Valley, which does not have road crossings, and children cannot be expected to take the dark and isolated woodland footpaths across the valley, which would not be safe for them
In providing the school places ‘demand’ numbers so as to inflate the figures, the council also failed to reflect on the relatively high proportion of children in this catchment area who are likely to use private education, selective or faith schools, which proportion can be predicted from existing usage. A higher number than the 10% Borough average figure use the private sector across these wards. This equally applies for the use of selective schools and faith schools.
The need for secondary schools is on the other side of the Borough – the west, concentrated in the wards of Childs Hill, Edgware, Hendon, Golders Green, West Hendon and especially Colindale. This demand is sustained and does not fall off, as is the case with the wards near and surrounding the Underhill Green Belt site.
According to current GLA projections, the growth in the number of 11 year olds in the wards nearest to the proposed Ark school (Brunswick Park, East Barnet, Mill Hill, -which is not realistically in the catchment area- Oakleigh, Totteridge, High Barnet and Underhill) will peak in 2020 at an extra 225 pupils. By 2035, if not before, the number of 11 year olds in these wards will fall back to 2017 levels. The total demand in 2017 is 3850, rising in 2020 to 4300, meaning an extra 225 places (halved as it is for two years). The numbers decline after 2020 and 2025 and return to 2017 levels.
The planning officer admitted at the Committee meeting that secondary schools in the area had not been approached to provide this short-term requirement. This temporary increase in demand in the east could be met by bulge classes, particularly at The Totteridge Academy, a rapidly improving and long established secondary school 500 yards away and which at the moment actually has around 500 spare places. The Ark would starve this school of resources and high quality students. Between only 4 and 5 forms of entry may be needed as temporary bulge classes for these wards even including Mill Hill.
This existing school provides the opportunity to use the existing footprint which in places is one storey high. Once The Totteridge Academy is at full capacity, any further permanent need could be met on this building footprint. The school is offering an extra 2 forms of entry as bulge classes up to 2025 by which time there is a projected decline and return to 2017 levels of need.
the Principal of The Totteridge Academy (the nearby school), re-iterated the School’s position which was made public at a meeting prior to the planning meeting last week and has been ignored by the Council:
“In light of residents’ concerns and the fact that the council’s numbers don’t seem to show a long-term need for new places, it is hard to see a decision to build a new school in this area as a good one. A half-full new school or one that leaves other schools in the borough half-full doesn’t seem a good use of money or of green belt land.
“We have made clear that we can meet any short-or long- term need for extra places on our existing 27 acre site and can do that at a much lower cost, and without green belt impact or significant effect on traffic.
“We look forward to continuing discussions about the best way to provide excellent education for our community.”
For these reasons, I argue that the very special circumstances needed to justify this development in the Green Belt have not been made out.
4) Sports and recreation, playing fields and community use
These facilities are rare and will be lost to the public as a result of this scheme. As indicated above, it does not have to be this way. For example a partner such as Saracens would have prevented the site being lost to the Green Belt and would have given community access too.
5) Transport
Whist there is provision for two additional bus stops, there is no provision for extra bus services to use those stops. The Council’s committee report suggested that 23.3% of students (280 out of 1200 students) would be expected to come by car, leaving the remainder, 920, to come by public transport. Whist this is a somewhat overoptimistic analysis, given that the majority of pupils would most likely travel in from the west or even from outside the borough, even on these figures an additional 12 double decker bus service trips will be needed each way per day, for which there is no provision. Without additional bus services, the existing bus services will be overwhelmed at school times.
It is also correct to say that the main junction will be remodelled; but this does not extend to the local roads leading to the site. The widening of a short section at the junction without any hope of traffic moving anywhere else will not work. The school is at the junction of two Green Belt roads that are miles long and cannot be widened. A tiny narrow road connects these to the major artery that is the A1000. These narrow residential roads are unable to cope as it is, being so narrow as to make it difficult if not impossible for two cars to pass each other easily. An extra almost 300 cars will lead to chaos.
The effect will be to block narrow roads leading to several hundreds of houses down Fairfield Way also preventing emergency access for as long as the traffic is blocking the area. Residents would be ‘kettled’ in; this area also has a primary school and sheltered housing for the elderly, as well as a hopper bus service that will be directly obstructed. Hundreds of homes will be cut off for prolonged periods of the day because of the gridlock.
The use of the car park in the public park as a drop off point for parents is unacceptable. The car park is a narrow strip of land with no space to pull out and turn without going over a marked pedestrian footpath. The local primary school uses this route for a ‘walking bus’. There is nowhere else to park in the area and therefore this will turn into a danger spot, will have no space for the numbers of cars that will be used, and will encourage parents to drop their children off at inappropriate places, causing further congestion and compromising the safety of children both attending the school and all the other schools in the area.
6) Climate change
The proposed plans will double the currently illegal levels of pollution thus endangering the very children the school will serve and all other children in the many surrounding schools. It is already a pollution hotspot, due to traffic congestion.
7) Conclusion
For the reassess given above, I urge the Mayor to reject this development at stage 2, on the grounds that very special reasons for development in the Green Belt have not been made out; the loss of sports and recreation, playing fields and community use; the impact on transport and roads; and impact on climate change.
Yours sincerely,
Andrew Dismore AM
London Assembly Member for Barnet and Camden
LONDON ASSEMBLY LABOUR
City Hall
The Queen’s Walk
London SE1 2AA
