Andrew Dismore

Conservative Barnet Council is guilty of hypocrisy over its planning application for a new office block for council staff as part of  the  Grahame Park development.

 

My formal objection to the scheme  states:

 

‘Local residents will be inundated with extra traffic and parking issues.

 

‘My primary objection is therefore around the lack of parking provision for the large number of council staff and visitors  expected to use this site. Whilst some parking is being negotiated on the RAF museum site….., this is a hypocritical slap in the face for existing residents, who have seen the car parking available to them dramatically reduced as a result of the ‘regeneration’ of Grahame Park, with car parks now built on or used as works sites. I previously suggested that one option to replace this lost car parking  would have been  to negotiate with the RAF museum for the use of some of their space for residents, but this was not something the council and Barnet Homes were prepared to take forward.

‘It is therefore clear that the Council puts a greater premium on parking for its staff than for local residents, whose parking was displaced as a result of council policies’.

 

This is  all to typical of Conservative Barnet Council. Time and again we have seen the interests of existing Grahame Park residents ignored, as the Council have ridden roughshod over their just concerns about the regeneration.

‘The fact that the Council, apparently with straight face, can say they are going to get parking spaces from the RAF Museum  for their staff, when residents find it so hard to park in the area due to the Council’s own schemes, says it all. The Council is completely out of touch with what is  going on in Grahame Park and Colindale’.

My Objection in full:

Objection to planning application ref 15/04039/FUL

Plot 8 Lanacre Avenue Colindale NW9

My primary objection is therefore around the lack of parking provision for the large

number of council staff and visitors expected to use this site. Whilst some parking is

being negotiated on the RAF museum site, this is some distance from the site, so

there will remain pressures on nearby streets.

Moreover, this is a hypocritical slap in the face for existing residents, who have seen

the car parking available to them dramatically reduced as a result of the

‘regeneration’ of Grahame Park, with car parks now built on or used as works sites. I

previously suggested that one option to replace this lost car parking would have

been to negotiate with the RAF museum for the use of some of their space for

residents, but this was not something the council and Barnet Homes were prepared

to take forward.

It is therefore clear that the Council puts a greater premium on parking for its staff

than for local residents, whose parking was displaced as a result of council policies..

In any event, the parking spaces to be so provided, and the handful nearer to the

site, are inadequate for the numbers of people using the building. it is investable that

there will be additional parking pressures on local streets, adding to the pressures

from all the other new developments, which have not provided sufficient affordable

parking.

So residents will be faced with a CPZ scheme, for which they will have to pay. This is

grossly unfair to them. The unrestricted parking on Grahame Park Way from Lanacre

Avenue to Chancellor Place on both sides and to the west between Lanacre Avenue

and Eagle Drive, the uncontrolled parking bays on Lanacre Avenue and residential

side roads and the Quakers Course and other smaller Grahame Park car parks will

inevitably become controlled at a charge to residents, which they presently do not

have to pay.

The scheme must be revised to provide adequate parking for staff, visitors and

residents alike. As things stand it does not do so.

Andrew Dismore