Barnet Press: Mill Hill Music Festival success

Daily Telegraph: "New planning laws threaten green belt"

Link to Daily Telegraph

"The new national planning policy "dramatically" simplifies the planning system, including slashing 1,000 pages of policy to just 52.

"However environmental groups fear it will lead to more homes on the green belt and destruction of wildlife habitat.

"The proposals, launched for consultation, will not be made offical policy until next year but will already be affecting plans for development.

"Greg Clarke, the planning minister, said it would make it much quicker to build a new house or office block."

The Independent: "National Trust concerns over planning move"

Link to The Independent

"The National Trust today voiced 'grave concerns' over Government proposals aimed at dramatically simplifying the planning system, warning of 'damaging development' not seen since the 1930s.

"Ministers said they wanted to slash 1,000 pages of policy to just 52, while continuing to protect the green belt and areas of natural or scientific beauty.

"Fiona Reynolds, the trust's director general, said:

"Despite some warm words to this effect, the document makes it clear that development is to be encouraged, even urging local authorities to promote more development than is in the plan, and over-allocate land for housing."

Mr Reasonable: "Barnet Internal Audit Report - It just gets worse!"

Link to Mr Reasonable

"Having ploughed my way through the 268 pages of the Audit Committee papers I have to say that I am utterly shocked by what I have read. On top of what I have already reported on MetPro, the Internal Audit Annual Opinion Report goes much further on the various shortcomings.

"The overall internal audit opinion is only 'limited assurance' - that is, one step above no assurance."

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From the report:

• The Waste Prevention Strategy [below] has been ineffective in delivery of outcomes
• The Waste Prevention Strategy has not been reviewed since 2005, to ensure that it remains fit for purpose or current
• There are no governance arrangements in place to scrutinise, oversee and challenge the Waste Prevention Strategy
• The Waste Project Board does not have a terms of reference, and focuses mainly on project management issues not strategic issues.

Link to document

The Guardian: "UK cities may ban heavily polluting traffic to avoid EU fines"

Link to The Guardian

"The government may act to force local authorities to ban heavily polluting traffic in most British cities, to try to control deadly nitrogen dioxide (NO2) emissions, and avoid unlimited fines from Europe.

"Funding must be prioritised for measures to help people walk, cycle and use public transport more. Schemes that increase the amount of traffic must be abandoned," said Jenny Bates, Friends of the Earth's London campaigner.

"Britain's air quality record is among the worst in Europe, and is already breaking European law for particulate, or PM10, pollution and nitrogen dioxide. According to a Mayor of London-commissioned study, poor air quality causes around 4,300 premature deaths in London every year, and studies show that poor air quality increases risks of heart attacks, asthma attacks and respiratory illness."

Barnet Times: "Saracens reveal new impressions of Mill Hill stadium on day they receive backing from UK Athletics"

Link to Barnet Times

"Plans to revamp Barnet Copthall Stadium by Premiership side Saracens would make it a 'key facility' for athletics, according to UK Athletics, the sports’ governing body.

"Today the rugby club has also released new artist’s impressions of the Mill Hill stadium as it could look, which show the height of the new stands more accurately."

Link to Barnet Times

"A SECOND rugby body has given its backing to Saracens' plans to move to the Copthall Stadium.

"The Middlesex RFU, which governs the sport in the area, says the plans by the Men In Black, who yesterday scraped through to the Premiership Final, will 'bring huge long-term benefits' to the area"

Barnet Times: "Community director says Copthall stadium plans would benefit Mill Hill and Barnet"

Link to web site

"THE Rugby Football Union (RFU) has written to Barnet Council urging it to allow Saracens to redevelop the Copthall Stadium “for the good of sport in north London”.

"Yesterday 7,000 letters backing proposals to relocate the Premiership club to the Mill Hill site were handed to planners, including 1,500 from the local area."

25 June - 2 July: Ninth Mill Hill Music Festival

Link to Festival web site

"Over the years, the Mill Hill Music Festival has played host to some great names of the musical world: Humphrey Lyttelton, Warren Vache, Scott Hamilton, Campbell Burnap, The Foundations, Paul Young, Stacey Kent, Acker Bilk, Alan Gresty & Brian White, Gwyneth Herbert, and many more.

"The Festival is organised by music lovers for music lovers, on a not-for-profit basis, and we hope you'll take time this summer to enjoy some wonderful music with us."

Barnet Times: "Saracens' plans for Mill Hill's Copthall stadium criticised in Mayor's report"

Link to web site

"In a stage one ruling by the Mayor - on the Copthall Stadium proposals to develop the 1960s athletics stadium into a 10,000-seater venue - the officers say there is too much car parking, and that it threatens the Green Belt."

Evening Standard: "Tory Brian Coleman wants to block Saracens stadium move"

Link to Evening Standard

"Brian Coleman opposes a move by Saracens to Barnet's Copthall stadium after his council agreed the club could take over for a peppercorn rent. And in a rallying cry to residents who are also against the scheme, he advised them to 'stick with it and lobby hard'."

Barnet Times: " Two leading Barnet Tory politicians oppose Saracens Copthall plans"

Link to Barnet Times

"Last night around 300 residents, many against the proposals by the Premiership club, packed out Copthall School's hall for a meeting, chaired by Hendon MP Matthew Offord to gauge public opinion.

"The plans were set to go before a planning committee in June, but Councillor Coleman, who is in charge of transport and the environment in the borough, said he had been told here were problems and vowed: 'I will not put in a controlled parking zone'."

Edgelands: "Wilderness that is much closer than you think"

BBC iPlayer, week of 15 April 2011

Author: Michael Symmons Roberts, Paul Farley

Format: Hardback

ISBN: 9780224089029

Published: 17 February 2011

Publisher: Jonathan Cape Ltd

"Edgelands explores a wilderness that is much closer than you think: a debatable zone, neither the city nor the countryside, but a place in-between - so familiar it is never seen for looking. Passed through, negotiated, unnamed, ignored, the edgelands have become the great wild places on our doorsteps, places so difficult to acknowledge they barely exist.

"Edgelands forms a critique of what we value as 'wild', and allows our allotments, railways, motorways, wasteland and water a presence in the world, and a strange beauty all of their own. Paul Farley and Michael Symmons Roberts - both well-known poets - have lived and worked and known these places all their lives, and in Edgelands their journeying prose fuses, in the anonymous tradition, to allow this in-between world to speak up for itself.

"They write about mobile masts and gravel pits, business parks and landfill sites in the same way the Romantic writers forged a way of looking at an overlooked - but now familiar - landscape of hills and lakes and rivers. England, the first country to industrialise, now offers the world's most mature post-industrial terrain, and is still in a state of flux: Edgelands takes the reader on a journey through its forgotten spaces, so that we can marvel at this richly mysterious, cheek-by-jowl region in our midst."

Friends of the Earth: Reducing waste, and boosting recycling and reuse

And the web site.

Barnet Times: "Mill Hill East redevelopment plans given go-ahead by Barnet Council"

Link to web site

"Barnet Council could be set to benefit from millions of pounds of section 106 cash to improve roads and other amenities.

"Residents are now being evicted from the Inglis Barracks site near Mill Hill East Tube station in preparation for the new scheme."

Barnet Times: "Mill Hill residents set up rival group to support Saracens' Copthall plans"

Link to 'Barnet Times'

"A RESIDENTS’ group has been set up to support plans from Saracens rugby club to make their home at a stadium in Mill Hill.

"Residents for Regeneration (RfR) has come together as a reaction to a group against the plans calling itself the Copthall Community Initiative (CCI)."

Haringey residents wonder why they will get Barnet's dustcarts

Link above to 'Pinkham Way Alliance' web site
and here to North London Waste Authority information.

Barnet Times: "Saracens get 99-year lease for Mill Hill stadium from Barnet Council"

Link to Barnet Times

"THE first phase of Saracens’ proposed takeover of Copthall Stadium has been completed with the granting of a 99-year lease for the site.

"The plans will come before Barnet Council’s planning committee for consideration this summer."

The Independent: "Making London bigger, better, and more important"

Link to The Independent

"If London is so productive, then why don't more people live there? Greater London's population has grown only modestly more than the national average since 1981, about 14 per cent. 

"For many people, high prices prevent living in London. House prices in London are more than 50 per cent higher than the national average.

"... Cities can add housing by building up or by building out. Both avenues are restricted in Greater London. Environmentalism, as expressed by the city's green belt, limits the development of new homes on the urban edge. Preservationism, as expressed by myriad restrictions on rebuilding the urban core at higher densities, limits the development of more central residential towers."

Daily Telegraph: "Householders will be able to heat their homes for free"

Link above to Daily Telegraph

"Chris Huhne, the Energy and Climate Change Secretary, expected at least 25,000 households to take up the scheme in the first year, with millions of air source heat pumps and other technologies installed over the next 20 years.

"Environmentalists and consumer groups ... wanted to make it easier for consumers to take up the scheme, to encourage more green technologies, rather than incinerating waste or wood, which can cause emissions and discourage recycling."

New web site monitoring council expenditure - "Mr Mustard"

Link above to Mr Mustard

"You are a bunch of incompetent dunderheads, not fit to run a party in a brewery, spending other people's money like drunken sailors, running scared of democracy, and about to waste £50,000+."

The Guardian: "Fed up with 'Legoland' estates? Then reject plans, says housing minister"

Link to The Guardian

"Previous housing ministers have railed against uniform design, largely driven by developers' lower costs. Ministers hope that the concept of neighbourhood plans, designed and voted on by communities themselves, might drive architects out of their complacency.

"Planning and Decentralisation minister, Greg Clark, joins Housing Minister Grant Shapps in condemning British household architecture, saying 'banal, identikit housing schemes have given development a bad name'."

BBC London: "Saracens submit plans to revamp Copthall Stadium"

Link to BBC London

"A public consultation has been running since November and will continue while the planning application is being processed.

"Saracens, who currently play at Watford FC's Vicarage Road, will use the stadium for rugby from September until May."

London Campaign for Clear Air

Link to The Guardian

"His frustrations with the Labour government over its failure to act has been compounded by the Tory-led coalition. He believes it attempted to 'mislead' the European Commission in September, on the scale of breaches on dangerous particles, known as PM10s."

Leading blogger states: "Praise be Pickles: Pity about your party activists"

Link to David Hencke web site

"Citizen journalists have as much right as anyone to attend and to share their views, and council ‘monitoring officers’ shouldn’t hide behind bogus concerns about ‘data protection’ or ‘human rights’."

Will Barnet Council now allow meetings to be recorded?

Link to the web site

"Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government Eric Pickles said today:

"Local Government Minister Bob Neill has written to all councils, urging greater openness and calling on them to adopt a modern day approach, so that credible community or 'hyper-local' bloggers and online broadcasters get the same routine access to council meetings as the traditional accredited media have.

"The letter sent today reminds councils that local authority meetings are already open to the general public, which raises concerns about why in some cases bloggers and press have been barred."

New, Green Jobs at Mill Hill East?

The Economist: "The Little Society"

Link to The Economist

"The lowest tier of government in London is its 32 borough councils, serving an average population of around 250,000. But activists are hoping to set up new representative bodies, at a much more local level."

Barnet Times: "Residents in Mill Hill call meeting for showdown with Saracens over Copthall stadium plans"

Link to Barnet Times

"Dozens of people living around the stadium in Mill Hill are expected to attend the two-hour forum on 15 February, aimed at talking through a range of issues."

"The Spectator" comments on Barnet Council

Link to 'The Spectator'

"Barnet, which revealed last week that it was thinking of doing away with school crossing patrols ..., voted last year to increase its leader’s allowance by 55 per cent, to £54,000."