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."

Trains beyond Mill Hill East: Mill Hill (The Hale) station, next to the present-day Thameslink station (before short-sighted planners closed it)

Link to larger original

Rabbit Hutches - maybe not in London?

Mayor Boris Johnson has ordered housebuilders to stop erecting rabbit hutches. Housing minister Grant Shapps has told them to carry on.

Is a delicious row about to break out between the Mayor and the minister? Sadly not: what Boris says goes in London and what Shapps says counts for naught, said a spokeswoman for the Mayor.

The minimum space standards being introduced in London next April mean that new homes in the capital may well be 20% to 40% larger than any new boxes stuck up in the minister's constituency of Welwyn Hatfield. Serves him right if the voters complain.

Courtesy of Brent Cross Coalition. Extracted from here.

Localism Bill announced by Coalition

Department of Communities Press Release

Mill Hill East Area Action Plan - buy the book!

Mill Hill East report goes to Cabinet

Report to Barnet Cabinet 29 November, here.

"The two largest land owners are Vinci St Modwen (VSM – approximately 66%) and Annington Properties Limited (approximately 19.2%). The Ministry of Defence has a freehold reversionary interest in VSM’s land, but they have been fully included in the discussions.

"...the need to deliver a new east-west strategic highways route from Frith Lane to Bittacy Hill, taking pressure of the local roundabouts and key junctions, would be frustrated by multiple land ownerships and development delivery timescales."

BBC: "Saracens set out Copthall Stadium plans"

Link to BBC Sport news item

"Saracens have revealed they are in discussions with Barnet Borough Council about making Copthall Stadium in north London the club's new home."

Item supplied by Colindale Renewal web site.

Reminder of the Developers' Web Site (VSM Estates Limited and Annington Property Limited - the "Inglis Consortium")

Reponse to the CBT Transport Story in 'The Guardian'

Click on image.

"The Buchanan report springs to mind on reading the Campaign for Better Transport's study, which roundly and rightly praises those cities that have laid on abundant and cheap public transport as a rather less drastic approach to taming the car. Ever since 1960, attempts have been made to try and keep this machine under control.

"Libertarian bores will insist this is due to some patrician hatred of mass mobility, but the CBT's report reminds us that what we could call "transport poverty" is something that afflicts the old, the unemployed, and the ill; and that the most effective means of dealing with traffic-choked cities is through public transport, rather than moralising."

(Thanks to the Brent Cross Coalition for this.)

Better Public Transport article (The Guardian)

Award-winning bus services, a European-style embrace of the tram, and a bias against out-of-town shopping centres were cited as powerful incentives for residents of Nottingham to leave their cars at home, according to a report by the 'Campaign for Better Transport'.

By contrast, Milton Keynes, trumpeted as the epitome of modern urban dwelling in the 1980s, is criticised for a reliance on the motor vehicle to get people from A to B.

A 'Royal Commission on London' is suggested

London Housing Design Guide

And an article in the Evening Standard.

Mill Hill blog, the Barnet Eye, on Allowancegate scandal

80% of air pollution is from road traffic...

UK given final warning over London air quality

The UK has been issued a written warning by Europe to clean London's air or face fines of up to £300m

(click on picture for Guardian web site)

UK receives 'final warning' over air pollution

The European Commission has threatened to take the UK to the European Court of Justice over air quality breaches.

 

(click on picture for BBC News web site)

Transport solutions?

(Thanks to Brent Cross Coalition)

Stop put on Brent Cross

Full letter from GOL to Barnet Council