The strategy aims to enhance wellbeing, biodiversity, and empower communities, reports Grace Howarth, Local Democracy Reporter

A ten-year action plan on borough parks has been set out by Barnet Council – as residents request another month to consult.

Cabinet member for environment and climate change, Alan Schneiderman, said the council’s vision was to provide “high-quality, inclusive and sustainable parks and open spaces”.

The borough has over 250 parks and open spaces, covering around 20% of its land. A third of Barnet is Green Belt and this year both Cherry Tree Wood and Mill Hill Park won Green Flag awards.

A report details the new strategy’s aims, including enhancing wellbeing, biodiversity, and empowering communities.

A consultation is scheduled to take place soon and run until Christmas, however the chair of the overview and scrutiny committee, Emma Whysall, as well as committee member and Conservative Jennifer Grocock, asked last night (Thursday 13th) if it could be extended by a month.

Cllr Schneiderman said the “shorter period” was due to the council’s keenness to get the strategy adopted and engagement had already been undertaken as results from a ‘first stage’ of consultation were referenced in the report.

Labour committee member Charlotte Daus said results showed more facilities such as toilets in parks were wanted, but vandalism and the cost of maintenance created issues.

Cllr Daus also noted respondents showed support for more commercial ventures.

Cllr Schneiderman assured the committee the council wanted to see “more cafes” and “there are plans for more cafes in parks”.

He said: “Where possible, when there are new cafes we do want cafe owners to be providing toilets that are accessible.

“It’s very difficult when they’re [toilets] not part of cafes because, it’s sad, they do consistently get vandalised and the green spaces team do their best to keep those facilities maintained.”

However, committee vice chair and Tory group leader Peter Zinkin said he could not see any “changes” in the new strategy compared to the previous one, which was created by the Conservative administration and ran from 2016 to 2026.

Mentioning the financial pressures, Cllr Zinkin said: “Why are we producing all of these glossy strategy documents when there is no money and we can’t change anything and it’s not clear from these documents what they’re actually for?”

After declaring “a lot” of the aims in the previous strategy’s action plan were not delivered, Cllr Schneiderman hit back, saying the council had created a deliverable strategy.

Cllr Schneiderman said: “That [previous] strategy was due to run out so we needed a new one, there’s a whole technical analysis that goes behind it and that feeds into the decisions we’re making on parks going forward.

“We still believe in experts which is why we want that analysis; we don’t just want to make things up on a whim.”

He added that when resources were available the council needed to know “how it should be spent and where” and that was what the strategy was “guiding us on”.

Following discussions the committee agreed to recommend to cabinet the consultation on the strategy should last for an additional month, as well as assess whether there were “gaps” in responses from any wards, and get more detail on the action plan’s first year.

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