Campaigners seek review of Great North Leisure Park decision

Barnet Council’s decision to refuse permission for the controversial North Finchley development was overturned by the Deputy Mayor of London last month reports David Floyd

A large number of people sitting on rows of chairs in a church hall — Attendees at a meeting organised by Our North Finchley last year (Credit – Our North Finchley)

A campaign group has launched a fundraiser to support a possible judicial review after a Barnet Council planning decision was overturned by the Deputy Mayor of London.

Our North Finchley is seeking to go down this route after developer Regal/Arada’s controversial plans for the Great North Leisure Park (GNLP), which were refused permission by Barnet Council last year, were given the go ahead by Deputy Mayor Jules Pipe following at City Hall last month.

The group had mounted a strong campaign against the development in the run-up to the original decision by Barnet Council’s strategic planning committee in December, gaining support from thousands of local residents and representatives from across the political spectrum.

In a statement issued following the decision, a spokesperson for Our North Finchley said: “Our community is understandably outraged. The scale of power stacked against us has become starkly apparent: we have raised around 30,000 objections to this development and one man, the Mayor of London Sadiq Khan, delegating to his unelected Deputy Mayor, Jules Pipe, has swept all of us aside in favour of these greedy developers.

“This site has always been suitable for some housing, the local plan indicating around 350-450 homes and we desperately need more family homes. But we’re now facing these terribly designed, over-dense tower blocks with no transport connections, which will remove a vital youth entertainment hub used by thousands of families, and very likely destroy the nature reserve and the highly protected species living there. If our local politicians, our MPs – one of them, Sarah Sackman, a government minister – can’t do anything to stop this kind of rubbish scheme trashing Barnet, then nowhere in England is safe.”

The group has now launched a fundraiser to challenge the deputy mayor’s decision in the courts.

On their Go Fund Me page they say: “We signed petitions. We submitted objections. We spoke at meetings. We packed out consultation events. We showed that this place matters. Despite that, the deputy mayor has now approved the development.”

They add: “Our only option to stop the development is now a Judicial review” before explaining that funds raised will initially be used for “a detailed review by legal advisors”.

The group’s fundraising efforts are likely to be boosted by a community gathering and walkathon at Glebelands Open Space on Sunday, 14th June.

Speaking at the hearing at City Hall on 27th May where the deputy mayor made his decision, a representative of Regal/Arada described the GNLP site as a “textbook example” of the kind of area that should be developed.

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