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Planning Committee - Wednesday 19th February, 2025 7.00 pm, NEW
February 19, 2025 View on council website Watch video of meetingTranscript
Transcript
Good evening, everyone. We'll start the meeting now, if everyone's ready. My name is Claire Farrier. I'm the chair of this committee. So thank you all for coming and attending this evening. I will ask members of the committee and officers to introduce themselves so that they know who we are, and then I'll go through the procedure of how we're going to go. So, as I say, my name is Claire Farrier. I'm a councillor for East Finchley Ward, and I'm chairing the committee. So if the rest of the committee can introduce themselves first. Good evening, everyone. I'm councillor Tim Roberts, representing Underhill Ward. Richard Barnes, representing Barnet Vale Ward. Councillor Cully, representing Collingdale South. Councillor Elliot Simberg, representing the borough. Heidi Erzga, planning manager. I'm Thomas Wong, planning officer. Bastian Markowitz, planning officer. Jonathan Mills, planning manager. Therese. Mark Springthorpe, planning manager. Jimmy Walsh, the legal advisor to the committee. Karina Dimitriou, governance officer. Scarlett Ryan, governance officer. We ask that you will remain seated throughout the meeting unless you are called to the table to address the committee. Please note that meetings are recorded and broadcast is allowed for in all by the council. And by attending, either in person or online, you may be picked up on recordings. So council recordings are covered by a previously noticed and that can be found on our website. So the procedure is for each application, the planning officer will present the application and each speaker will then have three minutes to address the committee and the governance officer will inform you when there is a minute left. And we will then have the opportunity to ask questions of the speakers and then of the officers and then to discuss. And the committee will then determine the application and we will announce the committee's decision. So please note that currently we're in the pre-election period in advance of a by-election in Finchley Church End on the 6th of March. So during this time, ordinary council business can continue, but members are reminded not to refer to candidates or to parties in relation to the upcoming election. So thank you for your support in all of this. We'll then move on to the agenda. So we've all seen the minutes of the last meeting. Can you agree the minutes? Agree. Agree. Thank you. Absence of members. Councillor Conway is on the committee. He's not able to be here this evening and there's no substitute for him. Welcome, Councillor Simberg. I think it's the first meeting you've actually attended of this committee. So welcome to be on here. All the other members are on the agenda. Do members have any interests, financial interests? Councillor Simberg. Item 12, Fair Islands in my ward. Mill Hill. So that's just not a... But do you have any interest or you haven't... No interest at all. Let's just... You're still going to be on the committee. That's fine. Right. There are no dispensations granted by the monitoring officer. The addendum is published. I think everybody's seen the addendum that came out this afternoon. And we'll move... A slight change on the agenda. One item, item 11, White Ways, Hill View Gardens, has been deferred to the next meeting. So I think everybody has been told, but if anybody is here to hear or to speak on White Ways, that has been deferred and won't be heard tonight. And there's a slight change in the order on the agenda. The first one we're going to hear is 94 Kingsley Way. And then we will hear the application for Fair Islands. I believe most people here are possibly here about Fair Islands. So we're going to hear Fair Islands after that at number seven, followed by the other items in order. So we'll start off on the agenda with 94 Kingsley Way. Hello, good evening, committee. The application before you is the application at 94 Kingsley Way. It's to fell a protected oak tree standing in the rear garden. The reason the application is before you today is because there's implication of costs should the application be approved or refused. The protected tree is just located here at the rear garden. This is the site plan of 94 Kingsley Way. And the trees implicated in causing subsidence damage to Abingdon House on Emmet Close. This is the tree from aerial view. You see just there as it sort of provides sort of just part of a whole bank of trees along the back of back gardens of Kingsley Way. This is the site plan from the applicant. And T7 is the subject tree of this application. The other trees are all protected by virtue of being a conservation area. This is the affected property. And this is the application tree just here. This is a close-up version of a tree taken in the winter. And this is the oak tree standing here. Just there. This is the damage at the rear of the property. It's the photographs taken in the summer last year. And you can see there's quite considerable movement at the rear of the property. This is another at the side of the property. You can see typical subsidence cracking occurring around the windows. And this is a photograph provided by the applicant. This is some of the internal damage that's occurring. Our council engineers have reviewed all the information submitted and have concluded that the tree is implicated in causing damage. There's sub-seasonal movement showing the foundations moving up and down. Oak tree roots were found beneath the foundations. And there's obvious, as you've seen in the photographs, there's obvious damage from that. Key considerations of the case. Obviously the trees is part of the hamster garden suburb and the character of that is to be sort of a woodland suburb and houses within gardens and mature trees. So it has important visual amenity. The engineers have looked at the documentation and the tree is implicated in the subsidence damage that's occurring there, although there are the trees in the garden. However, the applicants have not provided any alternative solutions that would remedy the need not to remove the trees, like pruning or installing a root barrier. They haven't suggested any of those. The cost of potential for liability on this case, if it's refused, would be somewhere in the region of £150,000 for the underpinning of the property, where the application refused. And the recommendation is, as usual, it's for the committee to decide whether, on balance, the evidence supports the application or it should be refused on the basis there's insufficient evidence to justify the removal. Okay. Happy to answer any questions. Thank you. Yes, we don't have any speakers on this, so we'll go into questions and discussions. Councillor Talek. Thank you. Is there any definitive proof that this tree is responsible, considering the distance from the house and the fact that there are trees much closer? The evidence is they've provided evidence. They've found oak tree roots underneath the foundations, so the oak tree is present and extracting soil and moisture from below the foundations of the property, causing the clay to shrink and the foundations to subside. There is a cyclical movement. The foundations go up and down in the summer. The soil shrinks in the summer and expands in the winter with natural wetting. And those are sort of the kind of the key elements. The soil is London clay, it's shrinkable. The oak tree is part of a matrix of all the other trees in and around the area, so it's implicated and the applicants think the removal of this tree would help remedy the movement that's occurring. Sorry, can I just ask, were they substantial roots from the oak tree? I can't remember off the top of my head. They were one millimetre. One millimetre? Yeah, so they were quite small. Thank you. Councillor Barnes. When we visited the site yesterday, we noticed there was a couple of other relatively small trees which were a lot closer, which had been felled recently. Do you know when they were removed? They were present when I was there in August and I haven't heard back from the applicant to say that they had been removed. I did raise the question, why haven't you removed all these trees prior to applying for removing the TPO tree and their opinion was that the smaller trees weren't the significant factor in causing the damage. But obviously they're a contributory factor. Thank you. Tim Berger. Well, the insurance companies, what was their recommendation? To fell the tree. Okay. Thank you. There's indications, I think, that the tree could be possibly 100 years old and in which case that tree was extremely well established a long time ago. The building has survived for a very long time without any indication of any damage. Does that not indicate that it is, it is not therefore risking any harm to the building? We kind of have to take the applications as we find them. Yes, the tree, I think the tree probably predates the construction of the houses in and around the 1920s. But the building standards back in the 1920s don't relate to what's required now. And so you can't really make that comparison. Was there any recommendations for a root barrier as well as fell in the tree? They didn't recommend that. Although there's space for a root barrier. There is a space for it. Yeah. Councillor Culley. Sorry, you mentioned that there was no talk of pruning. Would that have made any substantial difference? It would help in regular tree pruning. It's proven to reduce the amplitude of movement below the soil and so it alleviates the problem. Can I just go over something you just said before? If we refuse consent to fell this tree, what's the council's liability? Did you say 150,000? There's potential up to 150,000 pounds for the underpinning but I think there's quite a lot of mitigation in place of the vegetation, the distance, the fact that a root barrier is probably a feasible alternative to removal or underpinning. Is it not feeling that the building was constructed when the roots were already in place? There's potential that a building would be in present, tree roots would have been present. It's hard to say. I note from the report that the tree's implicated but it's not the only causative factor and there's no evidence that this is necessarily the main cause of the damage or even therefore that felling this tree would put an end to the damage if there are other causative factors. So yes, I mean there are implications. We may be asked to pay something towards it as in all these cases. I don't know if we've got any figures of how many applications we have been asked to pay towards or how much there are but we're looking at the immunity value of trees in particular in the garden suburb which is made up very much around the trees and the trees have always been very important. So we're looking at that against the financial implications. So any other comments? Yes, last question. Is there any feedback from the trust in the suburb? Have they come back to... They haven't commented on this application. No comments or what it is, Rob? Okay. Do we know what the overall feelings about felling trees? What gets? The feeling from when I've met with the Hampstead Garden Suburb Trust sorry, Hampstead Garden Suburb Residence Association group is very, very keen to see none of the oak trees and none of the trees removed. The trust does its best when I've spoken to Frank Hawkins who's their arboropopopulist in the Hampstead Garden Suburb. They're working really hard to retain the sort of large mature oak trees as part of that legacy that's come through from the land prior to it being development is the large oak trees and they want to keep those trees present. And the owners of property has anyone spoken to them as to how they feel about this felling tree? They've not made any comments. None to them. Okay. I see there's no representation. Okay. Okay. Shall we go to the vote then? So there's no office's recommendation for this one so we are voting to either approve this application or to refuse the application. All those in favour of approving the application to fill this oak tree? That's one. And those in favour of refusing the application? That's four. So that application is refused. And we move on now to the next item which as I said we are bringing forward on the agenda for the island and the ridgeway. Okay. This application relates to the establishment of a children's nursery together with a single storey side extension and associated landscaping at a site between Burton Hole Lane and the ridgeway Mill Hill. It follows on from a previously refused scheme and takes into account interim pre-application engagement with the LPA. The site currently comprises a large detached building formerly in use as a dwelling and which is a locally listed building. The site itself is within the Mill Hill Conservation Area and Metropolitan Greenbelt but represents previously developed land surrounded by other development on all sides and which as a consequence does not strongly contribute to purposes A, B or D of paragraph 143 of the NPPF relating to the designation of grey belt land. The main building is noted as being intact and is of architectural interest though aside from the live-in guardians it has not been occupied in its original manner for some time showing some signs of neglect to the building and grounds. In particular the former garage and associated hard sanding are in a state of disrepair and are scheduled to be demolished as part of this proposal. Comparing the existing and the proposed site plans the replacement building envelope not withstanding the wheelchair access ramp would not encroach any further north or westward of the ground into the grounds. safeguarding existing mature trees and addressing reason four of the previous refusal. The proposed plans provide for a baby room and toddler room at ground floor level, preschool children at first floor level and staff space at second floor level. The total number of children has been reduced to 80 and staff at 22 operating on a shift pattern across the day. The extension will be a subservient in scale and commensurate in design with the existing building appearing as a proportionate addition more appropriate to its setting within the greenbelt and conservation area in contrast to the much larger and contrasting refuse scheme. As such reasons one and two of the previous refusal are also considered to have been addressed. Reason three has been addressed through undertaking a nursery needs assessment and is supported by the council's early years to scheme. The final reason for refusal pursuant to the previous scheme relates to the assessment and mitigation of highway impacts, in particular vehicle trip generation in what is a low petal area. The proposal would create eight parking spaces together with a carriage driveway to facilitate staff parking and the pickup and drop-off of children arriving by car. The justification has been set out in the report and in the addendum and will be further supported by a travel plan, parking management plan, parking restrictions and a range of highway works, all to be secured by way of condition and obligation. On that basis the application is recommended for approval. Thank you. We have two objectives speaking on this, Liz Fitzgerald and Zoe Samuelson. I don't know which order you wish to speak in. And then we have Klaus Lichensky as well. So who is speaking first? Thank you. If you can turn the microphone on, there's a picture of a face with a speech bubble. That's it. Okay. And then if you can introduce yourself and you'll have three minutes to speak and you'll be given a warning when you have one minute left. Thank you. Zoe Samuelson, resident. Madam Chair, members. Section 65 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 clearly states, a local planning authority shall not entertain an application unless the requirements are met and that any person who knowingly or recklessly issues a false or misleading certificate is guilty of an offence. Certificate A claims the applicant owns all of the land. They do not. Averson Young know this. Barnet, the surveying authority, have failed to safeguard the integrity of the application. Fully aware that the applicant has not secured agreements to alter, move and add rights of way over neighbouring land is acting more as an enabler. The omission of a grampian condition could be considered abusive process and fails to demonstrate that they pay due regard to the children's safety. The independent transport report, TBA, is flawed, has significant omissions likely to sway the decision-makers' recommendation. A third-party information disclaimer absolves them from any responsibility. The contamination report gives a minor mention of a garden nursery. No other document gives weight to eight-plus businesses for whom Burton Hole Lane is the only means for access to trade. Two are Barnet leaseholders, one a working farm within stabling. Garden and aquatic centres are used by many service providers for sensory stimulation and well-being. A core meet-up for multi- generation family outings, thus attracting all ages and ability, while assisting in the reduction of social isolation and fostering good relations. Let's not forget the elderly. LA Surveillers failed to fully assess other granted schemes. Ayrton House and Munster Mill have had to place elderly and disabled residents as the overarching protected characteristic. Two schemes connected by Burton Hole Lane, their desired pedestrian route cuts through the vehicle movements of this proposal. The applicant dismissed or omitted anything that can demonstrate there is adequate nursery provision. This includes a rival nursery chain as out of area. It's undersurprived and perfectly aligned to Milbrook Park. Two example nurses used to mitigate traffic concerns are not comparable, one of which was later dismissed as alternative precision as it wouldn't hold 80 children. Thank you and I'm happy to take questions. Any questions? Councillor Roberts and Councillor Barr. You mentioned the other two businesses that are in that location, the garden centre and the farm. How would a children's nursery in any way adversely impact them? The traffic. The traffic and the elderly who will come from Mastered Mill and from Ayrton House and it's a juxtaposition. They haven't considered any of the traffic. It's not just a garden centre. We're talking three sports venues. We're talking landscape gardening companies. And there's a pond light down there as well, isn't there? Aquatic centre, cafe, garden centre, three sports venues, three event venues, a farm. And have any of them raised this issue with you? Bridal Park. They've all objected. They've all objected? Yes. Independently. Okay, thank you. Good evening. You made some sort of reference at the beginning towards children's safety. I didn't quite catch what that was for. Is that traffic again? So in order to make it safe for the children to arrive outside of the nursery and to cross, they need to put an infrastructure in on land that they don't own. And they haven't included it. They've claimed that they own that land. So that can't happen. Do you know who the ownership of that land is? It's subject to first registration. Okay, thank you. Councillor Simberg. I've got two questions. One is relating to this item you're just mentioning. So can you explain this land that's not owned? Where is it on? I mean, if you can show us on the map, where is that land? So I have a map from the land registry that shows you the extent of the land that surrounds the site. The whole site. They only have a right of way for residential. Yeah, it's not a written right of way. They've only got an established right of way. And it could be classified as intensification if they take change of use. So there's no guarantee they would get a challenge from whoever is registering the land that they do not want intensified rights of way across their land. So do you have access to the where you can't, currently it's residential and they have got an acknowledged, established use of way. After that, nothing. And therefore it's not going to be safe for the children. How can you have children going in and out so close to a road where if you can't even alter the first corner, no footway can be added? There's no refuge for all of them. Can you expand on that? So I read the previous application front to back and noted that the independent transport company was the same company that did this application. But the difference is, on the first one, they submitted a on-street parking assessment and on this one they haven't. So why have they omitted that? Because it's going to look bad. Because over a mile of yellow lines have been added to protect the businesses, which is 260 parking spaces. And where are all Ridgeway Views, St. Vincent's, where are they all going to park? Thank you. Sorry, I'm not quite clear on that. You're saying that businesses won't be able to park because of this? So there's only 30 parking spaces for the entire Ridgeway between Partingdale Lane and Marspit Hill. And most of them, all day, are occupied by residents of Ridgeway Views because they've got limited parking. It's £25,000 per parking spaces and the Mayor of London removed multiple spaces. How is this application going to affect that? So it means that nobody can park legally to pick up or drop off their children? The drop-off, as we've seen, they've got drop-off on the site. But it's eight parking spaces, Council. With all due respect, they're diminutive parking spaces that aren't industry standard to open a driver's door one side and a passenger door the other to get the children out of an ISO-fixed seat. Right. Yes, we may ask the agent to clarify about that. But, I mean, from the report and what we've seen, there is a way of dropping off. And you mentioned putting infrastructure on land that isn't their land to make it safe. I'm not quite sure what you meant by that. So the entire highway's approval is based on having an ingress and egress vehicle and a separate pedestrian entry. And they haven't secured rights of way to do that. So none of that can be done. None of it. Again, we'll ask the officers. But I understood that that's being recommended by highways. And they pay towards that. But, yeah, we'll ask for confirmation of that. Okay. No, thank you very much. Sorry, Councillor Cunningham. Can I just have... Oh, I'll actually ask the officers later. Yeah. Is there any other questions? Okay. Thank you. I think that's all. And then we have Liz Fitzgerald next. Thank you. Thank you. And again, if you can introduce yourself and then you'll have three minutes to speak and you'll be given a warning when you have one minute left. Thank you very much. Thank you, Councillors. My name's Liz Fitzgerald. I'm Managing Director of Bargaparri Town Planning. I'm representing local residents from the area this evening. Thank you for the opportunity to speak. You will have seen the note that I circulated earlier in the week. And I don't intend to rehearse those comments but draw out some significant points for yourselves. The site is located in the Greenbelt. With the change in the MPPF, there is scope for the site to be considered as Greybelt. However, that is subject to there being a demonstrable unmet need for nursery spaces in the borough, not locally in the borough. The Council's own evidence in the form of the Child Care Sufficiency Assessment 2024 shows there's no demonstrable unmet need in the borough. As the previous inspector identified, the opportunity to deliver choice is welcomed but that is over and above an unmet need which is the test for this to be greybelt. Simply saying there is a need due to being adjacent to new development is not a robust argument when a need was not identified as part of those applications and when nurseries locally are actually advertising vacant spaces. The tests applied by the earlier inspector remain valid and the scheme does not represent very special circumstances and will have a fundamental impact on the openness of the site in functional terms, so that's transport and movement terms. In heritage terms, the committee report fails to address the tests associated with less than substantial harm. The test for that is the optimal use of the building and for there to be a public benefit. Neither are actually touched upon in the committee report at all and no further evidence has been advanced by the applicant as part of this application to demonstrate that this is the most optimal use of the building, a criticism that was advanced in the appeal that was determined more recently. Traffic is the most significant concern locally. Other applications in Barnet have demonstrated that nurseries struggle to recruit staff from within Barnet and where they are reliant on public transport. Recently, this committee approved essentially housing for nursery staff to live locally because they couldn't afford to unless it was affordable. So we're in a position here that staff will drive to the site, 11 parking, 11 staff, I believe. Parents similarly will not park some distance from the site and then walk invariably with buggies and small children circa 20 minutes to the nursery along a busy road. They will either adjust their drop-off and pick-up times to enable them to park on Burton Hole Lane or they will park illegally based on it being a few minutes. I note there's an in and out. It restricts movements through the site. You can't turn right out of the site and therefore the easy option is to park on Burton Hole Lane illegally. The traffic will be chaos with residents trapped in their homes, unable to move along Burton Hole Lane and businesses unable to get their deliveries. Parking restrictions were put in place to alleviate parking congestion and ease the flow of traffic in the area. It has placed greater pressure on the remaining on-street parking provision and as a result, anything that encourages illegal on-street parking should be strongly resisted. We implore you to refuse this application. You can just very briefly in the sentence sum up. That was literally my last sentence, councillor. Thank you. All right, thank you. Any questions? Councillor Simberg. You mentioned about green-grey belts. Yes. Can you explain that a bit more? Because I didn't think there was any definition yet set on what is actually grey belts. Certainly, councillor. In the December 2024 MPPF, we now have tests that the government have applied to how to define grey belt. Setting aside housing, because that does have a separate test with golden rules, but for commercial developments, the tests are clear. It has to be a sustainable site, having regard to potential sum relaxation on that for rural areas, and separately, that there has to be a demonstrable unmet need for the use proposed in order for it to be considered grey belt. Alongside the tests of the purposes of the grey belt, so only three tests of the purposes. To be fair, this site meets those tests in terms of the purposes of the grey belt, so I won't go through the nuances of that. The element here that is of concern is the fact that there is a demonstrable unmet need, and that hasn't been demonstrated on a borough-wide level. Nurseries ultimately don't necessarily have a local need. Parents have choice. It's not like schools where it's off your postcode. You can go nearer to work. You can go nearer to grandparents. There isn't necessarily just a ward-level need here. We have to look at it on the borough-wide level, and that's where, in my opinion, there is no demonstrable unmet need for the borough. You say you're a resident around the Ridgeway. Can you explain to the committee what happens on a morning on the Ridgeway regarding traffic? In terms of the Ridgeway, particularly, the Ridgeway is heavily trafficked. Until the yellow lines went in, we had a lot of congestion would move along the Ridgeway as they tried to move in and out of parked cars. That's been somewhat alleviated by the parking restrictions, but we still have a lot of large vehicles, busy traffic demand on the Ridgeway, people trying to cut corners coming through Burton Hole Lane as well, coming round to try and circumvent queues. The demand for parking, as you've already heard, that is left is exceptionally high and very rarely empty. People will try to park in the pub car park, for example. Trying to cross the road is nigh on impossible in that area. Trying to get out of Burton Hole Lane onto the Ridgeway can be a nightmare in rush hour as well. Any other questions? Councillor Roberts. Residential development is not completed in that area. No. In which case, can you not perceive the need for a nursery? Sometimes future young families would like very much to move to a very desirable residential area, part of Mill Hill. In which case, there will be demand that should be supplied by local demand rather than having to get into cars and drive the other side of the borough. As I'm sure you're aware, Councillor, when we consider any planning application coming forward, the education team will provide you with an assessment of need that arises as a consequence of those developments, whether it be early years need, whether it be primary, secondary need, post-16 need. And as a consequence of that, at that time in the consideration of any application, the education authority will seek contributions invariably towards provision. None of those applications identified a need that would arise as a consequence of the developments for early years provision. There is no doubt preference to not getting in the car. But that doesn't mean that parents don't prefer children to be in a nursery nearer to where they work because it's easier to drop them off and get to the office and then pick them up in the times available than it is to try and get stuck in traffic to come back nearer to home to pick them up, for example. So it comes down to parental choice with early years, which is why looking at it on the borough level is a more accurate assessment of need over the local level in a ward basis. We also have the situation here that we do still have vacant spaces within the ward for nursery accommodation. There's been signs up all over the ward for a long time identifying need. And yet we're being told, oh no, there's no spaces available. And that's just simply not the case here. And if that forecast need had been identified as part of those planning applications, when probably this committee or an earlier iteration of this committee granted them, you would have been seeking contributions towards that need that would have gone into, either through SIL or whatever else, would have gone into identified projects that could be brought forward either through working with partners to bring forward nursery schemes or in other forms. It's not necessarily today. It could be five years from today or whatever. There will be demand, future demand for nursery education, nursery facilities in an area that's constantly being developed. I don't disagree, but it's about whether or not there is a forecast on a demonstrable unmet need. You can't rely on planning permissions that have been granted to state there is going to be an unmet need because that need would have been considered through pupil ratios and forecasting at the time that those applications were determined. Don't get me wrong, councillor, if you've got a position that you've got other sites maybe coming forward in the borough, you've got a new local plan coming forward, all of those things should be factored in with that plan and any allocated sites and then that need will be identified at those stages. That doesn't mean there's a need today and that's the test for Greybelt. Is that coming down to saying that parents who will be purchasing properties locally in that area will not be able to take their children to a local nursery? They're going to have to get them their cars and drive elsewhere in the borough? Not at all, councillor. There are spaces available in that ward. There are existing vacancies available for children that move in today and the Barnet Child Care Sufficiency Assessment makes it clear that there is no unmet need within the borough. It's the future need that I'm talking about. Once the residential development has been completed, there could be many, many young families there with young children looking for a local facility. And you're denying them that. No, councillor, that's not what I'm saying at all. And what I'm saying is that need is identified when those applications, when those planning permissions for those new houses are proposed. So it's the same as primary school places, for example. When an application comes into yourselves for consideration, the Education Department will advise on what the potential pupil yield is from that development. that pupil yield is identified at that time and therefore the relevant bodies can forecast the need and they can make sure there's places available to accommodate those children. When those applications came in, there was no identified need for early years provision and there is still no identified need for early years provision within Barnet. and it is exactly the same proviso, it's exactly the same pupil yield assessment that's done for early years as it is done for primary and secondary and post-16 places. Any local residents will disagree with the position that you're taking on that? Thank you. I've read over the last few days of the London-wide drop in the birth rate and the subsequent effect it's going to have on school places. Is there any actual, do you know of any evidence that this will have any effect in this particular area? Certainly across Barnet, my submissions to the last application actually demonstrated that there was a drop in birth rates in Barnet and that the indication was that generally across the country, not just here, we are going to see that drop in trend to the point that even the Department for Education have slowed down building rates at primary education because of that forecast slowed down in birth rates. Thank you. Councillor Osnett. So you've been speaking just about the nursery and the use of the nursery, so not about any other use for this particular building, which has been out of use, as we know, for a number of years. Since the research centre closed down, it's not necessarily relevant to this application that we're looking at to be of a nursery. But would your objections be similar to any other use that this building was put to? I think it depends on the nature of the use. The test for heritage, for example, is to demonstrate that this is the most optimal use of the building. That is part of the test for less than substantial balance argument. There is no evidence in this application to demonstrate that any other use of this building has been considered. Up until fairly recently, it was being occupied as sort of a guardian-type scheme in flattered accommodation. There's nothing to say that the building couldn't be appropriately converted into suitable flats. There's nothing to say that it couldn't go back to a single dwelling. There is similarly nothing to say that a smaller type of use, even potentially, dare I say, office accommodation, because we're all getting inundated with office accommodation, given that work from home, something with a lesser traffic impact is the big issue here. Burton Hole Lane is just not suitable for this sort of development, and certainly the Ridgeway can't take the additional traffic, and that's the key issue for local residents. So as far as use as a nursery, the last application that was refused that went to appeal, the inspector agreed that the use of the nursery was acceptable on this site, so we've got that, and also I know that our children's services, our education service, support this application. Sorry, Councillor, I don't think the inspector did agree that the nursery use was acceptable. What he said is that in principle it could be, but actually the functional impact on the greenbelt was unacceptable. The extension to the property was unacceptable. The use as a nursery, he said, was acceptable, although the number of children being for it at that stage was too much. But he did also conclude in that officer's report that the heritage test, in the heritage test example, the applicant had not demonstrated that this was the optimal use of the building, so there's two different tests. The test of whether the principle of the use of the building is acceptable, that's your own local plan policy, and ticking the necessary boxes associated with that. Then you've got secondary elements coming into play, which is your heritage test, which your officer's report doesn't address, on the optimal use, and they're two distinctly different tests, I'm afraid, councillor. Okay, thank you. No further questions for you, thank you very much. And we now have the ward councillor, councillor Lashinsky, who will speak. And again, councillor, you know the procedure, introduce yourself, you have three minutes to speak, and you'll be given a warning when you have a minute left. Thank you. Okay. Councillor Valderfinski, Mill Hill councillor, thank you very much. Right, we're good to go. Okay. Right, background here. About a year ago, Mill Hill councillors were asked by some desperate residents for help with parking and highways issues in the area. There were new contractors working at the Ridgeway View site then, and they started parking around the Ridgeway and Burton Hole Lane, adding to the already existing congestion problems. Reaching the far end of Burton Hole Lane to access the very popular garden centre, Finchley Nurseries, the farm, Burton Hole Farm, and also the old Camdenians Clubhouse had become increasingly difficult. Residents of Burton Hole Lane and all of the adjoining roads were having difficulty caused by delays, being blocked in, and there were serious safety concerns. And along the Ridgeway itself, long queues of traffic were building up, seriously delaying the 240 bus journey. In fact, a 240 bus was actually stuck for several hours because of the traffic congestion until an incident unit arrived to free it. For those of you less familiar with the Ridgeway, we have Belmont Junior School, the Grimsdale Nursery, Belmont Farm Nursery, Mill Hill School, St Vincent's Nursery and Primary School. We have five schools delivering and collecting pupils at peak times. And also, we have the Ridgeway Views development, we have Millbrook Park, and we're currently waiting for a major development for a retirement complex to start building. This may well be one of the busiest roads in the borough. Mill Hill Council has then held meetings with senior highways officers who then undertook site surveys, traffic surveys, and consultation with residents to look at ways to improve traffic flow and pedestrian safety. It was agreed that the only possible solution was to install yellow lines along the Burton Hole Lane to restrict daytime parking and additional yellow lines along the two sides of the Fur Island Triangle and the Ridgeway. This wasn't considered lightly, but it was considered necessary for traffic flow and pedestrian safety. So this has led to the improved situation that we have at the moment. So it's hard for us to imagine how an additional 80 cars would be driving up the narrowed fork from the Ridgeway next to the huge Barrett development every day and then finding themselves unable to stop anywhere near Fur Island. And if that meant stopping for the length of time required to take children and babies out of car seats and hand them over safely to the nursery staff, the risks from obstructions or accidents are unimaginable. It's simply inconceivable to me that this could be considered an acceptable site for a nursery for babies and children to arrive by car to a site where there's nowhere safe to park. All of the work the councillors have done and the measures introduced by experienced highways officers to ensure smooth traffic flows and improve public safety will be put at risk by an additional estimated and I think this is from the figures 35,000 car trips converging around this tiny triangle of Greenbelt land. Thank you. Thank you. 35,000 car trips per year. Yeah, I think it's actually more than that. I think Mr. Springthorpe might be able to correct me on that. But if you take the fact that there are going to be 80 movements each morning and afternoon and you multiply that by five days a week and then you multiply that by 52 weeks a year minus weekends, that's what it comes out to. It's astonishing. Okay, I mean, clearly from what you've all said that it's the traffic. It's a highways and safety issue both for the current residents and any future residents and I hope that I've addressed the fact that there are already four nurseries along this road. There is no shortage. I think we'll have a lot of questions about this to the applicants and to the officers. Any further questions? Can I say somebody? No? Yes. Can you, Val, can you explain in more detail some of the factors that have led to the parking difficulties along the Ridway in recent years, recent months even? A very big development. The decision by Barrett that when people were buying the flats I believe they later found that if they did want a parking space there'd be a fee of approximately £25,000. This clearly hasn't been taken up very widely so there is a desperate need for people around the new development to find somewhere to park and there isn't anywhere and we've been very busy I'm afraid for safety reasons putting double yellow lines to simply allow the traffic to keep moving. So it was partly that and then it was made worse by some of the later fit contractors moving in. Some of the original Barrett contractors actually had space on their own site when the second fit people were coming in they were just parking the whole length the Burton Hole Lane on both sides. Sorry, this development are you talking about Milbrook Park? No, I'm talking about Ridgeway Views which is immediately adjacent to the item we're talking about tonight. And how we're going to vote is that? We are talking about this application tonight not about the effect of other ones so it's the additional that this one might make that we're interested in. Yes, sorry. Did I not answer that? Mr. Kelly? Yeah, I don't know if someone can point it out on the map you'll see where the Ridgeway Views developed. It used to be the public health laboratory which was sold to Barrett's and it's now a very large housing estate although the main central building which had been originally intended for sale as two and three bedroom flats has recently been changed a change of use for a retirement complex so the whole of the main building now is for retirees. But that yeah that is a separate application and place. Councillor Roberts you want to say Would you not consider that a green space like this with a whole selection of mature trees and a building waiting to be in some sort of beneficial use for local community should be considered for this sort of application? It's adding to the community. We don't have a shortage of nurseries on the Bridgeway. We have five schools collecting and delivering at peak times every morning along that one road. I'd be very happy to see it reused for residential purposes or some other purpose but we have two triangles of this and the whole of the road going down Burton Hall which all have double yellow lines on now. And if this plan which is part of the plan to have a kind of carriage drive entry doesn't work then there are no spaces to park on any of those roads of the triangle if you see it in that design including the Ridgeway itself which makes the fourth part. So the Ridgeway both triangles of Burton Hall Lane and the whole length of Burton Hall going down to the farm is now yellow lined. And given the potential use as a nursery the exit hours are unlikely to impact upon traffic because the time school that the nursery is discharging its children will not be a peak time for traffic on the Ridgeway. I'm not sure that's correct councillor. I think No, no it's an all day nursery for people who are going to work so I'll be dropping them off at 7, 8 o'clock in the morning and picking them up at 6 o'clock in the evening. I believe there are flexible times but I think the main times would be the normal commuting as I think if I'm correct there's an additional charge for parents who want to have extended days like from 7 o'clock in the morning so not everyone would take up that option presumably so it would be normal school times along with the other five schools. I think this is something we'll clarify about the management of the traffic and the hours with the applicant. That's okay. Councillor Simberg. Val, you've explained about the impact the nursery will have on traffic along the Ridgeway and we'll clarify the times with the applicant shortly. Could you just from your own opinion within the area being a ward councillor that site obviously hasn't been developed in many many years it's been left to just fall apart what would be suitable do you think to local residents there? Because of the access I don't necessarily see it as a community asset but I'm sure it would serve very nicely as a residential development because then you'd have parking on site and you wouldn't have the same problems that we're facing at the moment. But it's not the application is not for that unfortunately we're only considering the change of use for it for it yeah yeah okay thank you thank you very much councillor thanks and now we have we have the agent for the applicant Rhys Harris thank you thank you and again if you can introduce yourself you'll have three minutes to speak and you'll be giving a warning when you have a minute left you've heard some of the questions that we may be asking so you can address those thank you chair and good evening councillors my name is Rhys Harris and I am speaking on behalf of Boys and Girls Nursery as their planning advisor John and Natasha from the nursery are with us this evening too the application will provide an 80 place children's nursery in an area of considerable need as identified by the applicant's nursery need assessment the national planning policy framework requires local planning authorities to give great weight to the creation of early years facilities and to take a proactive approach in helping increase supply as a 7am to 7pm 52 week a year service the nursery offer provides greater choice for local people and is a contrast to the term time only nurseries operating in the area Barnet Council's early years team support the application and the new childcare provision in the Mill Hill area to support local families importantly the nursery has been within walking distance of emerging residential developments nearby including Millbrook Park and Ridgeway Views the scheme complies with greenbelt policy as a proposed extension is by definition a proportionate addition and will not cause substantial harm to the openness of the greenbelt it also meets the definition of greybelt which further confirms this is appropriate development on the greenbelt the change the change of use of the site to a community facility is supported by your officers the council's local plan and the draft local plan whereby the loss of residential use is permitted for a local facility where there is demand and that demand cannot be met elsewhere the need plus the lack of alternative other sites has been robustly demonstrated by the application and is supported by your officers the change of use also ensures the locally listed building which is in need of restoration will be refurbished and brought back into a viable use the heritage benefits are supported by officers the scheme has been designed to integrate with its setting only one low quality category tree with a life expectancy of less than 10 years is proposed to be removed this will be more than mitigated by the planting of 17 new trees Barnet Highway supports the provision of car parking spaces for drop offs and collections within the site which is calculated to be more than sufficient to meet the identified demand the nursery does not operate like a school with strict start and end times meaning parents can and will drop off and pick up children flexibly the officer report notes that great weight should be given to the creation of this early years facility in an area of established need alongside the considerable list of planning benefits including bringing an underutilised locally listed building that is falling into disrepair back into an optimal viable use whilst at the same time enhancing the building's heritage and wider landscape the creation of a proportionate and sensitively designed extension to enable the creation of 22 full-time local jobs including apprentice and student training and importantly the provision of 18 nursery places to support the borough's parents and cater for the growing demand in the area the application is recommended by your officers for approval and we therefore ask members to support the reuse, refurbishment and extension of the building to provide a family-run community facility thank you very much for your time thank you we've heard from the objectives and from the councillor a lot about the need for nursery but that's really up to the applicant to make sure they can provide that need but the main concerns seem to be about the effect on parking and traffic around there so we've been shown that there is in an out drop-off area I wonder if you could further elaborate on the parking arrangements and what you will be doing to ensure that there is no stress on parking in the area from parents coming to drop-off and pick up their children thank you chair if it is allowed would I possibly be able to invite my colleague Nathan Hanks who represents TPA the transport consultant to come to the table he will better be able to respond to transport related questions good evening as I say if you could just expand on the arrangements for parking to make sure that people are not parking and causing problems in the local area the parking spaces on site what we've done in supporting the application is surveyed other nurseries in similar locations we've surveyed other nurseries in similar locations to look at the profile of arrival throughout the day and we've looked at typical drop-off times how long it takes to drop off to work out how many spaces are needed on the basis of that evidence it shows that eight spaces is actually far more than is needed we've got enough spaces to allow for drop-off to take twice as long as anticipated we've also assumed a worst case of two-thirds of parents driving and only a third walking whereas local census data shows that only 47% of people drive so that's we've got a very robust situation which shows as agreed with the highway officers that there'll be more than enough parking on-site to pick up and drop off so there's absolutely no need for parents to stop on street and as you've heard there are extensive parking restrictions in the area as well but fundamentally there's more than adequate parking provided on-site for all pick up and drop of activity and that will be spread out across the day because parents can it's not there may be a lot of nurseries locally but they only operate like schools that's why there's chaos on the road potentially because they all have to arrive at the same time and most of them locally don't have on-site parking for drop-off pick-up which is why we're providing on-site drop-off and pick-up here to avoid those issues so it's all within the site so are there peak times for dropping off and picking up or well the peak is between 7 and 10 a.m. really because parents especially with working from home these days people have very different hours so they will flex when they pick up and drop off children if that ability is given to them as it is by this type of nursery and in the applicant of other nurseries is it similar absolutely this is how they operate it's if you like a very modern nursery system that cases for working parents who often some go into work very early some work from home and might drop off when everything gets a bit quiet after nine o'clock in the morning it gives that flexibility and it spreads out your peaks unlike school your nursery is linked to schools which tend to open at 9 a.m. and you've got to get there at 42 that sort of thing it's not that and I think the planning inspector that considered the previous scheme here assumed it would operate like that and that's one of his concerns I think or where that came from unfortunately we weren't given the opportunity to discuss that thank you any other questions on the parking several questions oh sorry given the location that we're talking about is it not conceivable indeed highly likely that many parents would seek to walk their children to that school and therefore the traffic thing is an isolated point that's not relevant to this location absolutely there's a lot of chimney pots if you like around the site and a lot of people can walk to the site in fact that's one of the reasons there's a parking management plan proposed with ongoing monitoring so that if we find there's too much parking for drop off and pick up on site we can either reduce the parking overall or we can reallocate some of those to some staff parking however the council and the applicant agree and on traffic impact just to confirm you mentioned traffic impact so I'll answer that as well if that's okay so we undertook we commissioned traffic surveys of traffic all around the sites and the nearest junctions we then undertook capacity analysis for all the junctions and industry standard methods which showed there'll be negligible impact on traffic hardly any additional queuing and because officers knew this was going to be contentious given the previous refusal mentions traffic impact we also then did a sensitivity test where we added 20% to the background traffic levels that were surveyed and said what would the impact be then and the impact was still very low and not enough for officers to consider there was any issue absolutely using all the usual methods that we are required to use for traffic impact analysis Councillor Simberg on parking I have several questions actually on site there's eight spaces on site yes how many members of staff have you got 22 full time members of staff okay I'm assuming that members of staff are expected to arrive before the children yes yes generally they are so where would they park before you answer so when I say where would they park assuming you want the children to arrive safely therefore use the drop off points so there's two points that where would the staff park allowing the children to be dropped off safely inside which would obviously be the ideal solution thereby stopping any traffic won't be allowed to park on site it will be for pick up and drop off unless in the future there's a survey at the site which shows through the parking management plan that there's too much pick up and drop so where would staff park so the idea and in terms of the national planning policy framework it says from a transport perspective we should have a vision led approach so we sustainability is key we should be encouraging people to use public transport to walk etc so the idea is that staff will not drive and Barnet have removed a lot of parking from the streets around the site so combining that with not providing staff parking on site is all about encouraging staff to use sustainable transport and the recruitment will be as local as far as possible and that means we are following all the policy leads to try and encourage staff and almost force staff not to drive and that encourages sustainability healthier living and that is where the policy requires us to go so this is part question part statement but you know I mean I admire anyone trying to uphold the London plan and to encourage people to use public transport knowing Mill Hill the way I know Mill Hill apart from being a ward counsellor and living in Mill Hill for 38 years this is the statement bit now nobody in Mill Hill walks their children to nurseries I have three grandchildren living in the area and using nurseries in the area and my children unfortunately don't live in the area after nursery so they have to drive sorry it's just questions on the arrangements for parking so the question is the ridgeway the congestion on the ridgeway parking is this is going to increase parking on the ridgeway which is going to have adverse effect to the businesses and to residents on the ridgeway which do not currently have enough parking so walking to the nursery is great if you live in ridgeway views but the demographics of ridgeway views and obviously malstead living which is the over 65s are not going to use the nursery I think you're making comments now rather than just questions about parking statement a question you mentioned you carried out a survey where was that survey the surveys were on the two junctions between burton hole lane and the ridgeway and of all the traffic passing along the ridgeway along burton hole lane and so each of those three junctions if you like the corner of burton hole and burton hole when was that when just I don't know exactly when it was in the lead up to the planning application being submitted parking no thank you very much any further questions to the agent generally on the application thank you both very much thank you thank you right so now returning to questions to the officer we had comments from the objectives about because this is basically a change of use application there'd be no concerns about the actual changes to the building it's about the change of use the concerns are so I wonder if you could comment a bit more on the need for a nursery on how we look upon the need for a nursery in this situation need for change of use well the council's annual child care survey assessment 2024 so in that it does say as a borough there is no immediate concern regarding sufficiency although there is continued future focus on supporting the full implementation of the early years entitlement for working families in September 2025 like councillor Roberts was alluding to there is the need to consider the expansion of child care services down the line and in doing that as part of this application the early years team had been consulted and they were supportive of the institution being open to provide towards that I mean that comes from the 2024 assessment itself I mean I don't know what else to add we've asked the right people in the council they said they support the need as a strategic objective in the relevant policy document to provide for how much should we take any consideration of the need for nursery in this place into account rather than just this is a change of use and if the applicant can use it as a nursery that's fine it's not is that particular planning well it is a relevant part of the application because it involves the loss of residential use or one other thing I would say so in applications that are subject to seal payments that are targeted towards infrastructure investment they don't provide in themselves the means to expend that money so taking money in order to make provision down the line for services to support additional residents in a particular area or in the borough as a whole doesn't in and of itself make that happen on the ground and then there's the issue about the ownership of land presumably that's the surrounding bit that's going to be made into pavement and crossings that they're talking about is that a particular concern no it's not uncommon in terms of the way that we approach applications so this is the site location plan on the screen the ownership certificate identifies certificate A and that relates to the land that's within the red line site and that is consistent so in this application like an old number of applications it includes planning obligations to deliver off-site infrastructure works highway works and is subject to conditions that use can't be instituted unless and until they deliver specifically the additional crossover to enable the carriage driveway so if the concern is that the use is instituted without the proper arrangements being in place then that would be a breach of planning control so effectively couldn't happen or shouldn't happen or would be enforceable and it also enables then if there are as far as I'm aware the highway authority believe that they have the right to carry out those works but if there is a civil action pending outside of the application process to determine the rights over that land then the condition ensures that the harmful element of the development in terms of highway impact couldn't begin unless and until they deliver the infrastructure which has been identified thank you any further questions councillor barnes councillor collect and councillor roberts i wanted to ask if you agreed with the appraisal that for this site to be declassed as greybelt it did need to be a demonstrable unmet need or whether you had another interpretation of land no that that is a requirement in order to be greybelt but in any event it's not a disproportionate addition to the existing building and so it's not inappropriate development but the operational development is not inappropriate even if it was just greenbelt land so in a sense it's a moot point and the change of use it's not considered in and of itself to affect the openness of the greenbelt and so again that's subject to one of the exemptions set out in the MPVF so either way you know either you give greater enough weight to the need to consider that it's greybelt but either way it passes the greenbelt test so sorry just to check so you're saying don't think it has to be designated as greybelt for this development to go ahead for it to be acceptable in terms of greenbelt policy yeah correct council roberts just want to clarify going back to the appeal decision and the rest of it was the reduction in the numbers the intake of the school from 100 down to 80 does that essentially meet the requirements well the decision of the inspector doesn't dictate that as a requirement there's not a requirement of the appeal decision that they go away and think again and come back with another proposal but the inference is that a lesser number of children would address the impacts that the appeal inspector identified in respect of the number of people that were proposed under that original planning application well the planning officers consider that it does it addresses the harm obviously you can decide whether or not you think that that is a sufficient reduction in overall numbers but that's what's set out in the recommendation yeah correct councillor Kallick you're next and then councillor Littenberg thank you there was it's not directly concerning this application as this application is but there was a suggestion that this property could be used for other purposes i.e. conversion into flats now if I understand it this is locally listed and if it is is it suitable to be converted into flats the conversion to flats in this instance would not be consistent with the principles set out under policy HAUO3 of the adoption version of the new local plan because the PTAL rating is too low it's lower than the threshold that is set out for the residential or for the conversion of larger homes so I suspect there may be policy issues why it may not be approved I mean whether or not you could physically configure the space to form flats I don't I mean I don't see why you couldn't do that but that's not the only concern behind choosing to bring that form of development forward sorry to go back on one of the points you made I just need a bit more clarification and this idea of ownership is niggling me so if just to clarify if there was a walkway put all around the site and the owners don't legally own that site what's the implication to the owner and to the council well the offsite highway works are within the remit of the highway authority so what matters from the planning point of view is that if their delivery or if the successful operation well that's not the right way of putting it if potential harm from a planning point of view would be could be mitigated but it's contingent upon those works then it is necessary only that it provides that those works are carried out before the use is instituted so in a sense what I'm saying is that it's not a relevant consideration in this particular instance because either they deliver it or they don't and if there's an argument to be had amongst the parties involved in that that's a matter outside of the planning application thank you the officer's recommendation is for approval all those in favour of approval three those for refusal or those against approval have got to go first one one not voting one not voting so that application is approved thank you so if those here for that application can move outside as quietly as possible so we can continue with the agenda and we will move on to East Finchley one High Road East Finchley now this application we've got items seven and eight that has to do with this although we will need to vote on them separately they will be presented and the speakers hopefully are planning to speak on them both together I was not proposing to give you three minutes on each of these but three minutes for them both together we're looking at them both together but we'll be voting on them separately if that makes sense so officers now on the high reduce Finchley Good evening committee this proposal is for the installation of an electrical vehicle charging point unit with double sided LCD screen and associated electrical connection works the proposal is made up of two applications one for the charging point and one for advertising consent I will be presenting both applications together but they will be voted on separately so here we have a location plan and the aerial view of where the charging point will be installed and here we have some site photos showing the buildings outside which the charging point will be implemented and here again we have an aerial view a closer aerial view of that and here we have the existing plan the unit will be on the high road between Leicester Road and Huntington Road and if you look at the proposed plan you can see that the units won't be on the pavement but it will be on a build out from the pavement so it won't actually take up any space on the pavement but it will be within a parking area so it will not obstruct the flow of traffic this is the design cabinet design and here we have an example of one that was recently installed in Crickerwood on a build out so that you can see what it will look like and it has four protective bollards around it and again it's in an existing parking bay the immediate setting benefits from a commercial character and therefore it's appropriate for a charging point it supports Barnett's sustainability action plan Highways Authority sustains no objection and the application is therefore recommended for approval any questions thank you we have two speakers Mary Hodbin and Roger Chapman on which order you wish to speak in thank you Mary I believe you're speaking on behalf of the Finchery Society so if you could you know the face with a speech bubble coming out that's it so I've got six minutes correct no as I say I hope you will agree that you have three minutes on them both and can I take them together you have three minutes each yes we're taking them both together so I get six minutes six minutes between two speakers no no six minutes for each three minutes for each application it's already been confirmed to me that I should be three minutes on each application for each speaker so that's six minutes for me and six minutes around if that I wrote in and asked specifically if that was confirmed to you that's fine if you need are you going to speak for six minutes all together on them both or do you want to take both applications separately then no what I'm saying is I'll take both together I mean I'll probably go over three minutes is the point okay that's fine if we take both together and you go a bit over three minutes we'll allow that okay thank you six minutes so we'll still give you a minute's warning at the end of the three minutes and if you go on that that that'd be acceptable okay okay thank you I'm Mary Hogben from the Finchley Society I've lived in East Finchley for many years and know this area extremely well page 19 of TFL London Electric Vehicle Charging Point Guidance states EV charging bays should not be introduced in locations where they will reduce curbside access for essential servicing activity of nearby buildings that's common sense probably the reason why in Australia as seen on Jolt websites they are installed in car parts but this is East Finchley and on the busy A1000 and whoever chose this site did not know the high street understand how the youth theatre functions the numbers of students that can be outside and the need for drop-off for the less able nor did they take into account of the busy grocery shop next door which uses the parking bay to service the shop the applicant in their design and access statement said that they comply with TFL but they have since dismissed the safety requirements of TFL as advisory only and it seems our highways department has done that too a risky strategy anyone trying to use the charger has to step into the oncoming traffic to use the pay point which does not comply with TFL safety requirements for EV charges there should be a 500 millimetre buffer zone between the parking point and the traffic the guidelines on safe use for wheelchair users have also been ignored the character of our compact town centre a largely intact Edwardian development with many buildings of architectural merit both nationally and locally listed is slowly being harmed by these large advertising screens we already have six and we cannot absorb any more East Finchley residents are proud of their high street and the town team are working hard with the council to make the street scene more pleasant and user friendly thus supporting independent traders to ensure the high street thrives it has been proven beyond doubt that increased footfall arising from more pleasant and pedestrian friendly streets creates a more vibrant and healthy high street these units can only have the opposite effect these two applications one for the two structures and one for the advertising are both primarily a major street advertising project with an EV charging point tacked on the side East Finchley Town Centre already has more advertising than it should these large units these large units are counter to policy on advertising they will cause unacceptable harm to the character amenity of the town centre they do not enhance the heritage assets of the high street they are unnecessarily large when you be charging point they detract from the amenity of the street scene and add to the clutter already in the high street that we would like to reduce and they will cause a physical and physical visual obstruction including light pollution in other words they do not comply with policy CDH09 of the new London local plan adopted last week I believe charging units should be positioned in an optimal place for use and not dictated by advertising positions which would be a dangerous distraction to drivers cyclists and pedestrians alike permissions for these units should be refused further north there is a parade of shops with a very wide pavement outside the character area who might well welcome these and could be a safer location there is a conflict between the planning system which is promoting car free living where the access to public transport is good and the siting of EV infrastructure on the road so there is a conflict between that and the planning system and with the siting of EV infrastructure on the road to serve flat owners above the shops this was reinforced by the recent inspector ruling on proposals for 138 the high road in november 2024 therefore it is not logical to say as the applicant does that the numerous flats above the shops will need access to charging as they are not being encouraged to have a car electric or otherwise the neighbouring roads have discreet EV charging facilities there is a point outside UAE and the EV team are rolling out more across the area there are high speed charging points at the station the five bells pub and just south along the A1000 and indeed a jolt unit installed opposite we could ask that the council pause the jolt roll out and reconsider the locations of these units in relation to the whole EV charging programme rather than the congested town centres they would be more appropriate in supermarket and shopping centre car pots where there are shoppers arriving by car and also large organisations who might like to advertise their goods that are being sold inside it looks as if the current high street locations are not picking up the advertising and certainly our local traders would not be able to afford the advertising thus not benefiting from them at all nor providing any revenue for the council we note with concern that a jolt unit in North Finchley has been wrapped in the layer of dark blue material transforming it into a static advertising display this is in breach of the planning approval so therefore for all approvals going forward a condition needs to be attached to prevent this happening so just as jolt seems to be indifferent to the safety requirements of transport for London it ignores the conditions of the planning approvals thank you thank you any questions Councillor Barnes sorry you just made reference to something being wrapped around and being contravening the planning could you explain that a little bit more yeah there's a there is a jolt in existence in North Finchley in the last few days has been covered in a blue sheet with a static advertising on it and it covers the perforations at the bottom contravenes its planning approval that it had so clearly if you're going to approve any in the future you need to make sure that they do stick with their as approved drawings and don't start fiddling around with them and making them different you know the planning application approval right okay I understand what you're saying now thank you yeah thanks yes I'm not sure at the moment we're considering this one not what may or is happening to other ones as you know that's that's the right so this one that we're talking about has been wrapped in a film and a static advertising i.e. a post has been put on it on the outside so it's not actually it's not yeah could well be it's not actually functioning as basically yeah as an advertising screen that rotates on different adverts is that what you're saying i think that's what's happening i mean what we're asking for here is for this application should you choose to approve it you need to put conditions on to make sure that jolt do what they say they're going to do or that it's approved because they seem to be quite keen to disregard these things sorry my colleague i think yeah i think i look at that i mean it's quite clear in the in the papers you know exactly what this will look like be made of and be used for so we'll ask a clarification that it will be conditioned i just wanted to clarify this installation is not going to be on the pavement it is in the road so it will not change the situation in terms of people accessing any of the buildings that i'd be the shop or the children's centre whatever that they will not be altered in any way because the installation is on the road not on the pavement actually it will impact both the shop and the Finchley Youth Theatre because they require because if somebody is parked charged that obstructs the parking bay the build out and there will be car parked possibly charging which means that should the youth theatre need to pull in and offload their children which they do because they bring a lot of children who have access issues and there's shop when he goes off at 3 o'clock in the morning to buy his bed and he comes back to try and park to offload his goods and they use that it's a very busy busy shop they use that parking space for servicing their shop so they won't be able to do that as easily there is the obstruction in the middle of the parking bay which has got the jolt on it and possibly somebody parking up and charging no they couldn't use the pavement because the pavement's not wide enough so they never could have used the pavement is your objection to where the jolt is going to be situated or is it to the actual point of having a charging a charger at all in this instance it's to the location there are better locations up the road we would prefer not to see the advertising we're quite happy to see charging points but if we had to have them this is not the location for it this is clearly not the location for it thank you thank you very much Mary now I have Roger Chapman thank you and again Roger you you're expecting to address both these that's it you're expecting to have up to six minutes are you to address both these I don't think I'll take six minutes but I'll see how I get on right there's three minutes on each of them if you want to extend a bit further you've been here before so you know you introduce yourself you have three minutes to speak we'll give you a warning thank you you have one minute if you go over a little bit longer that's fine okay thanks okay my name is Roger Chapman I'm a member of the East Finchie Town Team which is a post-COVID organisation it's established organisations within East Finchie includes the Archer Newspaper Phoenix Cinema East Finchie Open Artists and East Finchie Community Trust we work in conjunction with Barnet Council and have delivered five activities over the period 2022 to 2023 and we continue to do work so we share goals with the council about increasing town centre footfall improving the attractiveness of the high road through planting and other activities we're also looking at proposals for a new town square and we've been active in doing works around London Festival of Architecture in 2023 24 and we're putting proposals forward for 2025 so we support the Barnet corporate plan about caring for people our place and our planet particularly the call for safe and attractive neighbourhoods and town centres the proposal here on one issue I would take up with the officers report is where it talks about this is a secondary function of advertising primarily about electric vehicle charging in our view this is exactly the opposite it's primarily an advertising panel with a secondary function of an electric vehicle charging we certainly support electrical vehicle charging points for our number around residential areas but this particular one we feel is inappropriate in both size and scale in relation to the street scene and many professionals who have put objections into this including architects and planners of which I count myself would disagree with the officers recommendation and it's appropriate we've acted through it's not policy CDH CDH 09 on advert advertisements talks about adverts being sensitively designed we do not think it is sensitively designed this is a substantial monumental block of metal and results in visual clutter which is something which we're trying to avoid already within this area there are seven signs well this will be the seventh sign of this size within the high road this particular one will bring in one new monumental sign four bollards a feeder pillar already within 50 metres there are two lampposts four bike racks a bench another bollard the parking street sign and a disused parking meter it is cluttered already and this is just making it substantially worse Mary's mentioned about Tony's Continental established in 1971 as a local independent business they're fully against it they see it as detrimental to their long established business and I think we're trying to support local businesses like this and shouldn't be undermining them likewise the Fincher Youth Theatre a London Borough Barnet organisation have objected to this because they cater for many young people often with physical and special educational needs and they will be affected because of the impact on drop-off points and delivery and so on so overall we don't think this is effectively the wrong location for this site we're not against electrical vehicle charging points far from it but this is the wrong site there are other alternatives and we'd be happy to talk to the applicants about what they might be thank you questions I'd just like to ask you to expand a little bit on the use of the Fincher Youth Theatre you're talking about I mean we've been advised that this will not affect access to that but you're talking about dropping off children with special needs physical disabilities and so on so I wonder if you could expand a little bit about how this especially being built out into the road will impact on that yes certainly if you look at the comments that were made on the planning application there is in fact one from the manager of the Fincher Youth Theatre who makes these points about the centre is already operating under space constraints and they are concerned about loss of access to pavement and pathway currently adjacent not only because I know this is on a build out but the point is a lot of parents will drop off and pick up children at the moment from that location because they do often come in wheelchairs and have other special educational needs because this is partly what Fincher Youth Theatre does it provides activities and so on for many of those impacted upon our community so I think it's overall it's that issue about potentially giving safety concerns but also just generally dropping on and off of people to the Fincher Youth Theatre combined also with the fact that if you want one location in East Fincher Town Centre which this is not a good place to do this is it I think you mentioned that the position of the advertising but the advertising there is there to subsidize the cost of the EVs which they do on a national basis not consider that a reasonable reason for having the advertising there it is there to make this EV facility available to all I think it can have it accessible I don't necessarily accept that it has to be through advertising this may be a particular model which has been chosen but that is a choice but again the point about this is you're already introducing clutter to the area you've brought in there's already six of these size advertising units within that area you're bringing in a seventh where does it stop this is an approach to providing services often I know hardstrap councils have to do these sort of things but what I would say on this is this is not the right location for this specific one and I said we will happily talk to the JOLT representatives about alternative sites within that area if there's no further questions thank you very much sorry sorry you said there are six advertising platforms already yes not all JOLT some are just stand alone sort of how many actual JOLT this would be the second one this would be the second on the same side of the road no on the other side of the road but there's already on this side of the road just about 100 yards further down there's two existing EV charges which don't have advertising with them thank you okay thank you now I have the agent Patrick Thomas thank you thank you Mr Thomas I think you've been here before so you know that you have three minutes to speak a little bit longer because we're looking at both of them but not too much longer I hope thank you chair and good evening councillors my name is Patrick Thomas and I'm the planning manager at JOLT before I discuss the application before you tonight I'd like to give you a brief update on JOLT's progress in the borough we currently have 42 installed chargers and in January alone there are nearly 12,000 charging sessions delivering over 1.1 million miles of travel powered by renewable energy our average charge time has increased to 64 minutes meaning a JOLT charger is in use for around 10 hours each day demonstrating both strong demand and the vital role these chargers play in supporting EV the application before you has undergone thorough scrutiny not just by JOLT but by four Barnet council departments and independent road safety experts before submitting any planning application we collaborate with multiple Barnet council departments to carefully assess the suitability of proposed locations once an application is submitted it goes through a full consultation process in this case following engagement with ward councillors and local stakeholders the right decision was made to relocate the charger from the footpath onto a build out within the car parking bay ensuring minimal impact on pedestrians and footpath users roads I personally met with both Kemi at the youth centre and Chris at Tony's Continental and both have welcomed this relocation I understand that some concerns have been raised about road safety and I would like to address these directly the site has been reviewed three separate times by professional highways officers at Barnett Council all of whom concluded that the development presents no road safety risks additionally an independent road safety assessment reached the same conclusion to be absolutely clear jolt charging cables will be positioned curbside meaning customers will be on the footpath when using the charger while the paid terminal is on the roadside data from recent transactions shows that only 17 out of the last 1,000 charges used the terminal the vast majority of jolt customers use the app as it offers 15 minutes of free charging and a more convenient payment method since launching jolt has facilitated over 80,000 charging sessions with no reported road safety incidents finally I'd like to thank officers for their thorough assessment and collaboration throughout this process I hope councils will support the officer's recommendation and approve this application I'd be happy to answer any questions thank you I'd like to ask a question first before I come to the others I said I am an East Finchley councillor you said that consultation had taken place with the ward councillors the ward councillors were not consulted about the positioning of any of these charges councillor Mitra wrote into planning officers regarding do yes yes he wrote in but you didn't consult with them about selecting the positioning of them a section 17 notice was displayed on the site prior to that's not consulting with councillors before you decide on where they're going to be so there wasn't any consultation with local councillors or local organisations well I disagree because the section 17 notice is a consultation process that the councillor was made aware of and as a sort of as a direct result of the representations made by the consultation after you decided where this is going to be positioned there was no consultation when you were looking at an area to look at the best places for positioning different Barnet Council departments we work with highways town centres streets and the planning department so what I would say is that before we get to this position tonight we've looked at hundreds of sites across the borough many of which have been discounted so a consultation does take place I might disagree with that but yes I hear what you're saying okay any other questions Councillor Roberts just wanted to check you don't consider this installation to be excessive given the area that part of the high street no this part of the high street it's not in a conservation area it's not next to a listed building or a locally listed building and as said by one of the other people a moment ago there are other advertising screens in the immediate vicinity so we think it's entirely appropriate and agree with officers so again just two points can you tell me the exact date were you consulting all the councillors no we haven't as I said before a section 17 notice was issued put on the street prior to the planning councillor Mitra wrote to planning officers we responded to councillor Mitra councillor Mitra raised concerns about the unit on the footpath as a result of his email we we've also tried to engage with councillor Mitra and emails have been sent and we haven't received a response but we did relocate the charger into the parking bay as a direct result of the comments made by councillor Mitra that was my second question actually sorry no it's fine you've answered it so in terms of positioning on the parking bays is there any other suitable position in that high street to put this as I sort of said before before we even get to the meeting tonight we work with a number of council departments for and they all have slightly different requirements in planning and highways and town centres and the streets team jolts also have requirements so this was considered the optimal location in this area effectively any further questions no thank you very much any questions for the officers I just have one I'm just going to carry on where we were left off so the applicant saying that section 17 notice my understanding of that that goes on the lamppost that's not in my opinion a consultation with councillors will councillor consultation will be an email face to face telephone physically talking am I incorrect in thinking that that was my thing yeah the consultation was a section 17 notice which everybody saw at the same time as councillors it wasn't specifically with councillors it's not a the pre-application engagement on the part of the application is not a statutory requirement it doesn't it's good if they do it and I'm not going to comment about the extent to which it was done but for the purposes of the planning application all the statutory requirements set out under the development management procedure order and in our statement of community involvement they've been adhered to yes I'll respond to that it may not be a statutory requirement but considering that nearly all these applications are coming to committees to be decided I think it may have avoided that if there had been a proper consultation with ward councillors in all wards before to discuss appropriate positions for these things rather than having to go through this rather tedious procedure with coming to committee all the time yes it would avoid I would say you know I am an East Finchley ward councillor I haven't made any comments on this so far I've been listening to objections to a few people who are in flavour for different reasons but I must say at this stage I do have great concerns both with the position it's in although apparently the consultation took place on that and with it not being on the pavement if it's going to be somewhere it should be on the pavement I don't like it being in the middle of the road I think it does impede access that part of the road is very heavily parked there are no car parks in East Finch Street so all parking for businesses and everything is on the streets and it will affect parking there and make it much more difficult to park much more hazardous to park there and make it much more difficult as we've heard for people dropping off children and picking up children at the youth theatre which is very highly used so I am not in favour of this particular application further comments otherwise we will go to a vote the officers are recommending approval of this application all those in favour of approval that's three two so that application is approved oh sorry yeah sorry application that was so can we can we take the vote again first of all on the vote for the charging unit those in favour and against so it's three four two against that application is approved and then for the advertising those in favour three and against two so both those applications are approved and we move on to the next vote charging unit in the Finchley Road okay thank you chair good evening so this application is similar to the previous one it's also for the Jolt electrical vehicle charging point however this is located in outside 1095 to 1097 Finchley Road and also this application this proposal also has two separate applications so one for the charging unit itself and the other one for the advertisement consent but I'll present it in one go however councillors have to vote separately so this is the site location plan and the aerial view so we can see the site it's near the junction with Hendon Park Road and Finchley Road and here are some site photos showing the showing the existing parking space that the EV charging points is proposed to be serving and that's the street view a closer look to the site and that's the existing plan and that's the proposed plan showing the units is proposed to be on the pavement and like I that although the unit is on the pavement this is going to leave approximately four metres clear footway width between the back of the unit and the front of the shop so this does comply with the TFL street guidance which recommends a clear pavement width of two metres for two wheelchairs to pass by at the same time and that's the cabinet design and there are several approvals previously we have approved several similar EV charging points on Finchley Road so for example this one on Finchley Road and given there is sufficient visual separation between each of the jolt units so we consider this is not going to create a street clutter and it's not going to have a detrimental impact on the character or the street scene and so and also this proposal supports the bond sustainability action plan and also the council's highways officer has no objection to it so the application is recommended for approval subject to conditions all right thank you and we have two speakers on this one Barry Siltsman and Michael Strom which order do you wish to speak in so thank you if you can turn the microphone on there's a face with the speech but can we get going out of it on the screen on that's it you can hear me that's on so as with the previous one you have three minutes because we're looking at both of these applications together if you go over the three minutes we'll allow you to speak a little bit longer to address the advertising as well as the EV charger if that makes sense so if you can introduce yourself and you will then be given a warning when you have one minute left wonderful thank you hello my name is michael strom I was born a couple of hundred meters away from this proposed advertising board I'm married to my wife who lives also nearby and we still live nearby the shop that you see there specialist kosher shops and there were 18 objections raised on this which I think is quite unprecedented from a large number of people who were very concerned that they won't be able to buy their essential goods which can't be bought at a regular supermarket and really are very worried including the shop owners themselves that parking and being able to pick up your family shop which can't be done by hand will be simply impossible but there's very limited parking in the area it's in this particular stretch it's vastly vastly oversubscribed if any of you care to visit on a Thursday or Friday you'll find that all the parking spaces are at total capacity with cars waiting to load up their shopping their family shopping and I appreciate there have been tens and maybe already hundreds of applications by Jolt or they will be soon I assume that everyone here doesn't intend this to be a rubber stamping exercise and in particular this case you'll give careful consideration to our concerns the lack of parking space is self evident I think with the local immunity and the visual separation I think Jolt in their very wide ranging expansion of this across Barnett no doubt do their best to try to achieve that at every location however in this particular location I'm afraid it just doesn't stack up the officers report mentions three curbside advertising screens nearby however these are all north of this site and span a stretch of road around 400 meters in length that's three advertising boards 300 meters apart and further north had Jolt been more in its information provided to the council we discover as I have that these are the advertising hoardings in the immediate vicinity so the red box here is the proposed location the highlighted yellow boxes are the existing advertising hoardings frankly I mean calling it Piccadilly Circus would be an exaggeration of course but this being suitable for residential high street a town center of very beautiful character prior to this application would be a crying shame I just ask that councillors who previously abstained take a view and take a view against this and take into account the local community and I'm sure you will hear the particular amenity that's being lost by this and the real effect on the street scene and the overabundance of advertising boards directly near this proposed location thank you very much thank you any questions yes I was just going to ask you I mean you showed us that but it shows the other ones there and we were shown a similar jolt charger outside weight trays further down the road and none of those that's not included what sort of impact has that had do you think on parking I think that these things inevitably take out parking spaces I don't think that any of the previous approved jolt chargers have been outside a local shop that carries specialist food that the local community relies on and I don't think any of the jolt advertising boards were placed in such close proximity to three other advertising boards I mean there's a safety aspect as well which many of the 18 objectors have mentioned due to the bus stop opposite and driving down that road I think could have been obvious from having seen this photo means that you're very unlikely to be able to spot a pedestrian waiting to cross okay thank you thank you thank you and again if you can introduce yourself then you have three minutes you'll be given a warning when you have one minute left and if you need to go over a bit more because we're covering both applications I'm the owner partner of Moshers Food and Mine I'm not a regular speaker I haven't spoken since Mapa Mitsu 28 years ago but this is something really close to our heart and our livelihood and so on and so forth so as a business that has been servicing a local community for over 43 years and priding ourselves with providing a meticulously clean environment and aesthetically pleasing our market shop enhancing a local area this would have a devastating effect adding to the difficult climate we fear this would result in the coffin for the business whether it's been rising prices of which we have had to absorb by not being able to pass on to our customers to rising electricity which is circa 100,000 pounds a year due to frozen products and fresh products that we provide for the community wage increases national insurance increases and continuous investment needed to stay relevant in this difficult challenge retail sector as a family round business of which all the shops along the parade are family round businesses we ourselves personally work up to 20 hours a day in order to mitigate further expenses my parents have been here for 43 years are having to increase their ready burgeoning workload when they should be easing off for little in their golden years the majority of customers patronizing these stores regularly are large families that cannot afford electrical cars at the current prices the typical duration of these shopping trips along the parade are between 5 and 15 minutes effectively resulting in a loss of between 30 to 60 customers a day whilst we understand the need for EV bays and this is the future with significant revenue stream for the council I urge you to strongly consider the outcome of such a proposal and work together beneficially for the shops residents general public customers environment and the council alike by installing the charging point advertising screen at the end of the proposed bay this would limit easier access to the parking and result some further obstruction to the main road if you look over here in this diagram you'll see the bay starts over there now customers and lorries delivering to all the local shops would generally cross up over here and then be able to park now if there's an advertising board at this location sorry the cars would have to come up alongside and reverse into the space on this extremely busy high road on this basis may I suggest as a win-win outcome to reconsider the moving of the ebay outside mercedes garage or the company's firm further down this is the mercedes garage I took this picture today generally not as busy it's always generally full but not as busy and a typical client that would go into mercedes would stay there for an hour or two hours or councillor there are currently two bays there and one of those bays are loading they either by adding an additional bay or by using one of the existing bays it is a lovely uninterrupted area which would be a lot more suitable as mercedes have an on-site parking and more affluent and captive audience for EVs or by the county firm which the typical a bay for the proposed EV site and move the phone box exchange and street light nearer to the corner so there's 10 meters there's a 10 meter gap over here a bay typically between 4.5 and 5 meters potentially that would allow space for another car as a last case resort and ample space 4.5 meters further towards the corner finally I would like to point out as a resident business owner in the area I'm in contact with the wider public on a regular basis and can assure you this is a reflection of their view too the local shops are the heartbeat of the high street and strongly feel that instead of actively working and helping promote business in the area we are being hindered with very little consideration put into this application from the business and wider public perspective which is extremely concerning and disappointing as the city hope we strongly reconsider these suggestions and refuse this application and reapply what are meant to one of that takes all the above concerns and suggestions into account thank you very much okay thank you you're owning a shop which you heard in the previous application about East Finishingly that's also very close to a well used local shop so similar to that were you consulted we talked before about consultation were you consulted by the applicant before this application was put in to see no we received obviously a letter of post with application but no one spoke to us no consulted us absolutely nothing and not only that our customers and people in the area are extremely concerned they tried logging onto the ballot to write an objection people have struggled many many people I would say well over 100 people have tried people are busy they give up there's a significant amount of proposal this okay thank you any further questions councillor councillor roberts thank you I just wondered if there are any parking restrictions in that area already in what way sorry any parking restrictions in terms of times and limits the times are from 9 there's a pay pay and display from 9 to 5 30 in evening on that stretch right okay fine thank you I just wonder you may not be able to answer this but do you have any idea what percentage of your current customers use electric charged vehicles and whether do you think that figure is going to grow or decrease in coming years I believe it's a minute amount of customers have electric cars at the moment due to large families they haven't got the finances to have these cars potentially yes in the future I'm sure people will change but the infrastructure is not there yet and I don't think by decreasing parking by doing this it's going to help us in any way it's going to help any of the businesses I think you'll many shutting and many have shut over the years and I think it's critical as speaking to all the local business owners and businesses along the parade it'll have a critical effect on their businesses due to the limit of parking it's an extremely busy retail area yes people and people and people and people and people and people can come with electric cars and that at the moment we're really far away from there and should you need to do that typically when someone parks for an hour a park will come with an electric car they won't park for 15 minutes the typical shop in these busy shops will be 5 to 15 minutes so someone to park leave an electric car there for an hour and a half that would deter many many people coming to the area due to not finding parking spaces should it be a little bit further outside the accountancy firm or car sales where people stay potentially longer that would make more sense I just don't think there's any considerations we're taken into the detriment of this potential proposal to our businesses I think we need to guide the infrastructure for the businesses at the same time any further questions no thank you very much thank you and then we have Patrick Thomas again oh sorry we've got councillor councillor Dean Cohen ward councillor thank you again you know the procedure very well in a few times you introduce yourself you have three minutes you can go over the three minutes if you need to address the advertising as well as the charging thank you very much good evening colleagues thank you for giving the opportunity to speak my main point is what was mentioned on the last item as well I raised and all members should be aware of this and should be concerned for their areas they represent and that is in terms of the lack of consultation I came aware of this from the planning application not from the plans to install the thing on the highway you know we all get consulted about disable bays and all this staff but not this and this I raised now and I hope but I think everyone needs to make a stand and you know there was no consultation with war members unlike what was previously said by the applicant there was no consultation with war members there was no consultation with outside the local shop other than the planning application and I think that needs to change that needs to change and consultation needs to happen directly affected businesses or residents just like any other type of application on the highway whether it's a crossover whether it's a disabled bay those are all consulted with my main concern is regarding the loss of parking the loss of parking here there is very limited parking there is no side roads nearby in terms of this particular stretch of road yes there are side roads further up and further down but in this section there is no real side roads and therefore the parking on street on the Finchery Road is very limited not enough to serve and even less by putting in designated bays and I say designated bays because it doesn't actually mention it in the report they are designated it says only mentions about the charging point the other point I point out from this report is the main objections that have been raised here is regarding the loss of parking and the impact on business and nowhere do I see in the report actually addressing that I don't see anywhere in the report where it talks about or addresses the loss of parking for other cars other than EV I'll pick up on the point that Councillor Roberts made to Mr. Zoltman before and I think Mr. Zoltman has picked on it but I'm not sure if Councillor Roberts picked up on it the majority of a large number of the customers that go to this particular shop and the surrounding shops which are specialist shops for the local Jewish community are people with large families who are driving seven seaters plus right to get an electric seven seat plus I don't have to tell Councillor Roberts how much that costs you're talking 70 80 thousand pounds car right to get an electric seven seater so as Mrs. Altman said I'm not sure they're quite there yet for that type of out now obviously prices will come down there'll be more supply but currently there the other point I'll point out and it comes back to the consultation I believe there are better locations than this I'm not against the advertising I'm not against the I think the particular location they've chosen where there is very limited parking for that particular parade I think will have a massive impact on the businesses in that parade and it could be potentially outside Mercedes Benz where people are going in there for longer to buy their 80,000 pound Mercedes and I think there is much better if consultation happened could have had the discussions I would have been aware why they can't have it there but I think this should be deferred until other locations are considered Thank you any questions? I think we've probably covered quite a lot in previous questions No questions how can you miss me out everyone else has been asked questions to me the question I was going to ask was were you consulted I gave the answer to that but no I wasn't consulted and I think again I think that is you know as was said before a lot of this could be solved by having that engagement and again I what I would like confirmation from when you've asked that again it might address it is whether these are designated bays because some of the jolt bays are designated and some aren't I think we'll be told that is not part of the application but we'll ask that and clarify I understand but it should be part of this application because that is having the impact on the highway network which is a planning consideration thank you very much okay so now we come to Mr. Thomas Patrick Thomas again the applicant and again you know you have three minutes just the same as before thank you chair good evening again I think firstly given the debate we've heard tonight I think we want to be clear that going forward regarding consultation that's something that jolt will do on all future planning applications with the ward councillors and the local businesses I think perhaps previously we've relied too much of our partnership with the council but going forward we will I promise you directly engage with all councils and local businesses please do but just before we discuss the application before you I'd just like to give another update on jolt's ongoing partnership with Barnet Council to date we've installed 42 charges across the borough with a further 14 in the pipeline and six currently in planning our network is growing and so is our positive impact we have 5,000 customers the majority of whom live and work in Barnet customer survey showed that 63% of them use our charges on a weekly basis with 16% charging daily clear evidence that jolt is becoming a vital part of the borough's green infrastructure our data our data our data also reveals 80% of our customers spend locally while charging directly boosting the high street and supporting the local economy I have no doubt that a jolt charger on Finchley Road will bring similar economic benefits to the area like all jolt sites this location has been rigorously assessed before reaching this stage what councils may not be aware of the extensive pre-application work involved dozens of potential sites are evaluated and dismissed before a planning application is ever submitted even after submission some applications are withdrawn because they do not meet the council's criteria this level of scrutiny ensures that only the most suitable sites move forward I also want to clarify an important point this application is for a charging unit only there is no loss of a parking bay as some objectors have claimed any future bay demarcation would be subject to a separate traffic management order consultation and is not a part of this application beyond providing essential EV infrastructure jolt is committed to investing in the local community that's why we offer free advertising on our screens for local businesses area including MOSHI's will have the opportunity to benefit from this initiative we are already supporting organisations such as the Arts Depot in North Finchley we also support local independent businesses in Temple Fortune and Mill Hill to quote a Barnet business owner who has advertised with us since advertising on jolt screens we've seen a big increase in business and football we'd never have been able to afford this kind of advertising ambitious carbon reduction targets and with 41% of emissions coming from transport jolt can play a key role in helping the borough achieve them we hope councillors recognise that this application not only supports sustainability but also fosters local economic growth we ask you to support the officers recommendation for approval thank you for your time and I'd be happy to answer any questions thank you you said you've already installed 42 charging points there are two under consideration today there are six in planning and 14 in the pipeline how many in total will there be well we're working with officers but we think around 80 80 in total total okay the reason I ask that question is whether there is going to be any reasonable consultation so it's roughly four in each ward yeah do you have any information about the impact upon retailers when a charging point is installed near their premises yes well we don't have research from retailers we only have it from our own customers currently we do a survey every quarter and that reports that we've got 80% of our customers whilst they charge spend in the local area I don't have any data on individual retailers as we know the parking restrictions are not part of this application but of the installed 42 that have been installed how many of them have now got parking restrictions I think it's eight that don't have parking restrictions can you say what those typically are it's an electric vehicle charging only max day three hours is the restriction I would also just add that most of the spaces before that have restrictions such as this one where it's a max day two hours paying display thank you councillor simberg following on from that statement so you've got 32 that have dedicated EV charging how long after installing the EV charger do you apply for dedicated parking I think in all honesty that's depended throughout the project that's been going on for almost a couple of years I think to start with it was a quite considerable time period now if we think it's right it's closer to when we've after we've got planning it's the process we go through but that's another consultation with the council is it your intention that every EV charger has a dedicated parking is that what the intention is that they will have dedicated parking unless we were told otherwise okay thank you okay thank you very much thank you any further questions for the officers otherwise we will go to the vote on one just just regarding one of the statements up there said dual functionality it reduces street clutter I can't see where it reduces street clutter and dual functionality what does that mean yeah so the unit combines the advertising function with the charging function and they although it's not directly a planning issue they support each other if they were to be brought forward separately then you'd have more items of street furniture although I guess they wouldn't necessarily have to be immediately co-located is that why you're saying it reduces street clutter because it's one unit yeah I think yes although I think it might have been better articulated in this case as in not unduly increasing or not leading to an undue street clutter because of the total quantum of units within the visual associations okay if there's no more we will go to the vote again two votes on this one first on the provision of the EV charger the officers recommending approval all those in favour go for that one that's four in favour against one against and for the advertising part of this officers recommending approval all those in favour four in favour and against one against so those two applications are approved and we now go on to the last item on the agenda 23 Rabinhurst Avenue and it's for a roof extension to provide new office accommodation and counselling rooms at first floor level level together with ancillary facilities the site is outlined in red the area is predominantly residential in character and bound by residential properties to three sides the rear being a rear garden of a property fronting Brandon Grove and this is an aerial view so to the left hand side is Egerton Gardens to the right is Somerset Road and Ravenshurst Avenue here and to the north is the Brent Street Town Centre a closer aerial image here so as I said it's sort of adjacent to a number of residential properties along the flank here is a pedestrian footpath as you can see here it's a single storey building tall pitch which in terms of its form and design does form a bit of an anomaly in the locality whereas the rest are sort of more traditional two storey dwelling houses and these are some site photos so that's the building here the footpath along the flank the rear elevation here with a lean-to that will be demolished to make way for cycle storage and refuse storage the existing ground floor footprint so that's the office space currently used by the charity for counselling purposes the front and rear elevation and then the two side elevations the existing CGI's and this is the proposed CGI's so here you can see the roof extension that's being proposed so it raises the roof by 1.5 metres in height entrance would be taken from the front here the existing palisade fencing would be altered to closeboard fencing with some soft landscaping at the front and this is purely for comparative purposes in terms of the enlargement proposed so there was a previously refused scheme which is on the left hand side here this was considered to be a top heavy development with oversized dormers to both sides of the roof slope and the current proposal change all to that by keeping the form of the existing building and simply increasing the scale modestly the proposed ground floor plan so an open plan layout for the office to provide affordable and flexible workspace and only internal connection to the first floor so this is the proposed first floor as a result of the roof extension roughly a doubling in the floor space as existing the proposed front and rear elevation so as you can see the eaves height sits well below the neighbouring properties to either side and the ridge height although slightly taller the roof slopes away from those properties to mitigate any impact and at the rear here you can see the cycle storage and refuge storage following the demolition of the small single storey lean to these are the proposed side elevations and section drawings and you can make out here that is the existing roof form and where it's being raised by 1.5 metres and this demonstrates that the roof lights would not allow sight lines into the neighbouring properties so in so in terms of key considerations being an extension to the existing office floor space we consider it to be acceptable size scale and design would have an acceptable impact on the host property and surrounding character in terms of impact to neighbouring occupiers subject to restriction for opening hours as set out in the report we do not consider there would be any increase in terms of noise and disturbance as a result of the use and in terms of highway impact in order to ensure that there wouldn't be increased parking demand and undue parking pressure highways consider it acceptable subject to a section 106 restricting parking permits there is an addendum to this item so just to make members aware so in conclusion the application is recommended for approval subject to conditions and a completion of a section 106 agreement thank you thank you we don't have any objectives on this we have councillor conway the ward councillor is not able to be here but we should make a statement that's going to be red forest fellow councillors I apologise that I am not present tonight but the data of the meeting was changed the site we are discussing has always and is still able to apply for parking permits there has never been any complaints about this or any issue from either the residents or from the council why are the officers now trying to place the condition onto the property this will make it much harder needed for therapists to be able to work from any charity on site secondly there has never been any condition in place regarding the time the site can be used once again there has never been any complaints of the site being used in a way which disturbs anyone let alone the local residents residents why then are we placing a condition on the site as to when it can be used as all councillors will understand when a family need help or a therapist they may want this to happen in a quiet way in a quiet place where they will not be seen this is why I please ask you to get rid of these conditions as with them in place many local families who need help will not be able to receive it thank you thank you and we have the agent Emily Benedict hello Emily you're well used to this process as you know how to turn that on introduce yourself for three minutes and one minute warning when that's there thank you thank you chair my name is Emily Benedict and I'm the agent for this application we are approaching members tonight in a slightly different position to usual we are not disagreeing with the officers recommendation in fact we are delighted that officers are finally supporting a proposal on this site rather we are appealing to members to vary or remove the wording of the condition and section 106 agreement for the reasons set out below condition 11 part a restricts the premises opening hours for any new tenants on mondays to fridays from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. for non-J counselling staff and restricts the hours of operation further for J counselling than they are entitled to at present the current operating hours are unrestricted and the proposals for an extension to the existing building it does not introduce any news J counselling provides essential counselling services for the Jewish community at subsidised rates striving to keep families and relationships together and taking significant weight off council resources previous tenants have operated in similar fields to J counselling benefiting from shared resource and counselling rooms it is highly likely that prospective tenants will also be counselling organisations and will require the same opening hours as J counselling restricting the time of operation will reduce the likelihood of the premises being let any organisation or business is unlikely to choose premises with highly restrictive opening hours when unrestricted premises is available elsewhere if an organisation which offers counselling services is a future tenant they do need to be able to work around their clients times including evenings and weekends as J counselling as an orthodox Jewish organisation it is not open on Saturdays during the day but they would like to be able to continue to use the premises on a Saturday night if they say wish as they are currently able to do however prospective tenants may not be Jewish and could require unrestricted access on Saturdays turning to part B of the policy which is a register of all attendees at the site including staff and visitors simply put it will be an invasion of counselling clients confidentiality for J counselling to list their names and details in a register that is available to review and could be illegal even the trustees have no idea of their clients because confidentiality is and must always be a priority we respectfully request for this element of the condition to be removed in its entirety we are also requesting an amendment to section 106 agreement which restricts new occupants when purchasing CPZ parking permits there are two reasons why the parking permits are needed firstly they need to be able to get parking permits for visitors counselling clients sometimes have mobility issues and would therefore need to be able to park as close as possible to the building additionally therapists often work in multiple locations and need to be able to move between sites quickly in order to attract the best therapist they need to know that they can park easily if they are unable to park in close proximity to the site the likelihood is that they will decline to provide their services in summary we are proving to members to have a pragmatic approach and amend the wording condition 11 and bury the section 106 agreement to ensure that vital services can be provided for our community thank you thank you so just confirming we've heard from councillor conway that he has no objections at all to this and feels that it's used appropriately at the moment and will continue to be used appropriately but you and your clients are happy to accept the conditions about parking and about use of the premises and hours and so on that's all part of this application we are happy to accept the majority it's just these two conditions it's the condition we get restricting the hours of operation as i've said and having to keep the record of attendees that we're objecting to which is why we wanted to have this discussion amongst members and also at the moment there are no restrictions on who can apply for parking permits in terms of the a therapist using the site so it's they have the the paper permit so they're able to put in a private and put in their cars and we just want to ensure that that can be maintained as for the current status so it's just to have these discussions any further questions council roberts so the hours in which that this place operates is is 11 o'clock is that frequently people are still there at 11 o'clock or is it occasionally something that happens once a month i don't think that in reality that they're there till 11 o'clock at night i think often there might be someone that comes in at say nine or ten o'clock at night but it's not we're not talking about 20 30 people coming in at that time there'll be like a few there may be a couple like two therapists maybe two or three therapists that could be operating maybe with a single person or maybe with two people i think but i think occasionally maybe no i would say no more than once a month but probably less frequently than that they may either have training services that go on i know certainly take place on a sunday or they might run an event to kind of raise awareness and raise a little bit of money um for it i think the other thing to point in here is that because of i know some of you may remember the last time we came to committee for the hmo which was refused that it's one of those charities that originally was a counseling service for a marriage counseling service and has now expanded to greater counseling needs because of the needs of community and it's not one of those charities where people are actively giving money to because it's that people don't really want to admit to using their services so what they're really trying to do is provide the supplementary income that can enable them to continue to provide these services at this discounted and affordable rate that people can use it's really like the purpose of the enabler of this proposal that's the colleague um on the uh question of the therapist having um parking permits how many currently have parking permits and how many are you proposing or or you're expecting to um need in the future if this um extension is uh goes ahead as it is i think it's just important to clarify that it's not the individual cars necessarily that have the permits so it's not the same way as a residential car where they'll have like five cars and five permits it's rather more like the visitors permits where they'll get a stack of a hundred say they'll get a stack of a hundred that could last them three months or six months that those that need it can then park in the locale it can park in the street so they can be able to take one so i think it's i think it's hard to say exactly how many would be there at any one time also i think the advantage of the paper tickets is that if people are using them on the same day they can be shared um so that they can last longer and they won't have to renew as quickly but generally speaking i believe there's probably five six counselors at best operating at one time but there's only a limited number of counseling rooms so counseling services can't take place you know in open offices which is why we've got the therapy rooms proposed upstairs these 100-odd permits in in a tranche are they all used up i mean is there no spare capacity to give to the future tenants or to share with them well i think the problem with the wording of the section 106 agreement is that it stops anyone from getting these permits in the future so they currently are entitled to them and they can last as i say they can last until they need to be renewed but it's taking away that right the section 106 agreement takes away that right that they have at the moment it takes it it takes it away entirely or does it take it away for the the new tenants it's taking away entirely entirely yeah okay thank you okay thank you thank you any further questions can i send back thank you thank you everybody yeah you can certainly ask the question to you chair so the application is recommended for approval subject to uh conditions and section 106 but the section 106 and the uh special conditions if i understand this are not currently in place so is there a way of amending the application to say that we can approve the application for uh the extension without any special condition as per the current um status in other words no section 106 no restricted uh times i think yeah condition come where is asking for it yeah yeah basically yeah it's not for me to answer i agree with council a motion and secondary amending the recommendation but you know just be careful about just removing the um uh uh the conditions you know then then all its restrictions go and and just in relation to the uh 106 uh it's not for me to make comment but of course disabled users are exempt in relation to that so it doesn't stop uh disabled uh disabled uh sorry uh uh visitors would be would be absolutely able to still power i mean disabled visitors will probably have their own blue badge and maybe that sort of thing but what i'm saying so currently i don't understand it there are no uh section 106 restrictions and facilities open i don't know if there's you know probably you know flexible opening times are they the only conditions are there any others any others that's correct yeah and the premise of these conditions is on the basis of the expansion of the site for additional floor space these will apply only to people more people using the opposite basis rather than the service it's more people using it and the fact that we don't know who the additional or future occupies might be so part of the premise of expanding the floor spaces allow other businesses to operate there whilst the actual charity is operating there so you know the nature of their business might differ from the counseling use and therefore that could be noise intensive so the way that we've designed the condition that condition as is is to grant the opening hours for the existing charity as is but restrict any other businesses operating from there to normal office hours so it kind of satisfies the needs of the charity whilst ensuring that there's no sort of additional noise and disturbance to neighbors as a result of future occupants or other businesses operating there yeah i understand councillor conway was saying there's no concerns at the moment and therefore this isn't necessary but you you think it may be to ameliorate some of the concerns raised by local people just for the new business coming in yeah that's probably not very clear bearing in mind that councillor conway doesn't seem to be clear on that nor does the applicant so if we could still propose that that's made clearer that the existing uh tenant or applicant uh can keep their conditions as is maybe if they then sublet that's what we're worried about isn't it is that could that be a condition yes i i would refer members to condition 11 which sets out the opening hours and how we've sort of uh structured it so that it allows the existing charity to work at their existing operating hours but other businesses would be restricted and then they can apply to vary the condition on a case-by-case basis going forward yeah so that could happen through an additional application so say there was an additional business there that had a similar sort of remit um then they could then apply to vary that condition and we could assess it as and when in that instance yeah can i propose to make that to that can we do that so we happy with that do you want to have an amendment that is the condition as drafted so does it actually says so my computer's gone off um yes does it actually say that it's uh on a case-by-case basis it says um should only operate it's the hours that shall only operate except for change counseling who have the existing hours uh so others not jay counseling will be eight to six monday to friday and they'll maintain a register of all attendees okay so the other point is i think i think uh the applicant's correct a register or attendees i'm sure that is a data breach and there's a infringement there there is there is a sign that needs to be looked at um but yeah i think that's counselor um what are the current parking restrictions within those the two roads so they are uh it's in a cpz um so technically the existing premise is eligible for parking permits um the area is in a low peter which means it has low access to public transport so therefore it is anticipated that any expansion of the site might have an uplift in demand for car parking which could then have in turn knock-on effect in terms of existing parking pressures hence why we're trying to sort of restrict that and ensure that it doesn't have an unacceptable impact on the highway the planning obligation also refers only to the new arguments although i think you're you're right that could be maybe slightly clearer perhaps set out in the report but it can be uh maybe it will obviously have to be more robust when the lawyers get to work on the the final text right colleagues it's five to ten so unless there's anything else urgent should we go to a vote i'd still like to propose the amendment to uh with section 106 take that out i think that's restricted do you want to propose a separate motion as well in respect of the second part of condition 11 because we we didn't i mean we don't have an answer to that question as such like i don't know if it's a breach of gpdr rules section 106 i think could cause an issue regarding people visiting as you said they can't come on a public transport but they're not going to get a pass anyway if there's nowhere to park if it's full they can't use a resident pass so i think that just alleviates that problem so i'd like to say that amend that we take the section 106 restriction out um and with regards to gdpr can we that be referred to take that out i mean i think i think in terms of that aspect that there is possibly a way of navigating around it um the purposes of keeping the registers to be able to differentiate the different uh operators from the site um to ensure that they're actually uh according with the restrictions in terms of the opening hours so wouldn't necessarily need to detail the names of the people that are actually attending it could just be the business that they're that they're visiting yeah yeah i mean i think the idea is basically if someone complains that there's people there after 6 p.m but before 11 p.m that in order to enforce the condition so it's about the enforceability of the condition that the enforcement officers can attend the site and objectively identify the people who should could be there within the terms of the scope of the condition so it doesn't have to be necessarily the the name and address or anything like that of the people involved but the the recommendation i think jimmy can correct me if i'm wrong but the recommendation includes the scope for the final or phrasing of the conditions to be agreed between the service director and the chairman after so um what it actually says under 11 subsection b doesn't necessarily have to be the final result but if you agree with the premise then we can make sure that that is agreed i agree with the premise of it as long as it's tweaked to to read correctly okay so if you're proposing the motion to do away with the parking permit restriction yeah um do you need someone to second the motion yeah anyone want to want here that doesn't mean that it that doesn't mean that it passes you then have to vote yeah so you okay so yeah we've got a couple of minutes to to go to the vote then there's anything else that we don't need to extend past 10 o'clock so if we can then go to the vote the officer's recommendation is to approve all those in favor of approval that's all this application is approved that's all this it's just as well as a third that one you know it wouldn't have finished no
Summary
The Planning Committee (New) of Barnet Council refused an application to fell a protected oak tree at 94 Kingsley Way, an application to build a children's nursery at Fir Island on The Ridgeway in Mill Hill was approved, and applications for the installation of electric vehicle charging points with advertising at 138-142 High Road in East Finchley and 1095-1097 Finchley Road in Golders Green were both approved. The committee also approved an application to build a roof extension to provide new office accommodation at 23 Ravenshurst Avenue in Hendon.
94 Kingsley Way
The committee considered an application to fell a protected oak tree at 94 Kingsley Way. The application was made on behalf of the owners of the property next door, 1-5 Abington House, who claimed that the tree was causing subsidence damage to their building.
The officer's report did not make a recommendation on whether to approve or refuse the application.
The officer explained that the tree was a mature oak, part of the Hampstead Garden Suburb and subject to a Tree Preservation Order (TPO)1. They advised the committee that
The loss of these trees of special amenity value is not justified as a remedy for the alleged subsidence damage on the basis of the information provided.
The applicant's agent, Property Risk Inspection, argued that the tree's roots had been found beneath the foundations of Abington House. They explained that London clay shrinks in summer and expands in winter. They said that the combination of the roots and the seasonal movement of the clay was causing subsidence to the building.
They told the committee that the insurance company had recommended the tree be felled, and that if it was not felled the cost to the council of underpinning Abington House would be in the region of £150,000.
During the discussion, members of the committee raised concerns about the evidence submitted by the applicant. They questioned whether the tree was the primary cause of the subsidence, as other trees had been felled in the rear garden of the property before the application was made. Members also noted that the roots found beneath the foundations were only 1mm in diameter.
The committee heard from a local resident who told them that the residents association were very keen to see the trees in the area retained.
The committee voted to refuse the application.
Fir Island, The Ridgeway, Mill Hill
The committee considered an application to change the use of Fir Island from residential use to a children's nursery, including a single-storey extension to the existing building and associated landscaping. The site is located between Burton Hole Lane and The Ridgeway in Mill Hill.
The officer's report recommended the application for approval.
The officer described the existing site as a large, detached, locally listed building, formerly in use as a dwelling. They told the committee that the building is within the Mill Hill Conservation Area and Metropolitan Green Belt2, but that it was previously developed land, surrounded by other development.
They explained that the applicant, Boys and Girls Nursery, had demonstrated that the site meets the definition of previously developed land in the green belt as set out in the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF)3.
The officer also explained that the applicant had submitted a nursery needs assessment which demonstrated that there was a need for additional childcare in the area.
Two local residents, Liz Fitzgerald and Zoe Samuelson, both spoke against the application. Both objectors raised concerns about the impact of the development on traffic and parking in the area. They argued that the applicant had not adequately demonstrated that there was a need for a nursery in the area, and they highlighted the impact that the development would have on the businesses along Burton Hole Lane, which include a garden centre and a livery yard.
Ms Samuelson also questioned the validity of the ownership certificate submitted by the applicant. She argued that the applicant did not own all of the land that would be necessary to build a new access road for the nursery, and that this could put the safety of the children using the nursery at risk. The officer responded that this was a civil matter outside the scope of the planning application.
Ms Fitzgerald, who is managing director of a town planning consultancy, argued that the proposed nursery should not be considered previously developed land in the green belt. She argued that the applicant had not demonstrated a demonstrable unmet need
for nursery places as defined by the NPPF, and therefore the development would constitute inappropriate development in the Green Belt.
The ward councillor, Councillor Val Lipshitz, also spoke against the application. She told the committee that the area was already heavily congested at peak times, due to the presence of five schools in the area and the new Ridgeway Views development. She also highlighted the lack of parking in the area, which she argued was already causing problems for local residents and businesses.
Councillor Lipshitz said that she had been working with local residents and council officers to improve traffic flow and pedestrian safety in the area, and that the installation of yellow lines had been agreed as the only possible solution
to the existing parking problems. She argued that the development would put these measures at risk.
The agent for the applicant, Rhys Harris, responded to the concerns raised by the objectors. He argued that the applicant had demonstrated a clear need for a nursery in the area, and that the development would provide much-needed childcare places for local families.
Mr Harris also addressed the concerns about traffic and parking. He told the committee that the applicant's transport consultants had carried out traffic surveys and capacity analyses, and they had concluded that the development would have a negligible impact
on traffic.
He also explained that the nursery would operate a flexible drop-off and pick-up system, which would spread traffic movements throughout the day and avoid the peak-time congestion associated with local schools.
The committee also heard from the applicant's transport consultant, Nathan Hanks, who explained in more detail the arrangements for parking. He said that the applicant had surveyed other nurseries in similar locations and had calculated that the eight parking spaces proposed would be more than sufficient to meet the demand.
Mr Hanks also explained that the council's highways officers had agreed that the drop-off and pick-up area would be adequate, and that there would be no need for parents to stop on the street.
During the discussion, members of the committee raised concerns about the number of parking spaces proposed for the development, in particular for the 22 members of staff that would be employed at the nursery. Mr Hanks responded that the nursery was encouraging staff to use sustainable transport, and that parking restrictions in the area would discourage staff from driving to work.
Councillor Dean Cohen questioned this approach, arguing that nobody in Mill Hill walks their children to nurseries
.
The committee also heard from the officer that the applicant had provided an undertaking to deliver a number of off-site highway improvements, including a new footway along Burtonhole Lane, a widening of the footway along The Ridgeway, and a pelican crossing on The Ridgeway.
The committee voted to approve the application.
138-142 High Road, East Finchley
The committee considered two applications, an application for planning permission (Ref. 24/4221/FUL) and a linked application for advertising consent (Ref. 24/4222/ADV), for the installation of an electric vehicle charging point (EVCP) with advertising on a buildout in an existing parking bay outside 138-142 High Road.
The officer's reports recommended both applications for approval.
The officer explained that the site was on a busy road, in a commercial and retail area. They told the committee that the proposal had been amended following concerns raised by Councillor Arjun Mittra. The unit had originally been proposed for installation on the pavement, but it had been relocated into the parking bay following Councillor Mittra's representation.
The officer also explained that JOLT, the applicant, had already installed 42 chargers across the borough, with a further 14 in the pipeline.
The committee heard from two local residents, Mary Hogben and Roger Chapman, who both spoke against the applications. Both objectors raised concerns about the impact of the development on the character and appearance of the area, and they argued that the advertising screen was unnecessary and would contribute to visual clutter.
Ms Hogben, who is a member of the Finchley Society, argued that the site was inappropriate for an EVCP. She told the committee that the parking bay was regularly used by both the Finchley Youth Theatre, which is next door to the site, and by the grocery shop at 142 High Road. She argued that the EVCP would obstruct access to both of these businesses.
Ms Hogben also raised concerns about the number of advertising screens already present in the town centre. She said that the high street already had six large advertising screens, and she argued that it could not absorb any more
.
She also argued that JOLT had a history of disregarding both Transport for London (TfL)4 safety requirements and the conditions attached to planning approvals. She cited an example of a JOLT unit in North Finchley, which she said had been wrapped in a layer of dark blue material
and transformed into a static advertising display, in breach of its planning approval.
Mr Chapman, a member of the East Finchley Town Team, told the committee that he was not against EVCPs, but he argued that this was the wrong location for one. He said that the area was already cluttered
with street furniture, and that the EVCP would make this worse.
Mr Chapman also argued that the proposed development was primarily an advertising panel with a secondary function of an electric vehicle charging
. He said that the East Finchley Town Team supported EVCPs, but that they felt the advertising screen was inappropriate in size and scale.
The agent for the applicant, Patrick Thomas, responded to the concerns raised by the objectors. He argued that JOLT had carefully assessed the suitability of the site and had worked with multiple council departments, including highways, town centres and streetscene, to ensure that the development was appropriate.
Mr Thomas also addressed the concerns about road safety. He told the committee that the site had been reviewed three times by highways officers, and that an independent road safety assessment had also been carried out. All of these assessments had concluded that the development would not pose any road safety risks.
Mr Thomas also explained that the majority of JOLT customers used the mobile charging app, which offers 15 minutes of free charging. This meant that drivers were only likely to use the pay terminal, which is located on the roadside, for a small proportion of charges.
He also argued that the proposal would bring economic benefits to the area, and he highlighted JOLT's commitment to supporting local businesses through its free advertising initiative.
During the discussion, the chair of the committee questioned whether JOLT had consulted with ward councillors about the proposed development. Mr Thomas responded that a Section 17 notice had been displayed on the site, which he said constituted a consultation process. The chair disagreed, arguing that a Section 17 notice is simply a notification of a planning application and not a consultation in itself.
Councillor Cohen argued that the lack of consultation with ward councillors was a concern, and he said that he believed that consultation needs to happen [with] directly affected businesses or residents
.
Mr Thomas accepted that JOLT should have consulted more widely on the proposed location for the EVCP. He promised that JOLT would directly engage with all councillors and local businesses
in the future.
The committee voted to approve both applications.
1095-1097 Finchley Road, Golders Green
The committee considered two applications, an application for planning permission (Ref. OS 1095-1097 Finchley Road FUL) and a linked application for advertising consent (Ref. OS 1095-1097 Finchley Road ADV), for the installation of an EVCP with advertising outside 1095-1097 Finchley Road.
The officer's reports recommended both applications for approval.
The officer explained that the site was on a busy road, in a commercial and retail area, and that it was not located within a conservation area. They told the committee that the EVCP was proposed for installation on the pavement, with a supporting feeder pillar placed nearby.
The officer also explained that there were a number of similar examples of EVCPs with advertising screens along Finchley Road, and that officers were satisfied that there was sufficient visual separation between each unit.
Two local residents, Barry Siltman and Michael Strom, spoke against the applications. Both objectors raised concerns about the loss of parking that would result from the development, and they argued that the advertising screen would have a negative impact on the visual amenity of the area.
Mr Strom argued that the proposed development would be a crying shame
for the beautiful character
of the high street. He pointed out that the officer's report only referred to three curbside advertising screens in the vicinity of the site, but he said that there were in fact six advertising hoardings within a short distance of the proposed location for the EVCP.
Mr Siltman, who is a partner in the kosher supermarket Moshers Food & Wine, told the committee that the development would have a devastating effect
on his business. He said that the parking spaces outside his shop were already vastly oversubscribed
, and that the loss of a parking space would make it simply impossible
for customers to shop at his supermarket.
Mr Siltman also raised concerns about the safety of pedestrians crossing the road, due to the presence of a bus stop opposite the site.
The agent for the applicant, Patrick Thomas, responded to the concerns raised by the objectors. He argued that JOLT had carefully assessed the suitability of the site and had concluded that the location was appropriate.
Mr Thomas also explained that the application was for a charging unit only, and that there would be no loss of a parking bay. He said that any future bay demarcation would be subject to a separate traffic management order.
He also argued that the EVCP would bring economic benefits to the area, and he highlighted JOLT's commitment to supporting local businesses through its free advertising initiative.
Councillor Dean Cohen argued that the lack of consultation with local residents and businesses was a concern.
Mr Thomas accepted that JOLT should have consulted more widely on the proposed location for the EVCP, and he promised to consult with ward councillors and local businesses in future.
During the discussion, members of the committee raised concerns about the number of parking spaces proposed for the development, in particular for the 22 members of staff that would be employed at the nursery.
Mr Thomas responded that the nursery was encouraging staff to use sustainable transport, and that parking restrictions in the area would discourage staff from driving to work.
Councillor Dean Cohen questioned this approach, arguing that large numbers of customers to the shops in the parade used seven-seater vehicles and could not afford to purchase electric seven-seater vehicles.
The committee also heard from the officer that JOLT had already installed 42 EVCPs in the borough, 32 of which had been designated as electric vehicle charging only parking bays.
The committee voted to approve both applications.
23 Ravenshurst Avenue, Hendon
The committee considered an application to build a roof extension to 23 Ravenshurst Avenue to provide new office accommodation.
The officer's report recommended approval of the application, subject to the completion of a Section 106 agreement to mitigate the highways impacts of the development.
The officer explained that the site was located in a residential area, but that the building was currently in use as an office by the charity JCounselling. They told the committee that the applicant wanted to extend the existing office to provide additional office accommodation and counselling rooms.
They explained that the proposal would effectively double the existing office floor space, and that the extension had been designed to be sympathetic to the existing building.
The officer also told the committee that the application had been called in by the ward councillor, Councillor Joshua Conway, who had raised concerns about the hours of use and parking at the site.
The committee heard from the applicant's agent, Emily Benedict, who argued that the development would provide much-needed additional space for JCounselling, which provides vital services for the local Jewish community. She also highlighted the fact that the building had been in use as an office for a number of years without any complaints from neighbours.
Ms Benedict asked the committee to amend the conditions and the Section 106 agreement attached to the officer's recommendation. She argued that the proposed restrictions on the opening hours of the premises would make it difficult for JCounselling to provide its services, and she also argued that the proposed restriction on the number of parking permits available to the charity would make it difficult for staff and clients to access the building.
During the discussion, members of the committee raised concerns about the potential impact of the development on the amenities of neighbouring residents.
The officer explained that they had attached conditions to the officer's recommendation to mitigate the impact of the development. Condition 11 restricted the opening hours of the premises, but allowed JCounselling to continue to operate at its existing hours. Condition 11 also required JCounselling to maintain a register of all attendees at the site, to ensure that the condition on opening hours could be enforced.
The officer explained that the Section 106 agreement sought to mitigate the highways impacts of the development by restricting future occupants of the building from obtaining parking permits.
Following a discussion, the committee voted to approve the application, subject to an amended Section 106 agreement and amended conditions. The amended Section 106 agreement did not include a restriction on the number of parking permits available to the charity, and the amended Condition 11 did not require JCounselling to maintain a register of attendees at the site.
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A Tree Preservation Order is made by a local planning authority to protect specific trees or a particular woodland from deliberate damage and destruction. Once a TPO is made it is a criminal offence to cut down, top, lop, uproot, wilfully damage or wilfully destroy a protected tree without the local planning authority’s permission. ↩
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The Metropolitan Green Belt is a policy for controlling urban growth. It is a ring of land surrounding London where urbanisation will be resisted. ↩
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The NPPF sets out the government's planning policies for England and how these are expected to be applied. It is used by local planning authorities to determine planning applications. ↩
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Transport for London is the local government body responsible for the transport system in Greater London. ↩
Attendees
- Claire Farrier
- Elliot Simberg
- Humayune Khalick
- Joshua Conway
- Richard Barnes
- Tim Roberts
- Chileme Hayes
- Jimmy Walsh
Documents
- 24-4221-FUL other
- 24-4222-ADV other
- Agenda frontsheet 19th-Feb-2025 19.00 Planning Committee agenda
- OS 1095-1097 Finchley Road FUL
- Public reports pack 19th-Feb-2025 19.00 Planning Committee reports pack
- 23 Ravenshurst Avenue - Committee Report 2.0 other
- Minutes - Planning - 20 January 2025 other
- TPP-0517-23 94 Kingsley Way Comittee Report other
- OS 1095-1097 Finchley Road ADV
- Committtee_Report_Whiteways Hillview Gardens
- Committtee_Report_Fir Island
- Fir Island Mill Hill Members Briefing document
- Addendum additional appendix for members 19th-Feb-2025 19.00 Planning Committee
- Addendum - Planning Committee 19th February 2025