Transcript

Transcript

Good evening. I am Councillor Ella Rose, Chair of the North Area Committee. Thank you for attending our committee meeting this evening. Please note that meetings may be recorded and broadcast as allowed for in law or by the Council. By attending either in person or online, you may be picked up on recordings. Council recordings are covered by our privacy notice, which can be found on the Barnet Council website and may be retained and made available online. Please note that we are currently in the pre-election period in advance of the Birdtoe by-election on the 13th of February 2025. During this time, ordinary Council business can continue, but members are reminded not to refer to the candidates or parties in relation to this upcoming election. Thank you for support in ensuring these principles are respected at all times. I'd also like to note the sad passing of Councillor Eva Greenspan of Blessed Memory, given that we are in the shiver, the seven days immediate mourning period for her loss. Eva was actually a councillor for longer than I have been alive, and her contribution to this council is plausibly unparalleled. So I hope all the members of the committee will join me in wishing her family a long life and bringing comfort to the mourners, but also the friends and family. Bruch dan emet, blessed is the true judge. Tonight, I'd like to welcome Reverend Kim from St. John's Church and 20 representatives of the Wellbeing Café and Wendy Alcock from Incredible Edible to the meeting. He'll be presenting their bids this evening. They've all, you know, taken time to come out this evening, as well as prepare very immaculate bids. They each have three minutes to speak, followed by councillors, who will also be invited to speak. There'll be an opportunity for members to ask questions of the speakers. Please can you ensure, after you finish speaking, you press your microphone off to ensure there is no feedback. OK, agenda item one, minutes of the previous meeting on page five to eight of the agenda pack. Are there any amendments, or is everyone happy to approve the past minutes? Agreed. Thank you very much. I will sign those shortly. Absence of members. Apologies noted for councillor Sarah Wardle, who has been substituted by councillor David Longstaff. Welcome, councillor Longstaff. We were having an all-woman line-up, but you are, in fact, welcome. Number three, declarations of members' interests. Any interest to declare? No, wonderful, thank you. Number four, dispensations granted by the monitoring officer. There are none. Number five, petitions. Petitions with signatures up to 500 will be dealt with by either the appropriate department or cabinet member. The petitions received thus far require a response from the relevant cabinet member or officer. Responses to petitions will be published on the e-petitions section of the website once an officer has responded. I do check it. It's very interesting. I would encourage. Updates will be shared with committee members in due course. Residence issues, there are none, but I would like to note that there was one issue that came to us very late regarding closure of a footpath in Barnet Vale Ward. Highways will be responding within the appropriate time. And I've had a conversation with Councillor Baker on this, but Councillor Longstaff as well will give you, will ask officers to brief you as well. Is that right? Deputations, none. Public questions and comments, none. Members' items, none. Oh, of course. Sorry, going back to that question regarding the footpath, when will they brief us? I have just asked officers this evening to brief. This came in very late in the past couple of days. Yeah. I just thought you might have been given an answer beforehand. No. I can't control your timetables, so I've asked Dane to have a conversation with all of the councillors. All of the inquiries that have come through, it would certainly be answered within the five papers of the members, and the request that has sent through here as well. Oh, right, because I genuinely thought, because Councillor Cohen had put in the question, I believe. But I'd already written to members' inquiries about it anyway. Yeah, so we've had it come through in different avenues as well, so we've already dropped in the response to go to the members' inquiries. Oh, fair enough. Thank you. This came in in the past 48 hours as a, could the resident come speak to the committee about it? It was too late to take it as an item, which requires 10 days. But regardless, I've asked Highways to give a response. I wasn't aware it had gone through as a members' item as well. So it looks like it's come at it from two angles. So hopefully the resident gets the response they hope for and everything is resolved quickly. Okay, on to item 10, if no further questions. Area Committee funding grants, and so on Road Safety and Parking Fund update. The North Area Committee members are asked to. You can find this section on page 9 to 18 of the agenda. Number one, note the North Area Committee that the North Area Committee notes the community infrastructure levy funding available for allocation during 24-25 is set out in paragraph 5.4 of this report and in Appendix 1. Two, note the North Area Committee, noting the SIL amount and reallocated unspends and overspends in paragraph 1.6 of this report and in Appendix 1. And point 3, that the committee notes the Road Safety and Parking Fund available for allocation during 24-25 in paragraph 5.8 is set out in Appendix 2. So, any questions on the Road Safety and Parking Fund update or NSIL? Councilor Cornelius. Sorry, I'm just on page 24, my galloping ahead of it, where we're talking about the Totteridge Lane crossing feasibility. And I note that the electrical response received this month and outcome to be fed back to councillors. May I just reiterate yet again that Totteridge Ward councillors have not been involved in this. We've had no information and it would be nice if we do now get it, as I have asked, and also we absolutely get the electrical response. And the most up-to-date information on it, please, because it does sound as though it's going to be on the boundary of the two wards, question mark. I also, as I have said previously, I have not had any of these things through yet. I understand a briefing is being prepared, which I will share with you in full, as and when I have it. Councillor Woodcock-Velleman, the ward member whose name this is on there, and I have had many discussions about this. We are agnostic as to the exact location, be that on the boundary or eastwards. I'm thinking upwards because it's a hill, but that the crossing has been asked for by many residents in the local area, and we're trying to represent their views. But yes, I understand that we have not, since the last one, updated you. I have not had an update either, but once I do, I will share in full. Yes, it's just we've never had any updates or any information, and the only reason we know about it is that I sit on the committee and I've seen this come up on the agenda. But out of courtesy, it would be nice if we knew about it. Please, you have as much information as I do at the moment. Councillor Weissel. Thank you, Chair. Just on the repairs to the organ of St John the Baptist, I note that it's come in about £7,000 under budget, but there's nothing in the net underspend on page 16. We'd love to see an underspend. I thought you would, Chair. Thank you very much. We will reflect that in the next papers. That's great. And that will be added to the available budget for the next meeting. Any other questions, or are we happy to note the NSOR and Road Safing and Parking Fund update? Agreed? Agreed? I will take that as unanimous. Item 11, members' items, area committee funding applications. I am delighted that we have so many people here to speak to the bids, which really speaks to the partnership between councillors and residents in bringing forward these bids. I don't think we've had a full house in a while, so really delighted to see that. So the ask of members, as always, is that we, number one, consider the requests as highlighted in Section 1 of the report, and that, point two, we decide whether to award funding either fully or partially with any conditions attached and note the implications to the budget. Two, defer the application for funding for further information, giving reasons. Or, point three, reject the application, giving reasons. So I'm happy, given we have a full house, take the order in which they come. Thank you so much for coming. It is really appreciated. You'll get three minutes to speak. The councillor supporting or award colleague will then get three minutes, and then we'll take questions from members of the committee before moving to a vote on each individual item as they come. Everyone happy? Great. Can I please then bring forward the bid for community food-growing church farm open space, which I believe is Wendy? So there's a little microphone face. If you could press that as you start speaking, and then turn it off at the end. Thank you. Is that good? Has that made a difference? So I didn't know I was going to have three minutes exactly, so I've not prepared anything specific to say, but I'll let you know what we did last year and what we would like to do this year. So all of these projects that we're talking about today have come from the borough having a food plan. So for the first time, the food plan, I think it was in 22 to 27, included food-growing as well as food security from the food banks. And through the food plan, we have created quite a good network of growers and other food organisations to come together, and we formed a food partnership. So as we've been working together and learning, we realised that there weren't enough food-growing projects happening in the borough. So Harriet, the biodiversity officer, and Kat, the public health officer, came across some money from the prevention fund. So this was what we did in 2024. And we were very lucky to have some money from the prevention fund to set up four brand-new community food-growing spaces in the borough, roughly in the four corners. So in 2024, we set up four new gardens, and we had about 80 people start the course. We had a programme training people how to grow food, training people how to be community gardeners, and the hope was that they would go out and take it back to their own communities, even if it's just a little pocket on the end of their street, or in their church, or in their synagogue, or in their school, or in their scouts group. We're just hoping to spread the amount of public food space, public spaces that are growing food in Barnet. We are 400,000 people, and we are as big as the country of Iceland, but we have 10 community food-growing spaces. Lambeth is where I have a sister site, Incredible Edible Lambeth. They have something like 100 food-growing spaces. So it's just really low in what we're doing together. And one of the nice things about it is not just that you get to eat food, but you get to do it with meet your neighbours, and I've met some wonderful people locally, and that's what I'm trying to replicate. I'm trying to... One minute left, thank you. I'm trying to allow other people to experience what I've experienced in the last 10 years while I've been doing a community food garden in Barnet. So we're looking to continue what we started last year. We got everything up and running really quickly, starting new spaces, building beds, finding people, writing a programme, training people, and we got to the end of the year, and there were some wonderful stats that were hopefully in your report that shows you how connected people became to their community, how much to nature, their mental health improved because they were outside, and we just don't want to stop there because it was such a lot of work to get it up and running. We would love to be able to roll it out for another year and reach more people and get more community gardens in the borough. Sorry, sir, can I ask... what meeting you're here for? I have a lovely meeting. Councillor David, can I call you to speak on this item? Is there anything you'd like to supplement on your bid? Like Wendy has rightly said, I do fully support the idea of helping people to provide food to be self-sufficient. You know, the closure of the food bank in East Burnett has created a lot of issues locally and beyond. And I would very much appreciate if the council can support this project. And we'll also ensure that we provide... that Wendy and Tim provide the biodiversity report to the council, provide the financial sustainability and financial reports, and also to ensure that key performance indicators are monitored and followed. I mean, Wendy's been doing this for quite a long time. she's trained several people, was prepared to bring some of those people to speak here as well. So, there is evidence based in this proposal. I will wholly support it. Thank you so much, and thank you for putting together such a comprehensive bid. I'll take chair's prerogative and ask the first question, and then please, members do, feel free to ask it. Is there a financial plan for this, basically, self-sufficiency when this bid expires? You know, clearly we can't come back year after year. We don't do ongoing bids. So, is there a plan for sort of what happens next year? I also note that you're going out to two other area committees as well. What happens if you don't get those bids but do get ours? Forgive me. We were hoping to be able to lump them together just to save on the admin, but we're crossing our fingers for all four gardens to be successful. Although, I think West is going to have to be delayed because of the by-election. We don't have a specific plan in place, but my hope is that we don't end up with just one more community garden in Barnet. We end up with 10, 20 more. But I'm teaching people how to do it for a very low value. Incredible edible Barnet that I've run for eight years. I've probably spent a total of about £300 or £400. You really don't need to have a lot of money to do this. I run a seed swap, so we share seeds. You need a few pots. I've been given water books. So that's part of the learning is how to do it for a very low cost and getting donations from people and sharing what we have. But we can definitely, as we evolve through the year, we can definitely put a stronger financial plan in place if the committee would like to see that at the end of the year. And very happy to provide reports on any data we collect for the biodiversity and measures of success. We'd love to do all of that. So essentially this is start-up funding and you're good from there? Sorry. This is start-up funding and you're kind of good from there? Yeah. Great. Thank you very much. But yes, the council would definitely like to see financial plans and your reports and anything to do with the KPIs you've set against yourself. Baker. Longself. Could you let us know a little bit about biodiversity monitoring, how you think you are going to achieve that? Yeah. And if I don't do Harriet justice, maybe she can chip in. But food growing and biodiversity are interlinked. You can't have one without the other. Farming in the UK is decimated biodiversity by 70%. So it's trying to teach people about the connection with insects and food. So it's quite a mindfulness activity. You sit down and there are lots of apps. We're about to go into the green spaces network next door. We're going to look at iNaturalist, which is an app where you can monitor what's happening in your space, feed it into a citizen site project which collects what's happened nationally. And it's just a really nice way of connecting with nature, sitting down and watching what happens. You go around with nets and you see what you collect. There's books. And so you're really learning, learning as you go. It's a really important part of community gardening to monitor the biodiversity at the same time. Councillor Longstaff and then Councillor Begg. It was just really a comment to the committee and to say that I've been invited. I should have declared an interest by Wendy to Incredible Edible a number of times. And every time there's always been a big crowd, really. And she's very good at generating volunteers and getting things done. And I think if she says she'll write a report, it will be excellent and it will be on time. And I hope you do on time, because otherwise there will be trouble. Just to say I have tremendous confidence that Wendy will do exactly what she says she will do. Thank you. Wonderful and great to hear that so many councillors are supporting the bid. Councillor Begg, please. Thank you for your presentation here. So my question is, these kind of projects and your project will be running on volunteers, I imagine. How will you be keeping them motivated and trained up? I've been doing that for eight years with Incredible Edible Barnet. And it's the kind of journey that you go on when you're wanting to grow food in a community space. I have, probably over eight years, I've probably had 100 people come through my garden. And some of, two or three have stuck with me, but some have moved on. So some go on to get an allotment. Some go on to work in bigger growing spaces like Grow, at Tottenham Academy, which is a wonderful example of how we should be growing food with schools. So I don't think it's a, sorry, remind me of your specific question. I feel like I might have been going off on a tangent there. What was your question? Sorry. So my question was, how are you going to keep them motivated? Keep them motivated. How are you going to keep them so that if they stop drifting away, they'll never stop them away? I think where I was trying to go is, it's fine if they do drift away. Because they've learned something and they move on and they often go somewhere else. And even if it's just that better connection with food. The reason I started Incredible Edible was because I wanted to reduce my impact with waste. So food waste, packaging waste. And so even if someone goes away with that learning, I consider that to be a success. Wonderful. Any final questions from the committee? Okay. We're happy to move to a vote. So just to remind, we can award funding either fully or partially with any conditions. I hope officers have noted a few conditions on financial sustainability and reporting back. And obviously we will note the implication to the funding budget to defer the application or to reject the application. I'm happy to propose for us to award funding fully with the conditions as mentioned. If everyone is happy to agree that or is there another proposal? Agreed? Agreed. Wonderful. Funding is awarded fully. And great that we took your bid first so you can make it to your next meeting. Thank you very much. Wonderful. So next up is my bid for St. John's N20, not to be confused with other St. Johns in the borough. This is the one in Whetstone. Clearly a popular name. Although I hear it's not my father, John. It's another St. John. Reverend Kim, you have three minutes and then I will briefly speak as well. Thank you. I'm not sure how many of you have actually seen the plans for the proposed project at St. John's. If you haven't, I'm sure it's no surprise to you that it's all about bricks and elevations and survey after survey after survey. All that stuff, of course, is important, but it's not actually where the project started. The route of the project is actually found in stories that have emerged from the community in Whetstone. Stories such as Chandrika and Panos, who moved into the newly developed Sweetsway Estate with their young son, Teddy. We first met them when they came to our community lunch. They said that their desire was to feel like part of a community and that that is what brought them to us in the first place. They now join in with all of our social events, Messy Church, community lunch and all our all-age activities. There are so many other families like Chandrika and Panos who are looking for community in the social events that we offer. Sadly, we're regularly having to turn people away because we don't have the capacity to accommodate everyone who wants to come. Another story comes from Lucy, a young mum who suffered severely from postnatal depression. She came to St. John's in the first place looking for support. She now has a strong support network and talks openly about her struggles and she'd love to start our own formal support group at St. John's. At the moment, we simply don't have the space to facilitate such a group. There's also the shared stories of many local schools, those of the same faith, of other faiths and of no faith at all. All of their curriculums have one thing in common and that is that they learn about the Christian faith. Several times I've heard the same story from them. Thank you very much. We want somewhere to bring our children where they can learn about the Christian faith without it being shoved down their throats. I love doing that at St. John's, but as you can imagine, it's quite a challenge when you've got 30 children in a church and no toilet or running water. I'll leave that to your imaginations. All of these stories have shaped the building project at St. John's. Our plans for bricks and mortar and elevations and surveys began with us hearing these stories and considering how we can use our building to respond. Our spirit is open and accessible, but our building certainly isn't. With the increased space that these facilities would offer, things like toilets and running water and level access, we will be able to offer so much more to the local community. We've already started conversations about hosting a night shelter, a toddler group, a regular protest poetry workshop for young people, a postnatal group, golden oldie, movie afternoons, dementia cafes. The project being fulfilled would give us the capacity to bring all these things to life. Finally, on funding, we're nearly there. Of £2.6 million, we've got £2.5 million, so the end is in sight, and this bid would make a fantastic contribution. Thank you very much, and I would like to fully support this bid, which is obviously under my name. I think it is very rare for a church or any faith institution to be filled with young people, particularly kids, and I was there recently for a Christmas event, and it was absolutely full. I think Reverend Kim has managed to make religion cool, which I think is a very rare thing for clergy to be able to do in this day and age. I also think it's a very special community that welcomes a gay Jewish counsellor with her wife to do a reading at Christmas, and I have been – it's the only event my wife attends – I've been made for nothing but welcome in that space, and I think that's a very special community. I think the other points which I've just raised very briefly that are particularly pertinent to this bid are the huge amount of development that's happened in Whetstone in the past five to ten years, particularly the Sweetsway Estate, and clearly the church is serving a need in the community, given how full it is. It is an older space, and toilets are pretty necessary, as well as probably meeting building regulations, but the point is that we often in this committee ask why are we giving so much money, and £30,000 is a lot of money, but it is a drop in the water of the £2.5 million which this church has raised, partly through the sale of property, which is now more flats than Whetstone. But, you know, they've done an incredible job, and I'm very proud to support the bid, and very much hope that the committee follows suit as well, although obviously everyone votes upon their own conscience. Can I take any questions for Reverend Kim on this bid, please? Councillor Baker. Thank you for that presentation. I would like to have listened to it for more than three minutes, because it just sounds, you know, so important for that community. I've just wondered, in terms of, have you got the planning certificate, have you got a financial plan that we could perhaps, you could share with us? Yeah, absolutely. Do you want to speak to that, Jenny? That's probably... Yeah, so the planning, we have a meeting, we've applied for pre-planning, and we're meeting with the planning officer in a couple of weeks' time. 29th. 29th year, so we haven't got planning approved yet, but we've submitted our pre-planning. In terms of financial plan, we've got, in the documents, there's a cost plan that our architects have done, which is quite comprehensive of what we're expecting to spend. And we've also got a forecast of how we're going to make it financially viable as well, so we're happy to share those. So, any, we would have to put a condition of a planning, basically passing planning, we can't give you the money for then you to not get planning permission. Do I see Councillor Weissall? Thank you, Chair. First, can I just congratulate you on your fundraising efforts? That is quite incredible. I was just wondering if it would be possible, if money is granted, to have sort of updates on how your construction is going, when the construction is complete, and then obviously once the space is open and in use, updates on how that's benefiting the community with examples and statistics of what it is doing, so that we can see and show how this money benefits your community. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, we love to do that. You know, our real hope is that it will be used by the community. Lots of churches, you probably know, they can be quite inward-looking, and it's about serving the people already there. We really don't want that. We want it to serve the people who aren't already there. So, we will be regularly monitoring whether we're effective in that or not. So, to keep you updated would be a privilege, absolutely. We'd love to. Yeah. Councillor Begg, and then Councillor Cornelius. Thank you, sir. I was very interested, and I welcome your efforts to try to make the building more accessible for everyone, with ramps and prams and everything else, as well as toilets, out there. So, the impression that I've got is that this will be kind of a community cohesion project as well. Absolutely. And you've got lots of steps that you need to take before you reach the final journey. Can you provide the council with a kind of quarterly update as to where you are in each one of your steps of this project, and how you're using the budget? Absolutely, yeah. Do you mean the budget as a whole, or specifically the money that we're asking for? I mean, either way, we'd be very happy to provide updates. Yeah, absolutely. Just to reduce burden, can I change the quarterly update to an annual update? Is that all right, just to reduce the burden on the other shortly-staffed church? Thank you. Councillor Cornelius, and then Councillor David. Yes, thank you. I was just rather intrigued. I just had a query. You mentioned that our well-loved church is a place of radical and inclusive welcome. Yeah. Could you define radical? Yeah. Because I have been to the church many times, and yes. Yeah, I can absolutely, absolutely. So you may or may not know that at the moment there's a huge debate in the Church of England about human sexuality, massive debate, and the voice that's often heard is very prejudiced against LGBTQ communities. And we have taken a very active stance, a very vocal stance, in saying we are absolutely not on that bandwagon. And we've done that in various different ways and have received quite a lot of violence because of it to our building, to our literature. So by radical, I mean we don't shut up when people want us to, about our inclusivity. And that's not popular in the Church. It is in society, but in the Church it's definitely not. So by radical I'm saying that we won't be quiet when we're being told to be. And then if I could just have a bit of clarity. Absolutely. You're talking about toilets, supplying some toilets. Are they actually in the Church? They will be. So the money of the £30,000 is for toilets in the Church, not in your new hall? It's not going to be a new hall. So the project is to redevelop and extend the existing Church building. At the side. Yeah. So that's why I was looking at the plans. Yeah. And that's where the running water is obviously going to be for a kitchen and a toilet. And are you doing showers attached to the Church as well? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So when you have the shelter, the shelter I know, because I attended it numerous times, was always in the old Church Hall. It was never in the Church. But this time you're thinking of putting the shelter actually physically in the Church then? Yes. Yeah. Rather than in your new Church Hall? We won't have a new Church Hall. So this project replaces a Church Hall altogether. Fine. So we will extend with whole space, but it will be part of the footprint of the Church. Of the Church. Yeah. No, just so I was clear. That's super. Thank you. Yeah. Thank you very much. Was it Councillor David? Thank you. Thank you for your presentation. It's a pleasure. Sorry. Sorry. No, no, go for it. Yeah, so we earmarked that money towards the things that we thought would ensure that most of the community would be able to use the space. And those things are toilets, level access, and showers. So yeah, that's what that's earmarked for, that money. Thank you. Thank you very much. Maybe why I like it so much is the radical nature for Labour members who have never known to not be radical. Is everyone happy for me to move to a vote? To remind everyone we have three options, awarding funding fully or partially with any conditions attached, noting the implications of the budget. So the conditions which have come up are about only being, the funding only being awarded should there be planning permission and you're reporting back on the bid itself and the KPIs attached to it. The other option is to defer funding for further information, which I, we have a lot of information, or rejecting the application, giving reasons. Oh, sorry, and also a construction update on a quarterly basis. That was the quarterly one. Is everyone happy to agree to funding in full? Councillor Longstaff, you're looking inquisitively adamant. It's not that I disagree or anything like that. It's just, I thought we were, we were, it was for toilets that are inside the church. Yes. So what's that got to do with planning permission? Correct me if I'm wrong. The whole church is being redone. But I assume the toilets, because they're internal, will be done if we grant the money immediately. You're not going to wait forever in a day to get planning permission to do the toilets. Oh, I imagine given the lack of running water, it is all to do with the plumbing in. Well, I don't know. Yeah, there's no water in the church. Okay. Fair enough. I just, I just figured it was inside. You'd get on with it immediately. Yeah, I mean, I think I would love to get on with it immediately. It's an absolute nightmare having no toilet. But the bigger project is going to encompass the whole of it. We'll be out of the building for a whole year to reorder the inside, to extend all around which side? What's it called there? The south side. The south side and around the front. And then to completely reorder the interior of the church, bringing plumbing into there, which will give us the toilets and also running water and the showers. Yeah, yeah. Okay. Everyone happy to agree in full, noting the conditions that have been attached and noting the implications of the budget? Agreed. Thank you very much. Congratulations as well. Thank you very much indeed, all of you. Thank you. We look forward to reading the updates. You are welcome to either stay or leave. That is your call. Finally, we are coming to Councillor Barnes's bid, which Councillor Baker will be supporting this evening as Ward Colleague, which is the Wellbeing Cafe. And I'm delighted to invite the speaker. I'm sorry I didn't catch your name earlier. John. Welcome. Oh, many Johns tonight. You are welcome, John. You have three minutes. Thank you so much. Thank you, Councillor Rose. So I'm John Trong. I'm the head of operations for Medium Wellbeing. We're a local mental health and well-being charity based actually just down the road in Hended and Emeritus Centre. And we've been operating for over 30 years and over 20 years in the area of Barnet. So I'm here to talk about the E4 Wellbeing Cafe. And it's to build upon the highly successful pilot that we held at the new Barnet Community Centre in collaboration with them and also together with the prevention and well-being team as part of Barnet Council as well. It's a free and easy to access well-being cafe held twice a month and open to all regardless of their culture, background, presentation, whatever they need. It aims to strengthen early intervention and prevention, provide links with local resources and activities and provide volunteering and peer opportunities as well. It aims to support those who are like-minded, helping them to socialise, providing them a platform to network, to engage with a wide range of well-being activities and share their experiences, whether it's around anything going on with their lives, their experiences or their mental health, and knowing that there's other people out there who are experiencing that and then to support each other. It has been identified as a proactive and preventative support to residents, preventing issues from escalating or deterioration, particularly in their mental health and well-being, and really building up those social connections with each other. It started off building from the pilot, from our well-being cafe held in Hendon, which was a pilot scheme, and we've now been running that for over five years and it's become more of a self-sustaining platform, working together with a team of volunteers and peers who really have that sense of belonging and have created that well-being cafe. We helped, we arranged a pilot working together with the provincial well-being team and New Bionic Community Centre at IAN 4, because being on the other side of the BOA and the challenge is for people to actually get to our cafe here. And also in light of the developments at the land formerly known as British Gas Works, we've over 100, we'll, thank you, we've over 420 units there and approximately 1,000 more residents who will be moving in. So the aim for, we're asking for the two years funding to continue our well-being cafe. The aim of the first year is to enhance the training development of more peer volunteers to co-vacilitate and deliver the cafe, particularly, and develop that in the second year as well. We really feel that, especially with our work with the well-being hub, we're able to connect a lot of people to the cafe. 112 residents accessed our pilot well-being service last year, 81 people accessed the pilot cafe, we feel we can build on that a lot. And we feel that the cafe also tackles a number of the area committee priorities, especially tackling around loneliness and isolation, which is JSNA has really sort of been highlighted as a key priorities to tackle within Bionic and the growing population, the cafe will then help a lot more people as well. So thank you for listening to me. Three minutes on the dock, cracking. Councillor Baker, would you like to speak in support of this bid briefly? Thank you, I would. And I'd like to say I think it's a really important community asset in terms of focusing on well-being, because that often, having facilities like this is actually important in terms of kind of like preventing or the escalation of some mental health issues, and it can be a self-supported network. There's been a lot of research recently done on loneliness, in terms of life expectancy, and I think it's really important that we have community-focused groups that become self-supported, and where people, you know, feel that they are part of a community. If you have individuals moving into a lot of the flats there, a one-bedroom, and they could potentially, you know, become lonely or feel, you know, alienated because they've moved to a different area, having a facility like this can really make them feel part of the community. So, yeah, I fully support it. Thank you very much. Councillor Longstaff, it's also your ward. Would you like to add anything? Well, it's not actually in Barnet Vale at all. It's actually in East Barnet, as far as I'm aware. So, is that the new Barnet Community Centre? Yes, that's right. Yes, in East Barnet, isn't it? Yeah, it is in East Barnet, but I think it's the residents in Barnet Vale that have supported this and really want to champion it. Yeah, I must... Yes, I see it listed as a joint bid. Yeah, I know. I just did nothing to do with Barnet Vale, as far as I was aware. And yes, there may well be members who go there, and all well and good. But I would have thought this was down to Councillor Radford, Councillor Cohen, and Councillor David. I have it listed as a joint bid across the wards, under Councillor Barnsley's name, which has been cleared through by officers. Fine. I've got no particular, other than, I did have one question, but a couple of questions. Go for it then. But I was just wondering, because of what you're doing sounds great and all the rest of it, but what crossover have you had with the Barnet Food Bank, who do vaguely similar things in terms of health assessments, job programme, job centre? Because they're both, they're quite close to each other. Yes, that's right. I can't answer your question, but that's kind of long stuff. So we actually work quite closely with the East Barnet Food Bank, and it's part of that, we're working with Bob there to support that our work. So there's lots of interlinks between people who access the food banks and the other services that are connected there, and it's really about building that community connections there. What we identified with East Barnet Community Centre is one, it's a local community asset that was, well, it welcomes the community, and it's about building those types of resources and the links between there so that people can actually access that, people from the food bank can access it, and also the other services they access as well. And people who come to the cafe have then been linked up to the food banks or to other local resources, including the other activities as well. So it's really about building those different connections there, getting people more connected and helping to tackle their isolation and loneliness. Great. Do we have any other questions? Councillor Weissel. Thank you, Chair. Obviously, you mentioned that you're learning from the Hendon version of this. Has that now become self-funding and self-sufficient, and is there a plan that you can take from that and the things you've learned from that to make this project self-sufficient over a period of time, and how do you envision that happening? Yeah, absolutely. So we started off the Hendon Cafe that we held here as a pilot kind of project, and it's working together with our well-being navigators and also with local authority as well. What we found was that initially, it really needs that sort of drive from a dedicated worker to really encourage people to access the service, get them talking to each other as well. These are people who are very isolated, lonely, and they may not have callers to work together. And from that, through over time, working with people who identified who really felt a sense of belonging to the cafe, we then trained them up as volunteers and encouraged them to take part in that. So they actually formed their own groups and then built up those connections. They started to work and co-facilitate different things, even delivering some of the sessions as well. And we feel that platform and that model would work really well in EN4 as well. That's what we like to work towards to help with sustainability. Just to say, I've checked your point with governance and everything is kosher. The bid has come from Barnet Vale residents, and although it is located in East Barnet because councillors have supported it, it's fine. But I've been assured by governance that the bid is fine. No, I think, sorry, I've forgotten your name. Jonathan, sorry. I think the cafe will be much more used than you anticipate as well. I mean, the planning application for Victoria Quarter that the planning officers agreed didn't even meet minimum housing guidelines, and it was being supported by the planning department. And I think that will just lead to more in-built problems when they actually build one-bed flats that reach minimum guidelines. And I think there are issues being built up that will come with it. Sorry, but that's the way, you know, I'm sure the minimum guidelines are there for a very good reason. And we didn't, and the builders haven't reached them. Thank you. Do we have any other questions? Councillor David, I see you reaching for your mic. I think it's a really good project that you're trying to bring to the community centre there. And with more developments coming in, and there will be a lot more people going in there. I would also like to see provision of use of volunteers to support and develop other people, give people experience as well, working there. And I see that you're asking for, it's only 13,000, and then for the two years, 26,000. So I am delighted to say that it's a good project, and I would like to see it there. Thank you. Thank you. Councillor Weissel. Thank you, Chair. Would it be possible for us to get an annual report from you about your progress with the EM for wellbeing? Absolutely no problem. Thank you. Great. So we have a condition of an annual report, and one, please, of a business funding plan that's developed within 12 months to ensure that the programme is self-sustaining after the initial funding. With those two conditions, noting again the three options that we have for us before the committee, awarding funding with conditions noting an implication to the budget, deferring the application or rejecting the application. If I propose that we award the funding with those two conditions, are we happy to accept it? Agreed. Wonderful. Thank you very much. I note at the end of this item that we are low on budget for the next meeting, so that bids should bear that in mind, because I will not be going over the allotted spending as chair. Fair warning to everyone for the bids. It was about 96 minus 73, so I think about 23 to share between, plus the underspend should that have been formally confirmed, yes. So we are looking at a maximum of 40 between the eight of us, so we can divide that, five grand each. Over 17,000 plus 7,000, so it's 24,000 maximum is what you're really looking at. Maths was never my strong point, thank you. The final item is any other items the chair decides are urgent. I don't, but do I see your hand? I was just going to ask chair if it'd be possible for the figure to be confirmed to members before the deadline for bids. Yes, the figures can be confirmed to members shortly. Okay, one final question. Yeah, just nothing to do with the North Area Committee, but it does seem to me that it's quite an important committee that doesn't even have a glass of water put out for them tonight, and it really is something that should be done for every meeting, which is for governors really to note. I think Council of Longstaff will note that we're no longer being given glasses of water, certainly in full council, because of damage to the electronic system that has cost the council significant amounts of money to repair. So, councillors have been asked to bring their own water in their own reusable containers. So they can spin it on themselves, yes. Okay, I do not do that as much specifically for this committee. We can bring that up in other forums. Councillor Cornelius. I was just going to say I sat on the Adults and Health on Monday and we had glasses of water on the table in here. Okay, I will defer that to governance to look into for all meetings, not just our own. I also now close this meeting at 7.50. Thank you everyone for your attendance. Have lovely evenings.