The Secretary of State* has decided to call in the planning application for the B&Q site. This means Montreaux’s application will eventually be decided by the Secretary of State, not Barnet Council.
- There’ll be a public inquiry. The Planning Inspectorate will set the timetable for that. As we understand it (this is all new to us), everyone that commented on the planning application will be contacted by the council and invited to send comments to the inspector.
- Barnet will provide a venue – perhaps Hendon Town Hall. The inquiry will take some days.
- The inspector will send a report to the Secretary of State, with a recommendation.
- The Secretary of State will tell the applicant, Montreaux, whether or not they’ve got planning permission. If it’s approved, the conditions might be different from the ones Barnet’s planning committee saw when they passed the application back in September 2021.
It seems people are usually allowed to send the inspector their comments for about six weeks after the council contacts them. We’ll find out soon enough.
We’ve looked at the timing of the inquiry last year about the development beside Wembley Park station (another one that the local council approved and the Secretary of State called in). The inquiry sessions were just over 4 months after the Secretary of State first called it in, so we might be looking at early 2023 for our hearings. It was nearly 5 months after that until the Secretary of State approved it, and we don’t know why it took 5 months. So Cricklewood, and Montreaux, might even have to wait until the middle of next year to find out.
We daren’t get our hopes up too high. We don’t know why Michael Gove decided to put the application on ice just before the local elections, and we know whoever’s Secretary of State next year might approve it. But there’s now a chance this application will be turned down and Montreaux will have to think again.
*To be exact, the Minister of State for Housing made the decision on behalf of the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, and so the letter to Barnet says it’s the Secretary of State’s decision.
