The public inquiry into Montreaux’s planning application begins on Tuesday 14 February at 10:00 am, at the Town Hall, Hendon, NW4 4BQ.
To recap: Montreaux applied to build up to 18 storeys high on the B&Q site (25 storeys in their first version) and Barnet’s planning committee voted to approve it subject to legal agreements. Before Barnet Council actually issued the decision, the Secretary of State put it on hold and then decided to take over making the decision (“called it in”). So he’s asked the Planning Inspectorate to hold an inquiry and report to him, then he’ll decide.
We’ll be at the inquiry, of course. We’ve got “Rule 6” status, meaning we get to participate in various ways. “We” are NorthWestTwo Residents Association as the ones that applied for that status, together with the Railway Terraces Residents Association, Mapesbury Residents Association (MapRA), Cricklewood Groves Residents Association and Golders Green Estate Residents Association (GGERA). The applicants will have their legal team, Barnet Council – who are now arguing against the application – will have theirs, and then there’s us. Hiring KCs for seven days is not in our budgets!
It’s a public inquiry. You can come, and your support will be welcome. You can also watch it live-streamed – the links for each session are here – but there won’t be recordings.
The timetable gets a little vague and flexible in the second week, but so far this is how it looks:
- Tuesday 14 Feb: Opening, statements from applicants, Barnet, us and others
- Wednesday afternoon: presentation by applicants
- Thursday: discussion of heritage, design etc
- Friday: discussion of conditions and section 106 agreements
- Wednesday 22 Feb: Transport. Evidence of Councillor Young, chair of Barnet strategic planning committee
- Thursday: Us. Evidence for applicants
- Friday 24: continued. Closing speeches.
It’s all a lot more heavy duty than a planning committee meeting – and unlike anything we’ve tackled before! There’s a web page of all the documents (evidence, statements including ours, policies, all sorts) on Barnet’s website here. It’s a lot.
Meanwhile, the Local Plan
The draft of Barnet’s Local Plan said 1,007 units on the B&Q site, similar to Montreaux’s application for 1,049 units. We went to the inspectors’ examination of the plan and argued that was treating Cricklewood like a much more central and heavily developed area than it is. The council didn’t defend that categorisation. We’re delighted that Barnet have now written to the inspectors to change the plan, reducing the capacity of the site to 583 units. If that becomes the final version and if the Secretary of State turns down this application, then any new application would be assessed against that new Local Plan.