Friday 6 November 2009

Town Centre Strategy - Kicked into the long grass?

New Barnet has been promised a Town Centre Strategy (or Framework)for years. We know how important it will be in any subsequent planning applications from ASDA or Tesco. Yet Barnet Council seems determined to stop local residents seeing this strategy. The agenda of the next Business Management Overview and Scrutiny Sub-Committee says that the local residents will now be consulted on the Town Centre Strategy, sorry framework, in "early 2010" whatever that means. What is taking so long you may ask? GVA Grimley were commissioned to undertake this study back in April and two separate sources have told me that it is finished. Why won't it be released - perhaps because it doesn't say what Barnet Council wants. This vital document needs to be disclosed now so that we can consider it alongside the Local Development Framework. These documents will set the planning agdenda in New Barnet for the next 15 years and local residents deserve to be consulted.

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