BARNET RESIDENTS ASSOCIATION
AGM 19 SEPT 2023
HELD IN THE JOHN TAYLOR ROOM, OPEN DOOR CENTRE,
ST ALBANS RD, EN5 4LA
1. INTRODUCTION
The Chairman (Melvyn Sears) welcomed everyone to the meeting. He introduced the Committee members and also 3 local councillors in attendance – Emma Whysall, Paul Edwards and David Longstaff.
47 members were in attendance, plus the Committee.
2. APOLOGIES
Apologies were received from Gillian Garvie, Dick Elms, Barry Henderson, Owen Jones, Sandy Headey, Adele Winston, Malcolm & Jane Emmerson, Bill & Sherrie Foster, Peter & Bridget Sawyer, Bernard & Katherine Johnson, Alison Lakin and John Hay.
3. ADOPTION OF MINUTES OF THE AGM 2022
Proposed by Tim Sims, seconded by Gordon Massey.
4. MATTERS ARISING
There were none.
5. ELECTION OF OFFICERS AND INDEPENDENT EXAMINER
Bruce Mackie had taken over the role of Treasurer during the year when Russell Brooks had moved to Edinburgh for his work. This had to be confirmed by the AGM before he could be re-elected. Proposed by Margaret Williams, seconded by Mike Peterson.
The Committee were all putting themselves forward for reappointment and they could be re-elected en masse. Proposed by Lynne Baker, seconded by Emma Whysall.
Mervyn Jones had stepped down as Independent Examiner and was to be replaced by John Arnold, FCA, who lived in Wheathampstead. Proposed by Ken Rowland, seconded by Nigel Baker. There was a vote of thanks to Mervyn Jones for providing the service since 2015.
6. CHAIRMAN’S REPORT
Personnel
2022 was a challenging year for the Association with enforced changes of personnel on the Committee as members stepped down from key positions for personal reasons.
Ken Rowland stood down as Chair in 2022 after chairing the Committee for 4 years. A major achievement during his tenure was the installation of CCTV on St Albans Road. Latterly, he oversaw an increase in the membership fee which will be sufficient for the Association’s financial needs into the foreseeable future. Ken created new ways for us to talk to the community by introducing BRA to social media. He also initiated the modernisation of our website which recently came to fruition.
Gordon and Charles stepped down from the Committee, reported in more detail in the October 2022 Newsletter. While Gordon has filled the up-front roles of Chair, Planning Officer and scribe (alongside other front-line roles on the Committee), Charles’s contribution in the background has been to create and maintain our first-ever website and provide ongoing advice on IT matters. This has been essential to our operation. His friendly presence will be missed.
Huge thanks to Jeice Tan (pron. Jacey) who joined us as Membership Secretary to take Melvyn Sears place as he stepped into the positions of Chair and Newsletter Editor.
Membership and their preferences
Membership remained static over the year despite the increase in membership fee that was introduced in November 2021. We feel we can boast a loyal and interested membership – over 75% of our member emails are opened, compared to an average of around 50% for most community communications sent by email.
Most of our members choose to receive the paper copy of our Newsletter, with only 12 households choosing to have it delivered electronically.
Litter
Our favourite days of the year are our litter picking days, when we are joined by many of our energetic members in clearing litter from around the town centre. Committee members on the stall in the Spires receive a hugely warm welcome from everyone, members and non-members alike. These are truly heartening experiences. We held two last year, on 5th February and 22nd October, and are frequently assisted by our MP and local Councillors. Special thanks to David Longstaff who has continued to show up even after his departure to Barnet Vale.
We successfully campaigned for new litter bins on the High Street.
Planning applications
We successfully opposed a Planning Application from Merkur Slots which tried to set up a gaming centre in the old Trustee Savings Bank. The building has now been sold to a new owner. An entirely out-of-character building at 70 High Street located in the Conservation Area around the church was built contrary to planning approval. The owner was instructed to demolish it, an instruction that was upheld on appeal to national level. He keeps coming forward with fresh applications, each a variation on the original, and we continue to oppose each one as it happens!
In December, your committee was introduced to the plans by Barnet Homes for their proposals for 1-7 Moxon Street (Planning Application now made) and The Spires (Planning Application awaited).
Moxon Street continues to be a focus for development, with recent applications including The Windmill School (number 50) which was approved in 2022, and planning applications for Intec House (number 48, still pending) and very recently Fortune House (currently Howdens). We foresee major traffic problems at the top of Moxon Street reflecting on the flow of traffic in the High Street with the nine minibuses serving The Windmill School arriving and leaving twice each day.
Hadley Drinking Fountain
Whilst the community did not start enjoying the benefits until this spring, in November 2022 the BRA promoted the crowdfunding effort for the Hadley Fountain. A hugely positive response from our wonderful members over two days in November (supplemented by £150.00 from BRA’s own reserves) pushed Peter Wander’s project through its target and made it all possible!!
Member survey
We also conducted a member survey during July, to try and discover members’ areas of most concern. These were our findings. The loss of the 84 bus was top of the list of ‘other concerns’.
Crime and Policing
Crime figured large in the responses. We continued to play an active role in monitoring crime figures, and in encouraging members to report all crimes they witnessed. We also brought Contact Points to the attention of members, so that they could attend and ‘interact’ with their local ‘bobbies’.
A discussion followed on reporting crime. Margaret Williams commented that people did not bother to report crimes because the police did not act, and another speaker said the bad publicity about the Met Police could be another factor. However, the Chairman stressed the need to report crimes so they were incorporated into the figures. Emma Whysall said that the Safer Neighbourhood Teams did respond to emails reporting crime and acted quickly, for example the anti-social behaviour on Byng Road Fields had been dealt with quickly. A speaker mentioned the only working police station in the Borough now was at Colindale. Emma Whysall reported that 12-15 police officers were needed to man a typical police station all the time and that meant those police officers could not be on the streets, so having a working police station would mean fewer officers on the streets. For safety reasons two officers had to be in police stations at all times. Another speaker from the floor said the necessary infrastructure was not in place. The Chairman introduced Simon Green from the Committee who attended the CAP meetings on our behalf. Simon reiterated that resources could not be allocated to areas unless the crimes were reported, so if all crime was reported then the resources would follow in the end. The police saw High Barnet as a very low crime area so not only did we have fewer resources but they were also taken away from us at times. It could be 6 or 7 days without a single policeman being in High Barnet because the area was viewed as a place that did not require that level of policing. David Longstaff reassured the meeting that if a really serious crime was committed, eg a gun crime, there was an unmarked police car only a few minutes away. The Chairman said that Mahender Khari, chairman of the High Barnet CAP, was present and he was happy to talk to members after the meeting.
A comment from the floor was the dangerous turning into the Lightfields development.
Tim Sims thanked the Chairman for his report.
7. TREASURER’S REPORT AND ADOPTION OF 2022 ACCOUNTS
Bruce Mackie introduced the Accounts which had been published in the February Newsletter. The deficit difference of £1 was due to rounding errors and that would not happen again as we would start including the pence as well.
The increased deficit had been due to a lot of one-offs. £650 had been spent on Donations which included the Hadley Drinking Fountain and the one-off expense of £268 on ‘Volunteer Recognition’. Without those payments we would be looking at maintaining the current balance over the long-term. The previous year’s deficit had been £108. The major expense was the Newsletter. All things being equal, Bruce Mackie thought that by the end of 2024 the Association should at worse be breaking even or hopefully with a small surplus. There would be the final payment for the redevelopment of the website. The current balance of approximately £8,400 was needed in case the Association needed funding for fighting a campaign.
A questioner from the floor asked what the Volunteer Recognition was. The Chairman replied that Helen Massey had been a committee member for many years, Gordon Massey had been a committee member since 2004, and with Charles Wicksteed also stepping down, we had given small gifts to them and the Committee had also gone out to dinner although the Committee members had paid for their own dinner.
The accounts were adopted. Proposed by Lynne Baker, seconded by Ruth Rabin.
8. DISCUSSION ON THE PROSPECTS FOR THE HIGH STREET, LED BY SIMON GREEN, COMMITTEE MEMBER
The Chairman introduced Simon Green, a Committee member whose day job was managing several hundred YMCA charity shops. Simon Green said he visited hundreds of High Streets up and down the country from Blyth to Plymouth including Wales. He lived in High Barnet, had been to QE Boys and the first shop he had run in 1978 was in Barnet High Street, in the days when we had had Chix Chox, Dorothy Perkins, Timothy Whites and four shops that sold records on the High Street.
Simon said that the first thing to say was that High Barnet was a lot better off than a lot of other places but things had changed both economically and socially. What had driven the changes in High Streets were Covid, which had had a massive effect on everybody, internet shopping and the cost of movement i.e. fuel and parking which were becoming much bigger factors than they used to be.
If you took retail parks out of the equation, High Streets were splitting between destination and social shopping. There were a lot of shops on our High Street, all the way down to the station and all the way up to Hadley Green, and it was very, very expensive to trade her - rents and business rates were very high. However, there were some real positives. Generally, it was a high-income area with a lot of disposable income and the surrounding community liked items which were not mass items but were exclusive and home-made, which was why there were so many cake shops.
Where did The Spires fit in all that? It was what was called “over-retailed”, just look at the number of empty shops and others which were rented as temporaries, i.e. no leases, they paid month by month, they could be kicked out with 4 weeks’ notice and they could leave with 4 weeks’ notice. The Clinton Cards unit cost £50,000 plus a £40,000 service charge without even trading, that was just for being there. It was also very out of date as a shopping centre.
Simon emphasised that was his view, based on his travels around the country and abroad. He thought what was vital for High Barnet was to have a trading street which reflected and fulfilled the needs of the community here. High Barnet would never become a destination centre. We now had ULEZ; we suffered from traffic coingestion; very expensive parking which would never get any cheaper because land was difficult to come by; and we had massive competition from St Albans, Borehamwood, London Colney and places further out which were more pleasant to use and easier to get to. 32 per cent of the people who came to the High Street came by car, 68% walked or came by bus, so it would always only be a local shopping centre. There was plenty of money in the local economy and we needed better and more interesting offerings, including services. We would never get back the large clothing retailers or another large supermarket; physically there was no room. We had to keep hold of the supermarket we had because even that was not guaranteed. We needed a retail offering that was needed by the people who lived here and retail which could be filled, and filled by people who could make enough money to be there.
The change that was coming was not just a change for Barnet but everywhere. What we had to do as a Committee and individuals was to help that change along for the benefit of those of us who lived here. Simon finished by saying this was a personal view but a personal view from someone who cared about Barnet. We had to be part of the process that influenced the decisions made by other people often outside the area.
A questioner asked if the problem was to do with high rents. Simon said he had lost track of the number of times he had said to a landlord that his shop had been empty for 3 years why did he not reduce the rent and the landlord said he did not need to, he was not interested in the local community, not interested in filling the shop. That was why speaking as one voice was better for everybody; so that the change was managed for the benefit of the community.
Ken Rowland thought it was worth mentioning that there had been various examples over the last few years which showed you needed support from landlords. There was Ozzi’s Burrito Shack which had previously traded as 89, which then transformed into Room 89 in Union Street; then there was the Chipping Barnet Workshop where the deal was you picked up the rates but there was no rent, which was a massive deal and as long as the numbers stacked up it worked. Unfortunately, that had now closed but it had spawned another shop adjacent to Wanders. Simon said that the important thing about those shops was that they offered something different and exciting for the local people. Ken said the vacancy rates at the moment were 10.8 per cent in High Barnet, compared with 9.2 in London and 11 nationally, but High Barnet had 64.2 per cent independent units compared to 46.9 across the UK, so we were there but support was needed. The longer-term view was being affected by cultural and economic change, by financial change and by the whole experience of living in an area.
A questioner from the floor said that nobody was attracted to come here because if they had to drive, there was nowhere to park, and if you park in the carpark you had to pay a lot of money which just pushed people away. Simon said that the pressure on carparks would come not only from developers but also the Council because carparks were empty land which could be built on. A speaker from the floor said that on “You and Yours”, on Radio 4 today, there was an article about shopping on high streets and they had reported a carparking space costed £5,000 a year to maintain. He had assumed that that was in a multistorey carpark but that explained why carparking was so expensive.
The Chairman said that in our most recent Newsletter we had drawn attention to the fact the BYM, the leaseholders of The Spires, wanted to take two floors of the carpark away which we had argued robustly against because we thought it was absolutely the wrong thing to do in view of the fact that, according to the The Spires’ lease, it was the leaseholder’s responsibility to provide carparking to help support the whole of the town centre.
The Chairman said there would be the opportunity to question Simon afterwards. (Applause)
The Merkur Slots failed application for a gambling outlet on the High St was discussed. Gordon Massey said that Merkur had hasd to apply for the unit to undergo a change of category from retail before getting approval. One of the reasons the application had been refused was because Merkur could not prove that the outlet had been advertised as a retail unit for at least 12 months.
9a UPDATE ON WHALEBONES
Gordon Massey reported that the initial planning application 3 years ago was for 152 houses and flats on approximately 60 per cent of the site with the rest to become a public park. The Barnet Residents Association had supported the scheme which had not made us very popular with a lot of people. The trustees of the Cowing Trust had made it clear they wanted to dispose of the site. The application had been refused at Planning Committee and the Planning Inspector also upheld the refusal. The trustees and developers had looked at the site again and had come up with a broadly similar scheme but, to take account of the criticisms of the Planning Inspector, they had reduced the number of properties to 114, and had moved them further back from the boundaries, thereby distancing further the new build from existing properties. They were low rise properties, a maximum of 4 storeys which were at the bottom end of the site not the Wood St end. The parkland scheme remained pretty much as before.
The difficulty with the parkland was that somebody had to take over ownership and manage it in perpetuity, and that someone had to be found. Barnet Council were not interested. Other organisations like the National Trust and the Land Trust had been approached and the developer had had over 2 years to find an operator. The Association had met with one of the trustees and he had been quite firm that if the new scheme failed at Planning Committee and at an appeal then the site would be sold. Barnet Residents Association were very concerned that another developer would not include a public park in a future scheme and may very well load their scheme with tall flats. We had met them 8 weeks ago and had been told the application would be submitted within the next fortnight, but the planning application still had not been submitted. Gordon was speculating that they were trying to tie up the arrangement for the parkland but were having difficulties getting this element of the application tied up. The Planning Committee could pass the scheme without it being finalised, but it was likely they would require a firm agreement on the Parkland before the development could start.
A questioner asked who was maintaining the site at the moment. David Longstaff said that the farmer and his wife who lived on the farm were meant to be maintaining the whole site at the moment but they were getting quite elderly.
Another questioner asked if the trustees were allowed to sell the site. Gordon confirmed they were perfectly entitled to sell it. There had been a lot of argument about the will of Gwyneth Cowing and what it meant for the people of Barnet. Gordon said he had read the will many times and the only hard fact he could see in it was that the farm should be protected and maintained for as long as practicable. It did not say that the site should be for the benefit of the people of High Barnet in perpetuity, only that the farm should be kept going for as long as possible. The farm was now fallow and had effectively ceased to function as a farm.
A speaker thought there would be lots of other people prepared to take on such a farm. David Longstaff said he had met with the trustees back in 2017 and he had suggested handing the site over to Friends of Whalebones who could work to open it up to everybody, thereby protecting the legacy of Gwyneth Cowing. David had been contacted over the years by lots of people prepared to take on the farm, e.g., as a farm helping autistic children, but every venture came down to money. There was serious money to be made from the site. Gordon thought there were 8 Cowing family members who would be beneficiaries of the will and the trustees had fulfilled the wishes of Gwyneth Cowing. Emma Whysall said that the Trustees had a fiduciary duty to the 8 family members, so they were in a difficult situation and had to do what was best for them. Their primary duty was to the family members, not to the community. She thought the best solution would be found only while the current family were involved. Once they went, their wishes would no longer be heard, and the Trustees would have done their duty.
The Chairman said that having met with one of the trustees, he had been impressed with his sincerity. If the site was sold to developers, we could be confronted by a far less pleasant outcome than promised by the current planning application. Gordon said in his opinion the trustees could have been far more mercenary and they had served the community reasonably well in the circumstances. At the moment, there was an element of looking after the community, looking after the beekeepers and artists, but that could evaporate.
Nick Saul thought differently and said that the difference between this will and previous wills was that it took away all the pressure on the trustees to carry out Gwyneth Cowing’s wishes. He thought it was worth mentioning that one of the trustees was a family member who was a farmer, and another one was one of the country’s leading solicitors engaged in leveraging development on green field sites. He thought the safeguard of keeping the site green open space should surely be what the Council thought should happen to it. He also reported that the trust was not being wound up per se, the Gwyneth Cowing Foundation, which was the financial side of the operation, was continuing and they were taking on the freehold of the cottage and were not going anywhere. He thought we could be faced with a situation where the rest of the land was still being held by the Gwyneth Cowing Foundation whose principals had made it clear they wanted to make as much money as possible. Yes, there were family members who would benefit at the end of the day, but the primary thing was to keep the farm going for as long as possible. Normally when a tenant farmer retired, they would be replaced, and that was not happening here. Gordon thought there had been a report which said the farm was no longer economically viable which was attached to the planning application. A lady from the floor said that the report on the farm had only considered animal farming, not regenerative farming at all. Gordon said he was no expert on farming but the report about the farm’s economic viability was accepted by the planning officers and had not been challenged by the Planning Inspector.
The Chairman concluded the discussion by saying he understood the aspirations of the community who regretted that certain things were not happening but at the end of the day you needed somebody to take on projects like this and you needed money. We had to deal with what was in front of us, we could not summon up from the ether an investor who could turn it into something else. He asked for the discussion on Whalebones to continue outside the AGM.
9b UPDATE ON THE SPIRES
The Chairman said we were waiting for the new proposals to come forward from the developers and we would react to them once we had absorbed their implications.
Gordon said the Association from the very beginning had tried to get on the front foot and get ahead of the game in relation to these proposals and not just react to what BYM produced.
Gordon said that after the public event in The Spires, BYM said they would take on board what was said at that event and get back with revised proposals in mid-June. It was now mid-September and nothing had been forthcoming. Gordon thought that delay was good news. The Association had asked for a meeting with the Council’s planning team who were dealing with the scheme which, very unusually, had been agreed to. We had wanted the planners to understand what the difficulties were.
The feedback we had had from Cllr Edwards was that the planners had been in more discussions with BYM about our concerns. That was the last information we had. In many ways that was also good news, but no one knew what they would come up with. Our view of BYM was that all they were interested in was maximum profit, minimum input. He thought the original application had been a development about flats with the shopping centre as an afterthought; they had fitted the shopping centre around flats. He considered that what had been originally seen back in April would not work and would be a disaster for the town.
The Chairman said we would keep our members informed.
10. ANY OTHER BUSINESS
There was no other business to discuss. The Chairman thanked everybody for coming. The local councillors and David Longstaff from Barnet Vale were here and could answer questions. Tea and coffee were available outside the meeting room. (Applause)
END