We wanted to share our view on the application made by Fairview Homes to build a new scheme at the Victoria Quarter (also known as the Gasworks).

The saga over the application made by Fairview Homes to build a new scheme at the Victoria Quarter (also known as the Gasworks).  over proposed developments for this site has gone on for many years, with the most recent chapter including your three Labour councillors working alongside the New Barnet Community Association (NBCA) to oppose a scheme that would have involved 539 units in 13 blocks ranging from 4 to 7 storeys high and, importantly, was also severely lacking in terms of design, affordability and environmental standards.

We celebrated alongside residents across the ward when the crack ‘Save New Barnet’ team defeated the application with the Planning Inspectorate ruling in our favour, and again when Fairview’s judicial appeal was turned down.

The good news is that our campaign has led to Fairview coming back with a new application which is less dense (486 units) and with 35% affordable, and better designed, albeit not exactly ‘beautiful’. The bad news is that we still can’t quite accept this proposal and have opposed it.

We do this with heavy heart: we know that the Gasworks site needs homes to relieve a local housing crisis which denies our young people and young families the ability to stay in the Borough; we also know that whichever of the two parties wins the next election, changes to planning laws is likely to become more pro-development and, therefore, if this scheme is rejected we could have a worse proposal rather than a better one; and we note the improvements to the aesthetic appeal in returning to a ‘finger bloc’ design from the previous less attractive approach.

However, we have worries about the liveability of the units which means that we can’t in good conscience accept this scheme and Cllr Radford has written to Fairview to ask them to sit down with councillors and the residents association in order to hammer out these details. So far we have yet to hear a positive reply to this request but remain open to doing so.

Our worries remain over the following:

• 20% of flats would be single-aspect, so cross-ventilation in hot weather would be impossible
• 25% wouldn’t meet adequate daylighting standards, affecting mental health
• 45% would require active cooling to meet the minimum guidelines on overheating, the running cost of which would not be included in their rent
• And most homes would depend on mechanical ventilation and heat recovery (MVHR). If MVHR is switched off, condensation, mould and poor air quality would result, causing damage to the building fabric and potentially serious health consequences for occupants

We would love to support a high-quality scheme which addresses these remaining issues. We invite Fairview to sit down with us to propose a development that we can all be proud to support.