Superhub approved by Barnet - what's next?

From NW2 Residents' Association

Barnet’s planning committee approved the application for an aggregates/spoil road/rail site at 400 Edgware Road, after hearing the planning officer recommend approval, residents, the Barnet & Camden London Assembly member and Barnet, Brent and Camden councillors speak against it and DB Cargo’s executive speak for it. Speakers were questioned by the committee but the chair, having announced that there would be no deferral, moved to a vote without further discussion. Six voted in favour and five against, apparently dividing by political party.

The application now has to be referred to the Mayor of London “for his final decision, known as a Stage 2 referral. The Mayor has 14 days to make a decision to allow the local planning authority decision to stand, to direct refusal, or to take over the application, thus becoming the local planning authority.” The last option is known as “calling in” the application and can take a while; the Mayor would hold a public hearing and issue a decision then or later. That initial 14-day deadline for the Mayor to decide whether to intervene starts from the formal referral to him by the borough. We don’t know how long that will take; we’ve heard of it taking up to six months but it might be that Barnet were ready to refer it immediately.

We hope the Mayor will engage and we will write to him.

Huge opposition to aggregate superhub expected at Barnet Planning Committee tomorrow

Barnet Planning Committee will be making a decision tomorrow on the aggregate superhub at 400 Edgware Road. The meeting is at 7pm at Barnet Town Hall, The Boroughs, NW4 4BG. There have been a huge number of objections to the planning application from Brent residents who will experience traffic and air pollution from the site and a big turnout of objectors is expected tomorrow.

DOCUMENTS 

PLANNING COMMITTEE AGENDA

PUBLIC EXHIBITION (Jan 2018)

Cricklewood Railway Terraces Residents Community Association have made a powerful case against the application. Click on bottom right corner to enlarge.

Vital questions on dust impact of Cricklewood Rail-Road Aggregate Superhub

The following article is republished with permission from the NW2 Residents' Association blog LINK
 

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The planning application for a road/rail superhub at 400 Edgware Road tells us

“it is estimated that a total of 370 – 570 Heavy Goods Vehicles (HGVs) could leave the site each day, to export aggregate” which could be “including sand and gravel” or “will depend on local demand and could consist of sand, ballast or MOT Type 1 road stone (mixture of stone fragments and fine particles)”, 

and there’s demand for cement too.

This stuff will be brought in by rail, stocked in piles, and loaded into HGVs. It’s dusty stuff and a dusty business handling it. So how much dust will there be?

In one of the 17 appendices, there are tables covering 42 different locations with all sorts of figures for current levels and predicted levels of NO₂ and PM₁₀ pollution from … traffic. Dust pollution from the unloading of trains, from the loading of HGVs and from the stockpiles, from the basic operation of the site – that’s not included. It’s left out of the calculations and there are no figures for dust levels at other aggregate sites.

We are told that the wind’s generally in a good direction, blowing from the south-west across the railway tracks, but often in a bad direction, blowing down from the north-east instead. We’re told that on average, the wind isn’t likely to ‘re-suspend’ dust – to actually pick it up – because

“approximately 57% of the time mean-hourly winds do not exceed moderate levels.”

That ‘moderate’ 57% includes the gusty hours when the wind’s rising and falling, and it happily ignores the 43% of the time that that mean-hourly winds do exceed moderate levels – often by quite a lot.

There will be rain, and mitigation measures: there’ll be sprinklers. Wheels will be washed. Drivers will be told to cover their loads.

“It is anticipated the dust impact during the operational phase will be minimised.”

What does ‘minimised’ mean? Politicians talk of minimising the tax burden and very occasionally shave a percent or two off – we still pay plenty. It seems we’re being told we have to accept ‘minimised’ dust pollution as part of our regeneration. It will annoy us but it will not be significant. Here’s what Appendix 13-1 says:

“Guidance recognises that, even with a rigorous dust management plan in place, it is not possible to guarantee that the dust mitigation measures will be effective all the time, for instance under adverse weather conditions. The local community may therefore experience occasional, short-term dust annoyance. The scale of this would not normally be considered sufficient to change the conclusion that the effects will be ‘not significant’.”

That last sentence is beautifully phrased. But what are we being told? That we will suffer, but that such suffering is usually written off as insignificant when people are planning giant dust-generating operations.

There will be monitoring, we’re told, and something will be done if there’s too much dust. How much is too much? We’re not told. That would open up the whole question of how much dust there will be, and nobody wants to say.

There’s more about the superhub on our page here. Do add your comments and share what you know about the proposal below, but if you want the council to listen, you’ll have to object on their website. The planning application is here; its reference number is 17/5761/EIA. You can add your comments and objections online there, or email the case officer Chloe.Thomson@barnet.gov.uk. The full site name is “Cricklewood Railway Yard, the land at rear of 400 Edgware Road NW2 6ND”. The deadline is 18 October 2017.

You could also copy local councillors in. Council elections are in May.

Barnet – Childs Hill ward
cllr.p.zinkin@barnet.gov.uk
cllr.j.cohen@barnet.gov.uk
cllr.c.ryde@barnet.gov.uk
Barnet – Golders Green ward
cllr.m.cohen@barnet.gov.uk
cllr.d.cohen@barnet.gov.uk
cllr.r.thompstone@barnet.gov.uk
Brent – Dollis Hill ward
cllr.parvez.ahmed@brent.gov.uk
cllr.liz.dixon@brent.gov.uk
cllr.arshad.mahmood@brent.gov.uk
Brent – Mapesbury ward
cllr.helen.carr@brent.gov.uk
cllr.lia.colacicco@brent.gov.uk
cllr.ahmad.shahzad@brent.gov.uk
Camden – Fortune Green ward
richard.olszewski@camden.gov.uk
flick.rea@camden.gov.uk
lorna.russell@camden.gov.uk