A planning application for a highly-contested youth centre in a green space surrounded by houses in Harefield , has been approved by Hillingdon Council despite objection from residents and councillors.
More than 1,000 signatures were gathered against the plans , which came from Hillingdon Council itself, for a single storey youth centre, with a two-storey sports hall, with a new playground, car parking, lighting and fencing, on the green space on Ash Grove, Harefield.
Richard Barnes , a Harefield resident who was previously Deputy Mayor of London under Boris Johnson , and a deselected Hillingdon Conservative councillor who later defected to UKIP , spoke at the meeting which decided the youth centre's fate, on Wednesday (May 11).
He said: “I thought it was perverse that four councillors should determine what was good for Harefield, when the church, the resident's association, and 600 residents were against it.
“It's just a total overdevelopment of the site. They'd be cramming it in behind lord knows how many people in Ash Grove.
“When the houses were built there it was recognised that they needed a bit of green space for the kids to play around in and now they're finally going to build on it.”
Councillors have reached a 'perverse decision'
Mr Barnes will be supporting an appeal against the decision.
He said: “It is a Hillingdon application determined by Hillingdon councillors and I believe they've reached a perverse decision.
“We're taking it out of the hands of political objectives. Prior to the application being heard, or consultation the council was saying this is going to happen.
“It would appear it's all been totally pre-judged and the local residents count for absolutely nothing.
"It was significant that there wasn't one single Harefield councillor there. It's a disappointment."
There are two levels of appeal, one for the local administration to the ombudsman and then residents will be taking their case to the planning inspectorate.
The Major Planning Applications Committee approved the proposal despite a total of 114 letters of objection setting out issues including losing an amenity, traffic, parking, crime, emergency service access concerns. There were only five letters in support.
Hillingdon Council's final report states: “The proposal is considered to comply with current planning policies which seek to encourage enhanced community provision.
“Whilst some loss of open space would occur, justification for this has been provided such that, on balance, the benefits of the development are considered to outweigh this loss.”
Minds made up before the hearing, says petitioner
Lead petitioner and Ash Grove resident, Lisa Whicker, asked the committee to carefully consider the impact both to residents and the already exasperated traffic as they had not built anything like this in over 20 years, as it will be open 52 weeks a year.
Speaking after the hearing, he said: “I may as well have sat there naked. They'd made their minds up before we went in there.
“We had this Hillingdon People magazine put through our doors two days before the meeting basically advertising it.
“They won't be able to get a fire engine in there, they don't think a fire hose would reach the property and they don't know how they're going to get the bins out, but that wasn't grounds to turn the application down.
“With it open 52 weeks a year, we'll get no respite. Even with a nearby school you get respite in holidays but we get none of that.
“Cllr Yarrow said 'it doesn't quite fit, but like a shoe you get a shoe horn and you make it fit'".
The committee compared the plans to that of Northwood Youth Centre, with Ms Whicker saying she was told she “doesn't know what she was talking about".
She added: “It's a small single storey building which is the width of a house down Hallowell Road in Northwood since 1911 and for the record is used once a week on a Thursday - perhaps with those time scales in mind there wouldn’t be such heavy objections.”
“We are not against a youth centre – however we do feel 2.8 million pounds is being ploughed into this Youth Centre – Is this really money well spent on just one building?”
Cllr Tony Eginton, representing Barnhill for Labour, also believes the centre is in the wrong place.
He said: “The roads are very narrow and there's lots of parked cars and it's taking away, for quite some time, the only open space in that estate, which is used by families.
“We should be providing better youth service as it deteriorated over the last three or four years but it's the wrong place for that youth centre.
“It would be more sensible to try and use the facilities at Harefield Academy, which, because it's involved in sport, would be an ideal place.”
