The Minchenden Oak Garden is currently closed to the public.
This is due to the findings of a tree survey implemented by Enfield Council which has identified safety issues with the Minchenden Oak tree.
The Friends Group have requested a copy of the tree report which recommends removal of a substantial number of the Minchenden Oaks branches. Once we have the report we will be able to obtain an independent second opinion.
We will be organising a meeting once the tree report has been received and studied.
Past Posts
Letter from Pinkham Way Alliance
Dear SGA members,
I’m very grateful to your Committee for allowing the Pinkham Way Alliance to contact you directly.
I’m writing to ask you to sign our petition to halt the30-year NLWA waste contract for North London (please click on the link below). An important factor in a petition’s success nowadays is the spreading of the message. If you do sign, I urge you to pass this letter on to family, friends and neighbours, and to any networks you have in any of the seven N London councils – Enfield, Barnet, Haringey, Camden, Islington, Waltham Forest and Hackney.
http://www.change.org/en-GB/petitions/halt-the-3-billion-waste-contract-for-north-london
If you feel strongly enough to collect signatures locally, please download our petition kit from the PWA website – click on http://www.pinkhamwayalliance.org/ and you will find the link on the home page.
In our opinion, and in the opinion of waste professionals we have met, the contract is, at 30 years, far too long to be realistically based, and carries high financial risk for the councils, and for 1.7 million N London residents, at a time when there is continuing pressure on local expenditure. (You may recall the recent spending review cut the central government grant to local councils by 10% in 2015/16)
Rather than explain the background more fully, only for you to click on the link and have it explained all over again, may I direct you to the www.change.org site, which is hosting the petition, by clicking on the link above.
Thank you for your time taken in reading this. Please sign the petition – and please pass it on.
With kind regards,
Stephen Brice
Chair – Pinkham Way Alliance.
4th July 2013.
Pinkham Way URGENT RESPONSE TO NLWP CONSULTATION ON NEW PLAN
URGENT REQUEST FOR ACTION
Deadline: Friday 7 June 2013
You will recall that we have been supporting the Pinkham Way Alliance in their successful campaign to protect the Pinkham Way nature conservation site from waste development. Work has now begun on the new North London Waste Plan. The Pinkham Way site was included in the last (failed) plan which we objected to. The seven North London Councils, who are developing the new waste plan between them, have asked for our views on what should be in the new plan. We would like to let them know that we do not consider it is appropriate to develop a waste facility on the Pinkham Way site. There is no document that we are being asked to consider at this time. That will not appear until summer 2014, when there will be a formal consultation.
It is important we all comment to Archie Onslow at feedback@nlwp.net or by post to Archie Onslow North London Waste Plan Camden Town Hall Argyle Street London WC1H 8EQ. See draft sample letter below to assist you to respond. Links to more information can be found at the end of the draft letter.
Dear Mr Onslow,
I do not agree that the information generated through the preparation of the previous NLWP is a useful starting point from which to develop the new plan. What is needed now is a completely fresh approach. My comments are set out below under the headings you have identified.
Content of the local waste plan: The plan should provide for an incremental strategy of smaller plants eg building as and when needed, instead of the previous proposal which was to build three large plants up front. The weakness of that plan was evidenced by the announcement in December last year that there was no longer a need for one of the planned MBTs. The Plan must allow for the fast changing and improving technological advances in dealing with waste. An incremental strategy would allow for that and would avoid the risk of wasted public funds.
Attitudes to waste have changed radically. Waste is now regarded as a store of resources for re-use. Although the waste hierarchy was mentioned in the previous Plan, it did not appear to be central to it. The waste hierarchy should be the main driver of the plan, ie reduce (Prevention), reuse (repairing, refurbishing, etc for reuse), recycle (turning waste into new a substance eg composting), recovery (eg anaerobic digestion, incineration/energy recovery, gasification and pyrolysis which produce energy) and only as a last resort, disposal.
All waste management should aim at moving further up ‘the hierarchy’. If properly implemented this should reduce residual waste and therefore the need for new residual waste disposal sites. Current indicators are that recycling targets will rise from 50% to 70%. Rigorous reassessment of the waste projections should therefore be undertaken and critically reviewed throughout the development of the plan.
The plan period should be realistic and clear. It is unrealistic to forecast too far into the future and certainly not for a period of 30 – 40 years. The plan should not reach conclusions about anything beyond the end of the plan period. While it is necessary to take into account the North London Waste Authority’s (NLWA) needs, these should not have the over riding influence that was all too obvious in the previous plan. It is for the seven North London Councils to decide how they wish to manage all of their waste, (including residual waste, which they are obliged to send to the NLWA for onward disposal). It is for them to decide what waste policies they wish to adopt (including policies on location of waste sites). The Councils’ waste plan should drive the NLWA’s arrangements for waste disposal and identification of sites, not the other way around.
The need for new waste facilities.
Existing designated waste sites and waste transfer sites should be protected, and every effort made to reorientate or intensify their use. The plan should identify which of the existing sites are suitable for reorienting or intensification. Residents would welcome improvements and upgrades to badly managed, and unsightly existing sites and the Plan should encourage that.
Consideration should be given to the potential use of spare MBT capacity in the UK , Germany and Holland , before developing new sites in London . Eunomia’s ‘Residual Waste Infrastructure Review’ published in 2012 found that overall in the UK there is existing spare capacity (not including sites with planning consent waiting to be constructed). Some London waste companies have already begun to send waste to plants in Holland (using water and rail transport to do so).
New un-designated waste sites should only be considered for inclusion in the plan as a last resort and should be required to have direct access to suitable rail and/or water connections, ie, adjacent to the site itself. New undesignated sites should only be included if the relevant borough has decided, at Cabinet level that it is potentially suitable for waste use, after consideration of a report setting out all relevant information about the proposed site, its surrounds and the impact of doing so on the borough’s other planning policies. This should be done in a transparent way, with proper local consultation, so that concerns and objections can be dealt with at an early stage in the plan process.
The ‘sequential test’ for sites should be expanded to include an additional test ie that it can be demonstrated that there is no spare capacity within a radius of xx miles from the proposed new site. The policy should be clear that the sequential test will be strictly applied.
The characteristics of a site suitable for waste use
Green sites, eg open spaces and sites with ecological value should not be included in the Plan. These should be considered “showstoppers”. For example, Pinkham Way is totally unsuitable for waste use. This site has regenerated into a valuable site of importance for nature conservation over the past 50 years (SINC No 1 Borough Importance). It shares a boundary with Hollickwood Park – another valuable SINC and with Muswell Hill Golf course which is designated Metropolitan Open Land – a suite of three valuable open spaces in the borough of Haringey. It would be hard to think of a more unsuitable site in North London . The London Plan definition of brownfield land or previously developed land (PDL) excludes land like Pinkham Way . The policy makers positively excluded it because they recognised not only the rare biodiversity value of such sites, but that these sites could only be transformed by nature doing its job over a long period.
Site Scoring
It is unacceptable to carry over the previous scoring system given the significant number of objectors who identified major defects and inconsistencies in that scoring system. There needs to be a radical review of the scoring. The criteria for a particular score must be clear and scoring must be transparent, consistent, and with no double counting, no ‘marking up’. Negative scores should not be marked as positives. All scores given, and all changes to scores, should be justified and formally recorded and a proper audit trail should be kept so that it is possible to quickly identify the origin and reason for any particular score on any site. Most importantly, scoring should NOT be a desk exercise. All potential new sites must be subjected to a personal, on site physical assessment of the site itself by the evaluating officer/consultant, including of all the surrounding environs and full notes should be recorded for later reference.
Proposals for waste sites
The London Plan identifies existing waste management sites and designated Preferred Industrial Locations as being particularly suitable for waste management and recycling. It envisages that land in strategic industrial locations will provide the major opportunities for locating waste treatment facilities but recognizes that some boroughs may have to look at locally significant industrial sites as well. Annex 3 of The London Plan lists nine strategic industrial locations within the seven North London boroughs. Is it not possible to find a space within one of those for any new waste sites that might be needed?
Policies
Policy NLWP 1 is about safeguarding and protecting existing sites. It should not include the new sites identified in Schedule C.
Schedule C sites should have a separate policy. The Policy should be clear that before sites in Schedule C can be developed, a strong case must be put showing it is absolutely necessary. Schedule C should be considered “the Schedule of last resort”. Perhaps Policy NLWP 2 could be used as a basis for an additional policy for new sites.
Any policy for new sites should require a developer to demonstrate that a) there is a demonstrable need for a new site, and b) no suitable sites are available in Schedules A and B. This new policy should also have an additional test, eg that there is no existing spare waste capacity within xx radius of the proposed new site. This would give a clear message that new sites should be taken as a very last resort.
Policy NLWP 4 should include some reference to health conditions and impacts
I hope this is helpful
Yours sincerely
North Circular Road Area Action Plan
The proposal involves a substantial number of densely populated residential units adjacent to the North Circular on land previously designated for widening the A406. Public consultation is open until Wednesday 29th May, details can be accessed on www.enfield.gov.uk/ncaap .
Minchenden Oak Gardens
The Southgate Green Association (SGA) and The Friends of Minchenden Oak Gardens have commissioned the first of a series of limited edition porcelain mugs, illustrated by local artist Pauline Hazelwood. These are now available in local shops and will be on sale at the May Day Fayre or through the web site at a cost of £5-00 each.
Pinkham Way
SGA have supported The Pinkham Way Alliance in their on going representations to The North London Waste Authority, The Planning Inspectorate, and Local Councils against the use of the site for Waste Transfer and processing . The first plan has been shelved however the preparation of a new North London Waste Plan is now underway. Have your say by responding to the ‘have your say’ section of the NLWP website.
Member Email addresses
Once again, we ask that if you have an email address and you haven’t given it to us, please do so. We won’t pass it on to anyone, and it is a quicker, cheaper and more environmentally friendly way for us to contact you.
Walker School Expansion – URGENT
Walker School Expansion- Statutory Notice for increasing Pupil numbers has now been posted on the school gates and in the Enfield Gazette on November 14th.
SGA are still considering comments but here’s what you need to know and can do:
Here is the FULL statutory notice with information about the immediate local context. There is also the report of the Walker School Consultation meetings and comments – November 2012. Please read both. Consultation is underway as to whether or not the school should expand.
If you decide to comment, please consider including:
Whether or not you attended any meetings about the expansion of Walker, or pre-planning meetings and in what capacity, i.e. resident, parent, waiting list parent, former parent
Whether or not the demand for LOCAL (as opposed to Enfield as a whole) places were addressed sufficiently for you to make an informed comment.
Whether or not the two separate processes of the principle of expansion and how that might be achieved on a confined site were clear to you.
Please send copies of comments to your local cllrs and MP.
September 2012 Update
Ground Force Day
This year’s Ground Force day will take place on Saturday September 22nd between 10.30am and 12.30pm. Please join us if you can for our annual clean up of the Conservation Area. Offers of help to Denise Gandhi (8886 3632) or just come along and pick up bags, brooms etc from a table which will be placed by the stocks (near the roundabout). This year we plan to focus on tidying up Minchenden Oak Garden, as well as a general litter pick of the area. Sadly, SGA has been banned from tending the roundabout on Health and Safety grounds.
Update on Proposed Waste Processing Plant at Pinkham Way
At the hearing of the North London Waste Plan a few weeks ago the Inspector found that the Plan was legally unsound. The North London Waste Authority had failed to cooperate with adjacent boroughs outside the capital which receive a significant proportion of the Authority’s waste. The Authority now has to withdraw the existing plan and start again or try to fix the problem.
At a hearing in February the Inspector refused to allow LB Haringey to redesignate the Pinkham Way site as industrial land. Haringey’s Core Strategy (renamed Strategic Policies) is now open for consultation on the Inspector’s changes to the proposed Policies. We will keep members informed of developments.
Minchenden Oak Garden
A plan has been submitted to LB Enfield for Community Funding for the proposed refurbishment of Minchenden Oak Garden. The plan can be seen on the SGA website (www.southgategreen.org.uk).
The intention is to make the garden more accessible and attractive without destroying its present character, and it is hoped that SGA members and other community groups will wish to be involved in the preparatory work. For further information or to offer help, contact SGA Chair Chris Horner on 8886 7833
Subscriptions
Subs are now due for 2012/13. Your subs keep the Association going and contribute to improvements within the Conservation Area. So if you’re not up-to-date with your subscription please would you drop a cheque for £10 to the Secretary at the address below.
Update on the proposal for a Waste Processing Plant at Pinkham Way
Background update
North London Waste Authority (NLWA) and Barnet Council submitted an outline planning application to Haringey Council at the end of May 2011. The application was for a 300,000 tonne Mechanical Biological Treatment (MBT) Waste facility for the NLWA and a vehicle depot for Barnet’s refuse and transport vehicles. Legal challenges were put to Haringey about the status of the application and eventually Haringey conceded that the application could not be validated. Barnet, NLWA and Haringey eventually agreed the application would be put on hold until after the North London Waste Plan Examination in Public has taken place (currently due summer 2012).
We know now that Private Finance Initiative (PFI) funding for the Pinkham Way Waste Plant was withdrawn from NLWA in October 2010 on the grounds that “on reasonable assumptions, these projects will no longer be needed in order to meet the 2020 landfill diversion targets set by the European Union….” So the question now arises as to where NLWA/developers will get funding, especially in this economic climate. http://www.defra.gov.uk/news/2010/10/20/changes-to-pfi-programme/.
We also recently became aware that that NLWA has completed the purchase of part of the Pinkham Way site, without the benefit of planning permission. What will they do with it if they don’t get permission for a waste plant, or indeed if they find it is not suitable for any type of development (see more below)? Was this a sensible use of just over £12 million of public money?
NLWA Procurement Process – delays and withdrawals
The NLWA Procurement process has not been smooth. There have been delays, and bidders have been withdrawing. There are now only two companies left to battle it out for a major £1 billion ‘fuel use’ contract, after US incineration company Covanta decided to ‘suspend’ its bid in February this year. The company was one of three bidders to be shortlisted in April 2011 for a 30-year ‘fuel use’ deal to burn 250,000-300,000 tonnes-a-year of solid recovered fuel (SRF) produced from residual waste, alongside Veolia and a consortium involving energy giant E.ON and Wheelabrator who are now the only two left in the process.
Alongside the fuel use deal, NLWA is also procuring a long-term ‘waste services’ contract. This is for the provision of recycling, composting, residual waste treatment, SRF production, transport and Household Waste & Recycling Centre services. Following the withdrawal of SITA UK Ltd in 2011, just two companies are also left in the running for this contract, which is worth approximately £3 billion. These are: Veolia and a consortium involving FCC and Skanska. http://www.nlwa.gov.uk/procurement/fuel-use
The two contracts will need to be aligned, and a number of issues flow from that, for example, what happens if one or other contractor does not perform as expected, who picks up the shortfall? Are the 7 North London boroughs fully aware of what that means over the life of the contract? What impact will it have on our council tax bills if it doesn’t work out?
The North London Waste Plan
Consultation on the North London Waste Plan (NLWP) closed in July 2011. Amongst other issues with the plan, major deficiencies were found in the technical report supporting the selection of Pinkham Way. We believe that had the scoring been done correctly, Pinkham Way would never have been included as a potential site. The NLWP was due to be submitted by Sept 2011. It was finally submitted on 28 February 2012. There will be an Examination in Public (EiP) by an Independent Planning Inspector to determine whether the plan is sound. The Examination in Public is likely to take place in June or July 2012. More information on this is available on the NLWP website http://www.nlwp.net/examination/examination.html
Barnet Council seems set to win on all fronts if the Pinkham Way selection is confirmed. They will free up their Mill Hill site (currently being used for their transport depot), for a new housing development opposite the Tube station. This not only gets rid of their noisy nuisance into Haringey but also releases prime housing land which will produce a nice financial boost to Barnet. Plus they’ve already been paid £12 million for only part of the site at Pinkham Way which they have never been able to use, which has access difficulties, and which doesn’t have planning permission for anything let alone a waste plant.
Report from Re-Examination in Public of Haringey’s Core Strategy February 2012
Haringey’s Core Strategy was also challenged last Wednesday (22nd) at a second Examination in Public into Haringey’s plan. In particular, their proposal to change the designation of Pinkham Way from Employment land to Locally Significant Industrial Site (LSIS).
The change of use appears to have been stimulated by pressure from NLWA, who not only sent Haringey a long letter in June 2010 requesting a number of changes to their CS, but also held meetings with them. The contents of the June letter indicates a clear intention to get the necessary changes to Haringey’s policy to ease the planning application through the planning process and to ease the NLWP through the EiP. The London Plan has identified SIL (Strategic Industrial Locations) and LSIS (Local Strategic Industrial Sites) as being suitable for waste facilities. Employment Land would not be a natural candidate although it possibly could be if the right case was made out, but it would be harder to prove. It would make it much easier if Pinkham Way was designated LSIS so that it was clearly in the category of sites identified in the London Plan as being suitable for waste facilities.
Under some tough questioning, by Paul Singleton (a Planning Consultant retained by the Pinkham Way Alliance), and by Evelyn Ryan (SGA committee member), and by the inquiry Inspector, Haringey conceded a number of important points:
(a) that Pinkham Way was not an established industrial site as they had claimed in their supporting plan documents;
(b) that Pinkham Way was “not suitable for 24 hour use”
(c) that if Pinkham Way was not designated LSIS it would make little difference because the existing Employment Land designation would allow a Waste facility application to be considered anyway;
(d) that the removal of the existing Employment designation from Pinkham Way would have little practical impact on their employment land availability as there was no actual floorspace on the site;
Evelyn Ryan submitted written evidence, with supporting photographs and plans (some obtained under the Freedom of Information Act), showing that Pinkham Way should not be categorized as brownfield or previously developed land because it falls within the exceptions to the definition of brownfield/previously developed land set out in the London Plan. This specifically excludes “land that was previously developed but where the remains of the permanent structure or fixed surface structure have blended into the landscape in the process of time (to extent that it can reasonably be considered as part of the natural surroundings)”. She argued that the Pinkham Way site falls squarely within the exception and is now in fact greenfield land. The Council’s response was not convincing, and they did not challenge the evidence submitted.
The Inspector asked the Council what the implications would be for the NLWP if Pinkham Way was not brownfield land and the Council said “we would have to take advice from the North London Waste Plan manager. There would be some implication but we would have to discuss it” In other words, there would be an impact, because the London Plan directs waste authorities to allocate sites for waste in a particular order, first allocating industrial sites and then locally significant industrial sites, brownfield sites etc. Sites which are greenfield and SINCs would be the last to be considered suitable for waste development and then only in very exceptional circumstances.
The council chamber and public gallery were packed for most of the day until the debate on Pinkham Way finished at about 5.30pm. The Inspector was quite impressed with the turnout because he commented on it more than once. A big thank you to those who attended. It was a remarkable day. The outcome of the hearing will be known when the Inspector publishes his report at the end of April/early May 2012.
It was mentioned during the EiP hearing that Coppets Wood (opposite Pinkham Way but in Barnet) has the same history as Pinkham Way (former sewage works – same period) and is now a nature reserve managed by the local community. It was also mentioned that a Village Green application had been lodged with Haringey Council by one of the residents who lives adjacent to the Pinkham Way site. We await the outcome of that application.
North Circular Action Area Plan – Enfield Council
Some discussion took place about the North Circular Action Area Plan currently being developed by Enfield Council (some of it is already implemented). The millions of pounds of public money spent on upgrading the NCR would be wasted if Pinkham Way were redeveloped as a Waste Site because the improvements would be overwhelmed by the additional congestion caused by more than 1,000 trips per day by waste trucks using the proposed waste plant and depot. A good response to Enfield’s consultation on this action plan would be useful and we would urge everyone to have a look at the Enfield website to see what is being proposed for the area around the NCR. Enfield is one of the 7 North London boroughs who comprise the NLWA and therefore are in a position of possible conflict about whether to support or oppose the NLWA plans for Pinkham Way. This might be a useful focus to raise with your local Enfield Councillors.
Future co-ordination of our efforts
At a recent briefing meeting with the SGA committee members, David Burrowes MP agreed to hold another public meeting once the Localism Act is on the statute book. There was agreement about the importance of involving heads of local schools. It is possible that under the Act the community may be able to put together a bid for the land. However, there would be the difficulty of determining its value in the absence of planning consent. However, eco-system analysis, developed primarily as a Treasury evaluation tool, might facilitate valuation of the site.
Details of the Examination in Public of the NLWP will be notified when we know more.
© Southgate Green Association