Hasmonean School expansion

Hasmonean School's proposals to take 15 acres of Green Belt land to accommodate their expansion plans were rejected this week by the Mayor of London. I welcome the saving of our Green Belt land. In my opinion Hasmonean School's proposals were an unnecessary grab of public land and their transport plan was not robust enough. Page Street residents in particular would have had unacceptable traffic problems at peak times and our currently open land  at Copthall would have been bulldozed and hidden behind a high security fence.


There is no doubt that Hasmonean School still need to redevelop. They are oversubscribed and badly need new school buildings. I would hope that Hasmonean will now consider seriously the options of either developing the existing Girls School site or to look elsewhere.


Another issue causing great concern to local residents near the school is traffic. The school needs to produce a far more robust and sustainable travel plan, one that will eliminate the need for private cars to pick up and drop off pupils. JFS run an extensive school bus network across North London. I would want to see similar proposals for any new plans for Hasmonean School and for them to make use of existing bus services as well as safe cycling proposals.


If all of this can be achieved, we will have a win-win situation for both the School and residents.

Barnet's Children's Services are Inadequate - OFSTED

I'm getting to the point where very little surprises me about Barnet's services to residents. However OFSTED's judgement of Barnet's Children's Services as Inadequate has shocked me to the core.

How can a council allow its services to deteriorate to such an extent that a Commissioner has now been sent in to run the Children's services directly.

The Councillors responsible for the service need to accept responsibility and resign. There's no excuse. If you are a regular listener to full council meetings then you will know that the Conservative Councillors spend more time making childish statements about the opposition rather than being constructive.

This situation is really beyond a joke and I hope that in May 2018 we will see a change of council. That's why I intend to run as a candidate for Mill Hill along with my Liberal Democrat colleagues. We need change and we need a compentent council. Enough is enough.