Campaigners fighting to save Whalebones farmland from redevelopment in a last chance saloon with Mayor of London

After a decade of discussion and debate about building houses and flats on 14 acres of fields and woods at Whalebones, in Wood Street, Barnet, a final decision is about to be made by the Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, along with his planning advisers.

A last-minute petition urging the mayor to refuse planning permission has collected 1,300 signatures within the first three days of the launch of an online campaign, Last Chance to Save Whalebones.

Gina Theodorou, a long-standing campaigner against the loss of Green Belt land in and around Chipping Barnet, organised the petition

https://you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/last-chance-to-save-whalebones

She hopes that even at this late-stage Sadiq Khan might be persuaded to re-examine plans by Hill Residential to build 115 new homes.

Barnet Council’s strategic planning committee approved Hill Residential’s revised scheme in March this year.

The committee gave its approval despite a determined campaign of opposition which appeared on the point of succeeding.

Having heard last year from a wide range of objectors, including the Barnet Society and the then Chipping Barnet MP Theresa Villiers, a planning inspector disagreed with an earlier Barnet Council decision and rejected the application – an application which Hill Residential revised after losing the appeal and then resubmitted.

Planning officers from the Greater London Authority and the mayor are due to take the final decision on Monday 14 October to meet a deadline of 15 October.

There are three possible options: the mayor could stand by Barnet Council’s latest decision to allow the development to go ahead; direct the council to refuse the planning application; or finally call in the application so that the Mayor and the GLA planning team can look afresh at whether to permit development within the Wood Street conservation area.

The first application by the trustees of the Gwyneth Cowing Will Trust to build on the Whalebones farmland, opposite The Arkley public house, was made in 2015.

Passionate appeals were made earlier this year to convince Barnet Council to prevent the loss of a nature-rich habitat in a much-prized conservation area but the Labour-controlled strategic planning committee agreed by five votes to three that the advantages of Hill Residential’s revised scheme outweighed any possible harm.

Gina Theodorou, a founder member of the Quinta Village Green Residents Association, said she had been a long-standing opponent of the plans to redevelop the Whalebones fields and woods.

She thought it well worth making a last-minute attempt to see if Sadiq Khan could be persuaded to rethink the application.

Campaigners have welcomed what they say is the continuing support of Theresa Villiers, who is an Arkley resident, and they hope that even at this late stage that her successor, Dan Tomlinson, Labour MP for Chipping Barnet, might give his support to the Last Chance to Save Whalebones campaign.