West Finchley Rules OK (From Times Series)

West Finchley Rules OK

1:22pm Tuesday 16th December 2008

• Print
• Email
• Comments(1)

It felt like half the population of West Finchley turned up to last night’s Finchley and Golders Green Planning Sub Committee.

Unlike the previous sub committee which finished in a record fifteen minutes we were in for the long haul.

Two planning applications in particular had attracted the ire of West Finchley local residents.

One was in Courthouse Gardens the other in West Avenue. Residents opposed to both developments addressed the Committee.

Now the time allowed is only three minutes per speech. So there is no time for waffle or even to develop a reasoned argument.

Last night one speaker opposing Courthouse Gardens got it just right. The public gallery broke into a spontaneous roar of approval as he finished. Reminded me of the cheers when Barnet scored their second goal against Gillingham at the week end.

Although the applications were being recommended for approval a majority of Councillors voted to refuse both the applications. Happy residents filed out the room.

The rest of the meeting was pretty much run of the mill. The Committee Chairman was a bit tetchy throughout. A bit of side show was a running duel between the Chair and another Committee member over trees, particularly Hawthorn Trees. Something to do with the Courthouse Gardens application The Chairman redeemed himself by generously proving seasonal drinks and nibbles at the end.

Finally, a post script to my previous blog, where I wrote about the cost of consultants. I had questioned the amount spent on Consultants at last week’s Cabinet and Overview Scrutiny Committee. The information is what is known as exempt. I was warned not to reveal the amount to the public. I was in effect “gagged “ A number of residents contacted me to try to persuade me to tell. One individual in particular has contacted me at least four times! As I said before my lips are sealed.

However I can reveal figures relating to another item I called in for scrutiny. This was the amount of money written off by the Council last month as bad debts. The total amount is just under £2million pounds.

The monies written off relate to Business Rates (the Government picks up the bill) but mainly social services charges. (Barnet takes the hit) The stand in cabinet member provided a reasonable explanation for a proportion of the money. But a high proportion of write offs in my view was not satisfactorily accounted for.

We were simply told the money was statute barred. This means that activity on the accounts had ceased over six years ago and so could not be legally recovered.

It was not clear whether this was due to systematic failures or a casual approach to recovery My confidence was not helped by one case in particular. thirteen thousand pounds had to be written off because the file had been lost!