Fairview portrays itself as a housing development company made of moral and ethical dreams. Their website states: “It makes perfect sense to reclaim brownfield sites”, these being “existing urban land that has fallen into disuse” so they can “preserve our precious landscape”. So how do Fairview justify building 135 housing units for hobbits on the Hendon Football Club (HFC) site? Easy. Just re-label it a brownfield site.

It does not seem to matter that HFC is actually a community green amenity and leisure asset that Barnet Borough Council and Arbiter & Montclare wilfully neglected so that it fell into a state of complete dereliction. It does not seem to matter that Fairview’s own flood risk assessment consultants state that “the majority of the existing site is greenfield”. Brownfield or greenfield, the point is almost legally moot: Few of our beloved green spaces are actually protected by law.

Fairview links the Brent Cross Cricklewood and HFC developments when it claims that their development will be “a successful addition to the BXC area”. They are correct in one respect: There are plenty of real brownfield and derelict sites that exist in Cricklewood, yet both developments will “successfully add” housing by building on our green and leisure spaces.

Barnet Council planners claim that Cricklewood will gain green space overall in the Brent Cross Cricklewood and HFC developments. This, despite the loss of HFC, one fifth of Clitterhouse playing fields, the Brent Terrace Triangles, the Cricklewood Town Centre space, Clarefield Park and all the green space surrounding the Whitefield tower blocks. Perhaps they attended the Harry Potter school of magical mathematics or employed a liberal sprinkling of lies, damned lies and statistics (or in this case, mathematics).

National and local politicians please note: to find a real solution to our housing crisis, please start by building on brownfield and derelict sites, not our very precious and ever-dwindling green and leisure spaces.

G Emmanuel

Brent Terrace