The well-known retail expert Bill Grimsey has said that Government efforts to revive UK high streets are a resounding failure. Retail space is collapsing, but high streets are not gaining community uses instead.

Can someone in Barnet’s political leadership explain their decade-long determination to double the size of Brent Cross shopping centre? Won’t that suck even more life out of local communities across the borough, and make things worse?

Why is about £100million being spent to widen all the trunk roads around Brent Cross, just to make car access easier? Combine the two issues above, and you can see the empty shops and air pollution from traffic at Hendon Central. Do you want to sit there, drinking coffee at a pavement table, breathing nitrogen dioxide and diesel particulates?

John Cox

Chelsea Close, Harlesden