Protecting the public interest (From Times Series)

Protecting the public interest

9:58am Friday 3rd September 2010 in

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Readers will be pleased to hear the developers behind the massive Brent Cross scheme have paid for 500 telephone calls to residents. But this “independent market research” has been using highly leading questions.

The developers claim there is nothing unusual, but the whole point of market research is to discover opinions and knowledge from the public, not plant ideas in the public’s minds.

We are told the 500 telephone calls were not a PR exercise, but we need to see the questions.

Brent Cross shows the worst of planning methods in Britain.

I have been privileged to see a folder of Brent Cross documents dating from 2001, which included plans for a rapid transit system from Hendon to West Hampstead, and the possibility of high-quality public transport.

How did we get from there — a scheme full of promise — to the traffic-congestion, quick-profit, mega-scheme we have now?

I have nothing against private companies making profits from development, but it must be in a framework that local government, not a developer, dictates. That is the only way to protect the public interest.

If Barnet isn’t interested, then we could have a development corporation, like in “new towns” around London after the Second World War, or in Docklands during the Eighties.

As it is, the greedy Brent Cross developers keep insisting: “We are around for the long term.” I’m afraid that may be true.

John Cox, Chelsea Close, Harlesden