Football club car park go-ahead
Barnet Council has granted planning permission to allow Barnet FC to carry out safety improvements and build a new car park, four months after the club first applied for the work to be done.
The council had blocked the £100,000 work to improve emergency access to Underhill stadium in Barnet Lane, Barnet, with legal red tape, going to the High Court in January to seek an injunction. The application was finally passed at a cabinet resources meeting on March 30.
Following the decision, a Tory candidate for May's local election claimed the decision was proof of the party's support for the club. Stephen Sowerby, who is standing in High Barnet ward, said: "Barnet's Conservative council is committed to working with Barnet FC. We have given them the green light to upgrade their facilities at Underhill, and we are committed to ensuring the Bees stay in the borough."
The Barnet FC chairman Tony Kleanthous hit back at the delay and Mr Sowerby's claims, saying: "It is an absolute joke. Council leader Brian Salinger is always going on about us putting in an application, but look at the trouble we have had just with the car park imagine if it was a whole stand. The council still hasn't lifted the injunction or given formal notice of the permission being granted."
A spokeswoman for the council said: "We were first aware of the matter in mid-December. We received a request from the club for planning permission and landlord's consent.
"On January 5, the cabinet resources committee discussed an urgent report regarding the landlord's consent. The committee decided that external valuers and solicitors should be engaged to handle the application. This meant the application was not heard in February, but was instead approved on March 30."
2:40pm Thursday 13th April 2006
Print 
Email this
What are these links for?
If you liked this article and would like to share it with others on the web who might be searching for good content we've made it easy for you to do it.
At the bottom of all articles, you'll see links to six sites. These sites - commonly called 'social bookmark' or 'social news' sites - have large communities of web users who share and rate interesting, useful and fun things on the web.
Clicking the links will automatically add the address of the story you are reading to one of these sites, letting you share it with others. Each site will ask you to register to share stories. Registration is free and once a member, you can store, recommend and search for stories that interest you.
More on Digg
More on del.icio.us
More on Furl
More on reddit
More on NowPublic/
More on Yahoo!
