We don’t need another mega mall

Barnet Borough Council plans to demolish their homes in order to make way for the overdevelopment of the area to build a much larger mega-mall and luxury housing.

Even those who bought their homes have been served with compulsory purchase orders and they tell me the amount they are being paid will not enable them to buy a new home in their community.

Many of these people have lived on the Whitefields Estate for generations and they are the heart of our community.

Secure tenants will lose their secure tenancy, they lose the right to buy and to manage their homes, and also they lose the right to succeed (which lets families stay in a family home when the person named on the tenancy dies).

They have not been told yet who their new landlord will be, but they know the rents will be unaffordable by most as they will be higher in new properties and also Barnet Council recently voted in a rise in so-called ‘affordable rents’ from 30 per cent of market rate to 80 per cent of market rate.

Affordable rents should be based on the income of local people, and it’s totally unacceptable that people in our community should have their homes demolished while also being priced out of the area.

I have been told that homes are even being demolished purely to have a building site in this area in order to construct the ‘living bridge’ over the North Circular.

The building site could be located on the other side of the North Circular, where there is brownfield site, or the bridge could be built ‘in situ’.

I’m sure the community of Golders Green would join me in saying we would rather not have this bridge if it means our friends and neighbours are to have their homes demolished.

At a time when we are often told a sense of community is becoming rare, it seems astonishing that such an important community is being damaged and dispersed.

We don’t need another mega-mall with all the additional traffic it will bring, meaning the roads are being widened, despite already being highly polluted. We need our vibrant communities and regeneration should mean refurbishing or rebuilding homes for the existing community at prices they can afford.

There is brownfield site near Brent Cross Shopping Centre for additional housing and that kind of land could be used in a much better way. There is no need to encroach on the homes of well-established communities.

I hope readers of this newspaper will see past the glossy images of a refurbished Brent Cross and join me in asking for the residents of Whitefields Estate to be allowed to stay together as part of our community at truly affordable rents.

Without this kind of affordable housing, London is losing long-term residents, including key workers such as teachers and nurses who can’t manage the exorbitant rents and house prices.

We must stop destroying our social housing and passing land to private property developers.

Adele Ward

The Drive, Golders Green