Green Belt protection special : Why you cannot trust the Conservatives to protect the Conservation area

Within the next few weeks you will receive a copy of the the Barnet Conservatives manifesto on the doorstep. I have been reliably informed that "protecting the green belt" will form a major part of their manifesto. Given that the words "Conservative" and "Conservation" share the first ten letters, you may think that in Mill Hill, they would care about protecting our green spaces. Let me show you a couple of pictures and a couple of links to newspaper articles. You can then make your own mind up.

Firstly the pictures. These two pictures are both of a field in Mill Hill. They are owned by the man who was elected Deputy Chairman of the Hendon Conservative Party, with special responsibility for membership and fundraising (an extremely popular chap in the Hendon Conservatives one might conclude). The only difference between the two pictures is that one was taken in 2008 and the other was taken in 2010.

BEFORE - Taken in 2008


See the lamb grazing in the background. Now look at how it looks today.

AFTER - Taken Jan 2010

Now, you may ask, in a green belt conservation area, would  planning permission be required for such a change? Well read this article in the local paper and see what actually happened.

http://www.times-series.co.uk/news/5000180.Council_says_children_s_farm_needs_planning_permission/

Sadly this isn't the first time that senior local Conservatives have decided that they don't need to apply to Barnet Council for planning permission for work on their property. If I was to ask you which Conservative, out of all of them should know the rules apply to them, I guess you'd say that the head of the Hendon and District planning committee should. The person who is responsible for making he decisions which affect the ordinary people. Read this article in the local paper.

http://www.times-series.co.uk/news/932954.No_permission_for____stealth____shed/

Now you might say that perhaps I'm being unfair. You might think that there are cases where it's OK to bend the planning rules a little bit. Maybe, for example if you had a sick two year old child and you urgently needed space for medical equipment to make life manageable? Well when someone is an ordinary Council Tax payer, the woman with the Stealth shed, Hendon and District Planning committee chief Councillor Maureen Braun takes a different view of planning rules - read this :-


http://www.times-series.co.uk/news/hendonnews/1859048.House_extension_for_disabled_child_refused_due_to_council_regulations__/

This is what Councillor Braun had to say about the families request for a loft conversion :-

We carefully considered this application, taking into account the difficult circumstances the family are in. However, the application was very far from what we could possibly allow under existing planning regulations.

Now what sort of view do you think Barnets other Conservatives took of Councillor Braun not following her own rules? They promoted her to Mayor the following year.  Indeed during his testamony to the Standards investigator, the Current Mayor of Barnet, Brian Coleman actually used the fact that I'd criticised Councillor Braun for not following planning rules as a reason for sending me an offensive email. For the record, I'd sent a letter to the local paper saying that Councillors should follow the rules themselves. The Times printed the letter.

So when you get your copy of the Conservative Party manifesto for the Council elections plonking down on your doormat and it says that they will protect the green belt, you may want to ask yourself this. Do I believe them? I know what my answer would be.