Barnet Council Planning Committee votes to put my life at risk!

How much asbestos in the air you breath is a safe amount? How much arsenic? How much mercury? How happy would you be to find out that the planning committee at your council was more than happy to allow a development on a potentially highly polluted piece of land, which could expose you to serious health risks,  without even asking for a contamination report of the land? The reason? "We don't normally ask for a report for developments of this scale" even though the representative of the person submitting the plans said they'd be happy to do it.

The ex rail yard which is now my garden

So what am I on about? Well my next door neighbour submitted plans to erect a large building at the bottom of his garden, which will supposedly act as a "private office and gym". I have my suspicions that this is not his actual planned usage. There is a toilet and bathroom and it would make a lovely one bedroom flat. However, because the planning application says it is a "private office and gym", that is what it is.

Having been assured by Mill Hill Councillor Elliot Simberg that Barnet Council were not keen on back garden developments, Cllr Simberg took the trouble to bring the application before the planning committee.  I received a nasty shock when I saw the officers recommendations. I was startled to see that the council officers were recommending approval for a 46 sq metere outbuilding be put in a residential garden and had a whole list of objections prepared to raise at last nights planning meeting, I was completely horrified to see that the planning conditions, which I'd not had sight of before, exposed me and the rest of the street to potential serious physical harm.

My house and the rail depot in 1920

Let me share some background at this point. The bottom of both my garden and my neighbours garden were not originally part of our properties. Both were owned by British Rail until 1991. Before the M1 was built in the 1960's, the rear part of the garden was part of the Mill Hill Broodway goods yard. This was a busy good depot. building materials, chemicals, coal and other freight was transported via the depot. 

It was at it's peak between 1930 and the early 1960's, as Mill Hill was developed from a rural town into a busy suburb. There was quite a lot of industry in Mill Hill until the early 1980's, including the Rawlplug factory, the gasworks and dozens of small engineering companies. During the war, a large amount of munitions were made locally.  Most of the raw materials etc was brought in by rail until the early 1960''s. Unfortunately, associated with this was a lot of heavy industrial pollution. All manner of materials we now have stringent protocols for handling, passed through such goods yards. As such, when any developments are done on such sites, ground surveys are done and mitigation plans drawn up if such materials were found. 

My neighbour only acquired the plot where the outbuilding will stand earlier this year (rather annoyingly with my assistance, I am a good neighbour and he was less than frank with his intentions, but that's another matter). Given the problematic nature of the land, it was acquired by him for £500, as he knew of the potential for contamination and the risks and problems of building on it. When I acquired my plot, I was also made aware of this.  

There was a huge amount of asbestos around such sites. I grew up in Millway and we regularly found asbestos around our back garden. It was a popular material on railways in the steam era, when fire was an ever present problem. Many structures were built with it. It was also cold commercially at builders depots and waste was transported to landfil sites by rail, with contaminated spoil etc. When goods yards etc were raised to the ground, much of the detritus was simply buried. Gardens such as mine and my neighbours, potentially have all manner of such contaminents buried. In the case of the Mill Hill depot, this was done in the mid 1960's when the railway was replaced by the M1 Motorway. 

A boundary marker artefact from the railway in my garden

As much of this has been buried for nearly 60 years and there is a reasonable deposit of earth on top of the contaminents, I was not overly concerned about this aspect. I assumed that my neighbour would simply put a concrete base over the ground, leaving the contaminents undisturbed. When I saw the officers recommendations, I was horrified. They were insisting on screw pile foundations. This process involves drilling deep down into the soil to insert piles. This will clearly disturb any dangerous contaminents. 

The officers recommendations were only released with the papers a few days ago and I only saw them on Tuesday. It was clear to me that they hadn't checked the history of the site, or recognised that it was a former British Rail depot. I completely rewrote what I had to say tto the committee and asked that the council ask for a contamination report, and put the approval process on hold until this had been done and any necessary mitigations put in place. I pointed out that this was necessary for neighbours, building workers and the family of the neighbour planning the development. The agent for the neighbour stated that he had no objections to this, when speaking to the committee. 

To my amazement and horror, when the committee asked the planning officers they stated that "this is unneccessary for a building of this size" they gave now explanation. Do they not believe that handling asbestos, or arsenic, even in small amounts is dangerous? The committee, then passed the application without any extra conditions. 

Now I fully understand that the councillors and council officials may think that poisoning a blogger who regularly criticises them is a wonderful idea. To say they looked rather unchuffed to see me is a mild understatement. What does bother me is that my neighbour has young children, as do the neigbours down the road. Builders loading skips on the street etc, may be exposed to all sorts of things (and presumably be none the wiser). The cost of a profesional soil test starts at areound £300, a tiny price to pay. Now there may well be absolutely nothing to worry about, but none of us know Much as Barnet Council may love the idea of bumping me off, Asbestos kills you over a decade or two. Of course things like arsenic, which are also commonly found in contaminated railway land is more deadly, it is more likely to kill my neighbour, which would be very sad indeed. 

So lets sum up the facts.

1. The land was a former British Railways depot. This can be verified at the Land registry

2. Many such sites have serious land contamination and mitigation is required.

3. The only way to be sure that there are no dangerous substances is a proper soil test at the site.

4. Drilling piles as recommended by the council will bring to the surface any contaminated soil and substances.

5. The agent for the applicant was more than happy to perform a test.

6. Exposure to asbestos, arsenic, etc is extremely dangerous

7. Barnet Council planning officers do not think that such things are important.

I think that the officers and the councillors have been negligent in their responsiblilities. A simple and relatively cheap process would answer the questions and maybe add a month to the process. I cannot fathom why they made such an appalling and shameful decision. I have done all I could, I took an evening out of my life to explain the issue in detail. All of the evidence is there on the land registry records. I ask myself why they didn't do the sensible thing? The developer's agent had no issue with it. I cannot think of a sensible answer. 

I will be writing to the head of the planning committee to ask and CC'ing the CEO and Council Leader. My expectation is that they will not even bother replying, which seems to be the way the current administration runs the council.