Guest Blog - The One Promise Barnet Council Won’t Make About Edgware’s Transport Hub - by Anuta Zack

 

The One Promise Barnet Council Won’t Make About Edgware’s Transport Hub

Barnet Council says safety is a priority.

So residents asked for a very simple reassurance.

Before demolishing Edgware’s transport hub — the bus station, the garage, the interchange used by thousands of passengers every day — confirm that the replacement infrastructure can actually be built safely. Not eventually. Not theoretically. Actually. It sounds like the easiest promise in the world to make. And yet Barnet Labour Council refuses to make it.

Planning Is Complicated. This Question Isn’t.

Planning debates are usually complicated.  People argue about density, housing numbers, transport capacity, retail space, sunlight, wind, viability and a hundred other things. The Broadwalk redevelopment proposal has triggered all of those debates. Reasonable people can disagree about them. But sometimes a planning question is extremely simple. Before demolishing Edgware’s transport hub, can the council demonstrate that the replacement they are proposing can actually be built safely? Not after demolition. Not “once the details are worked out”. Before. And yet that simple reassurance has not been given.

One Sentence Could Settle This

In meetings and conversations councillors and officers say what you would expect. Safety matters. Standards will be high. Nothing unsafe would ever be built. All comforting words. But words cost nothing. If safety really is the priority, the obvious step would be to put the principle into writing as a planning safeguard: 

Nothing is demolished until regulators confirm the replacement transport infrastructure can be built safely. One sentence. Thirty seconds of drafting. Problem solved. So why hasn’t it happened?

A Project With No Real Precedent

The replacement being proposed is extraordinary. It involves placing roughly 200 electric buses in a large underground depot, with high-density residential towers directly above it. Supporters call this innovation. Another word might be experiment. Electric bus depots exist, of course. But they are generally surface-level facilities serving operational sites. They are not large subterranean garages with thousands of residents living directly above them.

In the UK there are no clear precedents for dense housing built above a major underground electric bus depot. Internationally, the picture does not look much different. Electric bus depots can be found, but they are overwhelmingly ground-level facilities, not dense residential developments constructed over large subterranean fleets of electric buses. There are reasons why developments like this are rare. Large concentrations of electric vehicles introduce a known risk: lithium-ion battery fires and thermal runaway.

These incidents are uncommon, but when they occur they behave very differently from conventional fires. They burn hotter, they can reignite and they are notoriously difficult to control in enclosed spaces.  None of this proves the project cannot be engineered safely. But it does raise an obvious question.

If this really is pioneering infrastructure, shouldn’t the safety case be proven before demolishing the infrastructure that already exists?

After Grenfell, That Should Not Need Explaining

Britain has already learned what happens when safety assumptions run ahead of certainty. The Grenfell Tower fire showed what can happen when risks are treated as details that will somehow be resolved later. Edgware residents are not asking for impossible guarantees. They are asking for something much simpler. Before dismantling a transport hub that thousands of people rely on every day, confirm that the replacement can actually be built safely. That should be the starting point of any responsible planning decision.

Transparency Has Been Equally Enlightening

The same pattern appears when residents ask for basic transparency. Barnet has already sent documents to the Mayor of London as part of the Stage 2 planning process. Those documents underpin a decision that could permanently reshape Edgware’s transport infrastructure. Residents asked to inspect them. The council replied that it will consider the request in 20 days. The Mayor has 14 days to decide. In other words, the decision may be taken before residents are allowed to see the documents that informed it. If that sounds like transparency, it is a rather unusual version of it.

The Point of No Return

Large redevelopment projects rely on a simple fact. Once existing infrastructure is demolished, the pressure to complete whatever replaces it becomes overwhelming. At that point there is no going back. The town has already lost what it had. Which is exactly why the safeguard residents asked for matters so much. If the replacement infrastructure really can be built safely, confirming that before demolition should be straightforward. If it cannot yet be demonstrated, demolishing the transport hub first would leave Edgware taking a very large gamble indeed.

A Very Simple Question

Planning arguments about density and design will continue. But this issue is not complicated. Before demolishing infrastructure used by thousands of people every day, demonstrate that the infrastructure promised in its place can actually be built safely. At present that has not been done.  The London Fire Brigade has already raised concerns. There are currently no established building regulations for a development of this type.

Yet demolition of the existing transport hub is still on the table. Residents asked for one simple safeguard: do not demolish the hub until a safe, approved replacement is actually possible. It should have been the easiest promise in the world to make. The fact that Barnet Council still refuses to make it should worry anyone who assumes that common sense still plays some role in planning decisions. And it raises one final, uncomfortable question. If the replacement cannot yet be shown to be safely buildable, why is destroying the existing transport hub even being discussed?

Please sign the petition to stop it being demolished.

https://you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/stop-edgware-s-bus-station-and-bus-garage-from-being-demolished