Government plans to curtail the influence of local politics on major planning decisions, and instead to professionalise the assessment process in most cases, are both welcome and overdue.
Lem Bingley, PW editor
Two major developments in Barnet have been instructive. Both schemes were considered by Labour-run Barnet Council’s Strategic Planning Committee in December 2025 – notably, hot on the heels of housing secretary Steve Reed’s pledge to call in all refused schemes offering more than 150 new homes.
Both schemes were recommended for approval by planning officers. Both were rejected by the council’s nine-member committee 8:1.
Reed didn’t intervene because both were subsequently called in for consideration by London’s mayor. And at the end of May, both were duly approved following extensive deliberations by deputy mayor for planning Jules Pipe.
Call me a cynic, but it’s not hard to imagine that some councillors may have indulged in passing the buck
The first scheme, Arada London’s Great North Leisure Park, proposes a 1,485-home mixed-use neighbourhood in Finchley. Full plans were submitted in January 2025, almost a year prior to refusal.
The second, a High Barnet station regeneration scheme proposed by Barratt London and Places for London, aims to deliver 283 homes. Its plans were lodged with the council at the end of June, about five months prior to refusal.
To these delays, the mayoral call-in process has added another six months of finger-drumming for the developers.
While it’s impossible to know what went through the minds of committee members, we can look at the circumstances and hazard a guess.
Barnet has traditionally been a Conservative stronghold, run by the Tories from the 1960s until 2022, when Labour wrested control for the first time. The six Labour and three Conservative members of the committee will have been amply aware that elections were looming in May.
Both of the Barnet schemes faced organised local opposition. The Arada scheme received 370 planning objections out of 401 public comments; the Barratt scheme 675 objections out of 770 comments. Many submissions used identical form letters.
Two of the committee members didn’t stand for re-election in May. The other seven did. Of those, three Labour and three Tory councillors from the committee succeeded in keeping their seats. One lost. It’s not hard to imagine that a record of voting against unpopular developments might go down well on the doorstep.
Call me a cynic, but it’s also not hard to imagine that some councillors may have indulged in passing the buck, anticipating that refusal would lead to both schemes being scooped up by the mayor’s office. That is just my opinion, I should emphasise.
Approving both schemes in a marathon session on 27 May, Pipe was unapologetic. “There is a very clear and urgent need to deliver more homes and particularly genuinely affordable homes if we’re to tackle the housing crisis,” he noted. “While I commend Barnet for its record on housing delivery, that does not mean that London can afford to leave brownfield sites underused.”
Following this bout of political football, the developers can press on. Assuming their schemes are still viable, of course.