Brent Cross Cricklewood: trust has been shaken

Published: 9:59 AM December 4, 2009 Updated: 1:27 PM October 14, 2020

Anyone with trust in Barnet Council s commitment to putting the community first would have had that badly shaken if they attended last week s two-night planning committee session that approved the Brent Cross Cricklewood (BXC) application. Many opposing s

Anyone with trust in Barnet Council's commitment to putting the community first would have had that badly shaken if they attended last week's two-night planning committee session that approved the Brent Cross Cricklewood (BXC) application.

Many opposing speakers affirmed that they supported regeneration, but had encountered huge shared opposition to what is being planned.

"We are genuinely sorry" that not everyone agreed, said Jonathan Joseph, head of the BXC Partnership, but he was sure that the majority of residents supported the plans.

A government policy directive calls upon local authorities to "secure the highest viable" energy efficiency and emissions reduction. So, climate change should be an overriding objective, not giving way to Mammon and motor cars.

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One councillor said he understood the energy-from-waste (EfW) facility and chimney up to 140m high (for CO2 and other emissions) were needed to cut carbon emissions. Who persuaded him of this doublethink?

The BXC partnership claims a 60 per cent emissions cut from doing this, because it would cut out methane emissions from landfill. Yet those emissions will be cut anyway as government incentives reduce landfilling, and more organic waste goes to enclosed digestion. It is not necessary for this to burn or gasify residual waste. In fact that is largely a separate question.