2:53pm Tuesday 31st January 2006
Further to my letter about the planning application to build a car park on Green Belt land on the boundary between the cricket and football grounds and on the public green open space at Underhill, which you kindly published on January 19 (Club must respect planning law'), you unfortunately omitted an important paragraph.
This ran: "It is worth noting that the London Fire and Emergency Planning Authority is satisfied with current (safety) arrangements, so that while the council would naturally always be open to improving public safety further, there is no need to do so in this case."
It is clear, therefore, that this planning application is not about safety, and hardly about disabled parking, since only two such spaces are envisaged.
It is ironic that while on match days two disabled drivers would be able to park in the club's planned car park, any disabled residents in Westcombe Drive are currently barred from parking outside their homes, because of the new parking restrictions.
Since the car park proposed in the current planning application is clearly much the same as that envisaged in the football club's Working Together document to significantly develop the Underhill stadium complex, it is my personal opinion that the club should make its real intentions clear to local residents at Underhill and to the council.
Peter Sawyer
secretary, BRASS (Barnet Residents Against a Second Stadium)
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