Friday 24 October 2025 – Wait, What Are You Suggesting?
I do want to work with developers to create training and jobs for our residents on new developments. You might think from this diary that I’m trying to argue with all of them and brutalise them with logic. And a lot of the time I do work well with them and, without meaning to sound too grandiose, we do change people’s lives with new aspirations, qualifications, jobs and careers. I just don’t talk about these successes because that’s not what this diary is about.
And I get that what developers will provide in terms of money, jobs ringfenced for people they wouldn’t normally consider and go out of their way to train, even if it does support their industry generally if not themselves directly and immediately, is limited: they only want and can afford to give so much. But even if what some do contribute is the minimum needed in their planning obligations, if it is in the spirit of the authority we have to impose on them and entered into in good grace, then that’s all we councils want and can expect.
But some developers, the less capable at negotiating, the dumber ones let’s say, don’t quite get the balance right, and what they push back with can spiral down in the process of the negotiation into being nonsensical.
Now, it’s not helpful if I pick up on every dumb thing they say and beat them with it. This is usually not productive in managing a relationship where I do need developers to enter into the right spirit, make generous decisions and not just apply themselves in a perfunctory, uninterested exercise where people are just numbers, and numbers they can fudge by simply claiming they made reasonable endeavours to train and employ but they just didn’t take; who’s to say otherwise? They have that over me. And, in the cut and thrust of negotiating, in the application by both parties of the opposing forces of determining what they should, could and will deliver, in the crucible sometimes they say something so dumb that I have to just stop, forget that I’m trying to build a mutually beneficial relationship, and just question the logic of what it is they are suggesting.
Fairview New Homes I have already talked about (see How to Corrupt Your Local Planning Officer). They have clearly misbehaved and got away with little obligations in their S106 contract with the council by bamboozling those poor vulnerable idiots in Legal, but we are where we and that is never a good place to be. Although the Employment and Skills obligations on the first two sites of the masterplan development of the British Gas Works in New Barnet were written off, unwittingly by the council’s lawyers but otherwise apropos of nothing, there is still the third and final site, the main part of the masterplan, Victoria Quarter, that has targets; not many but these are enforceable.
Perhaps chuffed with himself for playing the council and having no obligations on the first two sites of the former British Gas Works on which lots of luxury flats are being built, and the Principal Planner for Fairview getting his lawyers to point out to me in the S106 contract the clause deleting all other obligations, which I hadn’t spotted because it was hidden away in the recitals, perhaps he got a bit cocky and decided he was going to treat me with short shrift on the third site as well.
Still, this is not a battle of wits. I still want to try and get something positive out of this relationship and that means working with these bastards. And that means being professional and basically playing nice. At least, that’s what I keep telling myself. But deep down, I know this guy is playing the council and never had any intention of contributing anything if he could possibly get away with it. And, up to now, that’s been pretty easy.
There is a big part of me, albeit remaining professional up until he said something really dumb, that was always playing the long game with the aim of eventually outwitting him but only because I thought he was trying to outwit me, perhaps thinking I didn’t have much wit to outdo in the first place because my predecessor S106 Employment & Skills Officer and the council’s Planning officers and lawyers certainly haven’t demonstrated having more than half each.
By being treated with “short shrift” I mean being given little attention. I first met the original Principal Planner for Fairview on 5 November just before the commencement of Victoria Quarter, to discuss what an action plan, the Employment and Training Plan, should include and who in the borough can support them with it. I emailed her lots and lots of useful information for it, but I heard nothing back. Construction started 9 December.
Then, on 7 January, she resurfaced. She replied saying, “Apologies, I meant to come back to you. Last year just disappeared, I was away and then had covid, so I am a little bit behind… I am working on the Employment and Training Plan…” But I didn’t hear from her after that.
On 6 March,
I chased her up again and then the S106 Monitoring Officer in Planning chased
her again 15 April. No reply. Then I heard from a colleague at Barnet &
Southgate College that Fairview’s Principal Planner on British Gas Works is
leaving to go to Hill Group (more on them later) so I emailed the only other
contact at Fairview I had, the Director of Affordable Housing. He replied saying that she still had another
month with them, that he had asked her to “expedite this” plan and that she
“should be in touch very shortly.” She
didn’t and she wasn’t.
I couldn’t tell if the Principal Planner was demob crazy or if Fairview was just stringing me along, but I emailed the Director again on 22 May. This time, our S106 Monitoring Officer in Planning referred the new Principal Planner to me to agree the plan instead.
This is when, in June, the new Principal Planner got his lawyers to point out to me the random clause in the S106 contract deleting all economic development obligations on the first two sites (see How to Corrupt Your Local Planning Officer). Based on these reduced targets, he sent me a draft delivery plan which was thin and otherwise rubbish with a sprinkle of I-don’t-care-about-this. I gave this feedback (albeit a bit more productive in the vain hope he, too, might want the plan to be productive) on 25 June and waited for a revised version. I chased him again 12 August. He eventually sent a revised draft on 29 September.
The Principal Planner is somewhat saturnine and formal. He addresses me in emails with “Dear Mr Clarke”. Who does that other than tax collectors? The draft delivery plans he has sent me are stale and very high-level; not like a delivery plan at all but, rather a set of planning principles; not the council’s principles but his own: the Principal’s principles. Basically I want him to tell me how he is going to train our long-term unemployed residents to be able to do the jobs being created in his flats’ construction. This is a low-level details thing. And part of this, a completely discrete clause in the S106 contract in its own right, is to forecast these jobs over the lifetime of construction. On 30 June, after numerous email exchanges in which I had, once again, helpfully shared details about construction training provision in the borough and courses at the local Further Education college as well as our job brokers and the local Foodbank in a friendly tone, I signed off as “Paul”. He wrote to me,
"Dear Mr Clarke,
“Thank you for your comments.
“Following this we will review and update the document accordingly.”
Ok. You’re welcome? I don’t know what might have been accordingly but, by the time I hadn’t heard back from him by 12 August, I chased him on what I thought was according. He replied the next day informing me that “…the necessary details have not been finalised yet.”
Ok. Unless he is trying to agree the details with the UN, this amount of time to “finalise the details” is not really ok. He’s eight months into the development. So I replied,
“For the record, it has not been agreed by the council that the [Employment and Training Plan] can be submitted after the commencement of construction. …can you give me an indication of when you will be submitting it?”
He replied in a heavy-handed and supercilious manner six days later,
“Your earlier comments requested far more detail than confirmation when opportunities will be created… This has not been a straightforward process.”
Well Fairview has been working on it since summer 2024 and the first flats will be built and ready to be sold in June. I’d have to check but I think Reagan and Gorbachev progressed from a Cold War, all-out arms race to a disarmament plan quicker than this plan is taking. And they were less formal with each other when doing it.
He submitted another draft on 17 September. In it he had forecasted different packages in which different jobs would be available including ground works, frame, façade, mechanical, electrical, carpentry, dry lining and decorating; all useful stuff. But they all had been forecast for between November 2024 and November 2028. So, all packages are going to be delivered for all of the time the flats are going to be constructed? Ground works are still going to be going on on the foundations while the interior walls are being decorated, and the bathrooms will be fitted while the steel frame is being fixed? Either this is some new magical modal construction method or he’s not paying any attention to when jobs will be available at all. I replied questioning his forecast.
He replied 16 October (the guy is in no rush, leaving weeks between each correspondence but there are eight months left on the clock and the shortest apprenticeships take at least twelve months to complete). He stodgily complained,
“Regarding “Forecasting Jobs” [his quote marks: I picture him parroting my phrase out loud with his face scrunched up and saying the words in a silly voice], I am unclear on the level of detail you expect. The table provided is similar to the examples previously shared [by his predecessor in earlier drafts], and the construction periods are based on our best knowledge.
“Given the project’s length, accurate forecasting for the construction periods of each discipline is challenging…”
Yeah, but his predecessor sent the first draft before construction commenced. He is now, in October 2025, forecasting jobs and training will be available to our residents between November 2024 and now. Is he saying forecasting the past is challenging? And, with just eight months remaining to complete twelve-month apprenticeships, the level of detail he needs to achieve his targets is what jobs are available, basically, now. It’s his plan and he needs this level of detail, not me. My job is just to point out the bleedin’ obvious to dumb people. So I replied with the “level of detail” I thought might be beneficial for him to consider in his delivery plan (if only professionals in the construction industry had a concept of working to a time-bound delivery plan):
“The table at 3.1 forecasts jobs being available from Nov-24. It is now Oct-25 (and no jobs have been reported yet). Also, in the Employment and Training schedule (Schedule 3) of the S106 agreement, para. 15.1, it says the jobs should be provided prior to occupation. I would suggest that good progress is made to have at least started most of the apprenticeships and progressions into employment for unemployed benefit claimants, and both Supported Internships, and a plan agreed for this, between these dates.”
He replied 20 October saying, “Table 3.1 is based on an example that [his predecessor] received from the Council. I thought this came from you, but I may be mistaken.”
Wait, hold on… what?! Is he suggesting he thinks I want an example of a delivery plan?! So he hasn’t written an actual plan yet then? Why would I want him to send me an example of what jobs will be available in fictitious dates, especially if he thought it was my fiction and, therefore, I already had it? Whether I created the plan with my own box of crayons or he did, assuming his lawyers have run out of tricks, if he doesn’t deliver the jobs and apprenticeships by June, he’s going to have to explain to his bosses why they have to pay £264,120.57 to remedy the outcomes for which he prepared an example of a plan to deliver. Why does he think this is an academic exercise; the thing has been being built now for nearly eleven months? Tenants will be moving in next summer. People need to be less magnificent and learn when they’re wrong or their logic will eventually come to the end of the road and they’re going to end up looking stupid.
Monty
Python and the Holy Grail (1975):
Soldier: Halt! Who goes there?
Arthur: It is I, Arthur, son of Uther Pendragon, from the castle of Camelot, king of the Britons, defeater of the Saxons, sovereign of all England!
Soldier: Pull the other one!
Arthur: I am! And this is my trusty servant, Patsy. We have ridden the length and breadth of the land in search of knights who will join me in my court in Camelot. I must speak with your lord and master.
Soldier: What? Ridden on a horse?
Arthur: Yes.
Soldier: You’re using coconuts!
Arthur: What?
Soldier: You’ve got two empty halves of coconut and you’re banging them together.
Arthur: (Scornfully) So? We have ridden since the snows of winter covered this land, through the kingdom of Mercia…
Soldier (Interrupting him) Where did you get the coconuts?
Arthur: We found them.
Soldier: Found them? In Mercia? The coconut’s tropical!
Arthur: What do you mean?
Soldier: Well, this is a temperate zone.
Arthur: The swallow may fly south with the sun, or the house martin, or the plover may seek warmer climes in winter, yet these are no strangers to our land?
Soldier: Are you suggesting coconuts migrate?!
Hill
Group. I think this is where rhinos are
bred. Their social value leads are archetypal:
especially spiky and so thick-skinned and dumb as to be impenetrable to any sense
I might aim at them. They have three planning
applications on major developments in the borough yet I can’t get them to acknowledge they
have contracted S106 obligations, on pain of financial penalties, on any of
them. They’re not having it, irritated
by me for suggesting otherwise, short-sighted to the consequences of being so belligerent
about it.
The first is the Fosters Estate development of 217 flats in Hendon. They have delivered a total of no apprenticeships on completion of construction and yet they are irritated by my assertions that they owe financial remedies. They have done enough, they say (see None is Good Enough). To demonstrate what that enough is, three times, now, directly and indirectly, I have invited them to report on what endeavours they have made that are reasonable yet led to nothing, and three times they have not understood that I want them to send me a report of endeavours.
“I think we’re done here”, I finally concluded with Planning, asking them on 3 October to send a demand notice for £325,000 remedies instead. Naturally, they didn’t. But, this week, in a welcome pang of conscience of duty and motivated by him bringing in a source of much-needed income for his service that I persuaded him was a good thing, my Director talked to the Assistant Director of Planning and got her to also agree that a Local Planning Authority applying its statutory authority was a good idea.
On Wednesday, the Planning Manager responsible for collecting S106 contributions eventually emailed Hill Group’s client, the Senior Project Manager (New Build) at Barnet Homes, saying,
“Hi [Senior Project Manager (New Build)],
“Further to Paul’s email below [of 3 October saying “I think we’re done here”] and our discussion a couple of weeks ago, we are now going to issue a S106 demand notice [for the £325,000]…
“Obviously, if you or Hill are able to make a case [for reasonable endeavours] we are happy to still receive the info to review.
“However, it feels like we are at the point now where a S106 demand notice is the right step.
“Thank you
“[Planning Manager (Infrastructure and Viability)]”
He replied yesterday,
“Hi [Planning Manager (Infrastructure and Viability)],
“Thank you for this update.
“Can I ask you to hold tight this week whilst we make one final approach to Hill via our Employer’s Agent letting them know that a Demand Notice is being prepared and now is their last chance to send information to substantiate that they have complied with the apprenticeship obligations?
“Kind regards
“[Senior Project Manager (New Build)]”
He didn’t comment on, or lament, why they needed a fourth chance to even acknowledge that they are even being asked for this; perhaps he, too, recognises a rhino when he encounters one, but at least he acknowledged that it is their last. Even though he is paying them for this service, he knows he can’t expect these spiky, obtuse people to do it, at least on the first three times of asking.
His colleague at Barnet Homes, the Development Manager (New Build), did, though, try to provide an explanation with a follow-up email:
“I think Hill were expecting the [Local Planning Authority] to reach out to them if further information/evidence was required. It may be some confusion re who’s [sic] court the ball was in…
“Please could we give Hill the opportunity for one last response.”
I did reach
out to them! Twice. And the Senior Project Manager did once. Who else would be writing the report if not them? There is no court. Hill are sitting there, potentially with a
proverbial ball, not doing anything with it.
It was never in my court, that is, if there is a ball at all. It’s hard to see that there were any
endeavours made given they ended up having delivered nothing except to torture
our young students (see None is Good Enough). It would explain why they haven’t sent a
report if there is nothing to put in it.
Suggesting that they might be waiting on me to do it, though, is just
bizarre.
But, in the spirit of giving them enough rope to hang themselves with, I sent an email to Hill Group’s Head of Social Value, the Queen Rhino, repeating my monitored findings so far of their endeavours, and inviting her one more time to address them. Barnet Homes wanted me to “hold tight this week” but since yesterday was now Thursday, being extra generous (or cruel depending how you see it), I thought I would give her to the end of next week.
She replied today saying,
“Hi Paul,
“Thanks for sending this across and your detailed comments. We will review and respond accordingly, however I am on leave after today until the 3rd November, could you allow an extension on the deadline to respond to the 5th November please?
“Regards,
“[Head of Social Value]”
Are you shitting me!? Seriously? Excuse my scatological exclamations but what the absolute holy crap!? After all that plus her clients begging me to give her one last chance, they giving her the benefit of the doubt that I have caused the delay by confusing who should write the report of her endeavours? How shameless can someone be? Why not just do it today, or yesterday when I sent the email? I mean, it’s not like she’s otherwise busy delivering social value! She’s the one confident that Hill Group had made reasonable endeavours so, by her own internal logic, she must know what they were. Just write them down in an email. But she was never confused about whose ball the court was in; this is absolute news to her. She never had any idea some report might be needed and hasn’t looked into or prepared anything except to book her holiday, care-free in the knowledge that all her immediate responsibilities at work are tied up with a bow. The Project Manager and Development Manager at Barnet Homes must have been slapping themselves on the forehead. Whatevs. “Yes, no problem”, I replied.
The second development by Hill Group is Douglas Bader Park on the old RAF aerodrome land in Colindale. This will be 750 flats built consecutively over three “development plots”. Each development plot has its own targets for training and employing local residents and each should have its own agreed Employment and Skills Action Plan. By the completion of construction of Development Plot 1 just after my starting at Barnet Council in July 2024, they had reported they had started three apprentices against a target of eight and otherwise not employed anyone despite having an additional target to employ seven unemployed local residents. They also had to host nine students on unpaid work experience placements and managed seven.
I wrote to the Social Value & Community Manager (a different one to the one assigned to the Fosters Estate) then to inform her that financial remedies may be due for the under-delivery. However, there is a unique clause in the S106 contract that says that they can roll over any under-delivery into a later stage of the development. Of this she was acutely aware and said she was choosing to roll them over to the next Development Plot, thus demonstrating some basic awareness and strategy skills. This was in November 2024. But she would go on to prove those skills would be limited to just this basic level.
This amounts to 18 apprentices to be employed on the second phase of about three years, a big chunk of the overall labour force, all needing training and supervising by the black hats. This is a substantial contribution because it is a time-consuming and expensive undertaking. With the roll-over, they also now have to employ 22 unemployed residents who are very unlikely to have relevant, or any, construction skills or experience. This is why it is best to spread them out over the whole development but, in their wisdom, Hill Group chose not to, possibly because they thought they just wouldn’t do it at all. This is where the lack of strategy comes in: what was the rhino thinking would happen?
On 25 July 2025, a Development Manager at Hill Group sent me queries about the excessive Employment & Skills targets and the Employment and Skills Action Plan needed for it. What alternatives to apprenticeships are there because they’re long an expensive? None I replied. “Can we host an apprentice employed by an Apprenticeship Training Agency for six months and claim that against one of the apprenticeship targets?” Given an apprenticeship course is a minimum of twelve months, you can claim this towards half an apprenticeship, I replied, a twelve month placement would count towards one. “How long do we have to exclusively advertise jobs and apprenticeships to Barnet residents before we open them up to anyone and claim them as job outcomes?" You can only claim Barnet residents trained and employed towards your S106 targets, I replied, we’re not interested in delivering services to residents in, say, Sunderland any more than we intend to collect their bins every week. “Additionally”, he added, “as Barnet is part of the West London Alliance (WLA), which includes the boroughs of Barnet, Brent, Ealing, Hammersmith & Fulham, Harrow, Hillingdon, and Hounslow, it would be helpful to know how the WLA framework impacts the delivery of S106 obligations. How is the regional collaboration within the WLA being leveraged to meet local employment and apprenticeship targets, particularly when a Barnet resident cannot be found for a role?” Wow, that’s an elaborate query! It doesn’t, I replied simply. This is all in the S106 contract and, yes, apparently the council, at least, meant it when both parties signed it. And what it says is: train and employ Barnet residents and, now at your Social Value & Community Manager’s request to roll over some more, an excessive number of them for this size of development.
They pondered this for a month and then, on 20 August, an Assistant Development surveyor responded (I have no idea why such a disparate group of workers are playing tag team in emailing me and they didn’t provide any explanation, just pounded me with challenges from any direction without explanation or apology) saying, “Please see commentary below addressing your comments…” and, of claiming half a placement for half of an apprenticeship as half an apprenticeship, she commented “Proposing 100% increase in the number of apprentices is not only unachievable, but it also sets Hill Group up for failure. Such a significant increase overlooks the practical limitations of the project and the local labour market. It appears that this proposal prioritises financial gain rather than focusing on the best interests of local residents. Additionally, the proposal to allow 6-month apprenticeships was accepted before, so it’s unclear why this has now changed.”
Sorry, who are you? Are you normally so prickly to people you’ve never met and not introduced yourself to and normally email people out of the blue scornfully? Perhaps her combative negotiation skills could be appropriate if anything she said here was accurate, but it’s not.
By “100% increase”, she is referring to my not agreeing that an apprenticeship placement with an ATA counting towards one of Hill Group’s targets as being six months but needing to be at least twelve months because that is at least how long an apprenticeship is and that’s what the target in the S106 contract is, the minimum needed to make viable her development decided by upon Planning Committee, not me. I am not “overlook[ing] the practical limitations of the project and the local labour market”, her rhino did when she asked for the extra apprenticeships not delivered on Development Plot 1, when it would have been feasible to deliver them but Hill Group chose not to, into this phase. This is because the S106 contract afforded this option and there was nothing I could do to stop Hill Group making such a bone-headed decision. And, by the same legal measure, she now has to come up with an unfeasible plan for 18. The “meaningful” outcomes would have been eight Barnet residents now doing an apprenticeship having started on Development Plot 1 but she didn’t seem to be so energised by meaningful outcomes then (whoever she is). And, one way or another, the S106 contribution needs to be made to make viable the development, whether that’s the apprenticeships or a financial payment to the council, or “gain”, to spend on training unemployed residents if they’re not going to.
But she says here that the proposal for six-month placements counting as a whole apprenticeship was accepted before. Was it? If it was, then fair enough. I replied referring her to the S106 contract but asked, “If you have a subsequent agreed definition of an apprenticeship, can you send it to me?”
I never heard from her again. I suppose she didn’t have one. Was it a lie? Was she dreaming that bit? In her rage and adrenaline, did she persuade herself of her moral righteousness so it must be true? She had never encountered me before, came into my life, spat bile at me, realised nothing she said was true and bowed out, now nothing more than a fleeting and unpleasant memory.
The rhino tagged in after that and, on 25 September emailed me with another set of definitions of outputs that means they don’t really have to do that much given how high the targets are now after her unstrategic decision. I replied, basically, with “go away”.
That seemed to work because, on 13 October, she submitted a revised ESAP. But, in a new tactic of hoping I miss bits, it was a plan for the targets for the Development Plot but to be delivered over the whole development. She is nothing if not a chancer. I bounced it back.
On 21 October, she submitted another draft. This time she had reverted back to the original targets for Development Plot 2, not including the rolled-over targets from Development Plot 1. What is her long game here; what is she doing? Did she think I would forget about them? I’m a council officer, basically a bureaucrat, I write this stuff down.
In another comment I made on the pay for apprenticeships, I said that they have to be paid at least the London Living Wage as per the relevant clause in the S106 contract. And, in another "wait... what?" moment, I think that her response to this sums up the typical belligerence and natural standing of a rhino in nature at the top of the food chain in that they answer to no-one. It typifies the penny-pinching greed of the directors of homes-building companies that pay themselves so much that it is to the detriment of the industry, whether through the short-termist financing of each development rather than an industry or Government-led strategy for homes building, stealing public finances for public infrastructure projects such as what happened with Carillion (see United We Stand, Money-grabbing We Fall), or taking no responsibility for training the next generation of construction workers, and presiding over workplaces that otherwise illegally exclude women and groups from an ethnic minority background, putting the construction industry in the UK as a whole at risk of collapse, highlighted in the Government’s Farmer Report. She said,
“Hill Group are not obligated to pay the London Living Wage (LLW), and this is not something we can enforce on our contractors where there is no legal requirement to do so. The S106 wording states that costs should include wages “to be aligned with a living wage,” but it does not explicitly reference the London Living Wage. On this basis, our interpretation is that the requirement aligns with the Government’s National Living Wage, which is the recognised statutory benchmark for fair pay across the UK and is considered appropriate and fair for an apprentice’s wage. Apprenticeship roles that are paid at least the Government’s National Living Wage, run for the outlined duration as per Appendix 1, and lead to a recognised qualification will be considered compliant with the S106 obligations. Where all recruitment efforts set out in section 3.1 of the Social Value and Employment Action Plan have been made, but no suitable candidate is found, this should be accepted as having met the requirement through reasonable endeavours.”
In factual terms, the living wage in London is set by the Mayor of London and is the London Living Wage. Barnet is a London borough and falls within the administrative area of the Greater London Authority headed by the Mayor of London. The National Living Wage is not recognised as fair pay across the UK because it’s not recognised as a wage someone living in London can live on. Why would anyone care what the rhino’s interpretation is? If they did, she can stand for the next mayoral elections. In the meantime, Londoners have voted that the minimum living wage in London is the London Living Wage. Why would anyone want to, or could, work for Hill Group if they can’t live on the wage they pay, at least in London?
And she goes on to say that where all “recruitment efforts” set out in her draft ESAP “have been made, but no suitable candidate is found, this should be accepted as having met the requirement through reasonable endeavours.” If a job doesn’t pay enough to live on, I can tell you now you’re not going to find candidates. And the Rhino doesn’t get to determine what “should” be, for obvious reasons, but also because she is a rhino: an idiot representative of very rich and greedy people.
I replied the following day telling her just to stick to the definitions in the S106 contract, and defined by the Mayor, and not to worry about defining “reasonable” endeavours because this is just a delivery plan of what her endeavours will be not a discourse on what they should be. I’ll worry about that.
I did ask about the targets set in her draft plan that now didn’t include the jobs and apprenticeships not delivered on Development Plot 1, “…you said previously you wanted to roll them over rather than pay the financial remedies. Can you confirm which option you are choosing?”
Hill Group’s third development in the borough is Whalebones. This is 115 new flats in Barnet*. A draft ESAP has been submitted for this, originally on 8 September, by a third different Social Value & Community Manager, in fact the same one I encountered on the Olympia development working then for Laing O’Rourke (see That is Not What it Says). This too, rather than being a delivery plan, was mostly a glossary of redefining the S106 targets, seemingly all of them, plus a few more for good measure including what a Further Education College is, which is nothing to do with them or the council and neither here nor there. But they’re on a roll redefining the world to one that makes them most money and excludes anyone else from the wealth-building.
*Barnet is a town in the London Borough of Barnet. When the London Boroughs were being formed back in 1965, The Greater London Council informed the old District Councils that they must not pick a name that isn’t also a town in the new borough because that would be confusing. Barnet, now including Hendon, Brent Cross, Edgware, Hadley Wood, Mill Hill, Finchley, Whetstone and Barnet was called Barnet. Enfield, containing Southgate, Cockfosters, The Chase, Palmers Green, Winchmore Hill, Edmonton, Ponders End and Enfield was called Enfield. Brent was named after the River Brent forming the border between Brent and Barnet, the River Brent being named after Barnet and, dating back to medieval times, the two words having the same meaning. Similarly, Haringey, with Hornsey in the West and Harringay in the East, found a name from medieval documents that meant the same thing and this one name could include both West and East. That word was Haringey. That’s not confusing! Now everyone, including the BBC News 60 years later, often misspells Haringey and Harringay and muddling them up. But it was seen as a neat solution because the GLC told them they especially weren’t allowed to pick two towns from their new London Borough, like calling it Hornsey & Harringay, because that would be confusing and cumbersome. So we have Hammersmith & Fulham, Barking & Dagenham and Kensington & Chelsea (the new boundaries of Kensington & Chelsea now putting Chelsea Football Club in Fulham along with Fulham). District Councils and County Councils outside of London are currently being reformed into Unitary Authorities so let’s hope they do a better job with naming them.
With Fairview New Homes accidently suggesting that they were pretending to write a delivery plan, still after eleven months after when the plan should have started, and Hill Group disproving the good faith their client had in them and accidently suggesting that it never occurred to them that they were supposed to be doing something towards endeavours to social value, and can they completely redefine the social value measures on their two new developments to ones where they don’t have to contribute or pay much of anything, with the Executive Director now backing me by “agreeing with” the Assistant Director of Planning that she should be enforcing S106 planning obligations, I feel empowered to reply to, at least these two scummy organisations, that all good will with the council has run out and either submit a plan to train and employ our Barnet residents as per the numbers, and as the targets are defined in the S106 contract before construction commences, or we will be using the full force of our authority to bill you for them instead for our residents’ financial gain.
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