Camden News: City of London's Heath | Bob Hall

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Camden News - by DAN CARRIER
Published: 22 May 2008

Under threat? Hampstead Heath; inset: Bob Hall

‘City must save our precious Heath from ruin’

RICH home-owners who want to build mansions on the fringes of Hampstead Heath are ruining the area and need to be reined in, according to the City of London’s Heath chairman.
Bob Hall, who was speaking at the Highgate Society’s annual general meeting on Thursday night, revealed the City – the guardians of the Heath – was drawing up for the first time a policy to deal with threats to the Heath’s setting.
He said the strategy was aimed at millionaires who were putting in planning applications that could alter forever the views from and of the Heath, and radically change the setting of its surroundings.
Mr Hall told an audience of around 50 society members that it was time for the City to have a clear conservation policy, to be more active in fighting developments, to establish a database of planning applications and even employ an independent planning consultant to offer them guidance to stop the threats.
“The City has been responding on an ad hoc basis and this needs to change,” he said. “People with a lot of money come in, pull buildings down and put what they like up in its place.
“Many think they can sink new basements. It is effectively like building a dam underground and can have terrible effects on the Heath’s hydrology.”
He said he had been working behind the scenes to lobby other City members to back his ideas – and that a new policy framework would be drawn up to deal with developments around the Heath.
“We are not the local planning authority but we do have some duties as the managers of the Heath,” Mr Hall said.
“We need to ensure we preserve the views to and from the Heath and the areas around it. We need to ensure we keep the existing scale of homes on the fringes of the Heath.”
The proposals mean the City of London will now take a more pro-active stance to make their views known – and Mr Hall wants councils who border the Heath, including Camden, to integrate the City’s views into their own planning framework.
He said: “We need to discuss how we can establish a modus operandi with the council and civic groups. It is clear we need a new way to respond to things like the Garden House and Fitzroy Farm.”
But he warned Society members that the City could not do the work alone.
He said: “I must stress we are not a bottomless pit of money that can be drawn on for funding judicial reviews.”

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