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Church must be protected
• AS the local planning authority, we have to see and approve any plans for development – and we haven’t received a formal planning application for St Joseph’s Church (Churchgoers fight to save parish centre they built, May 18).
However, some time ago the church did express an interest in developing the site.
I want to reassure readers that we too value the church as an important landmark. It’s a Grade II*-listed building, so both we and English Heritage agree its setting should be protected and, of course, we want to keep all the mature trees on the site.
The church is also part of Highgate Hill Conservation Area, and that means we’ve got a duty to protect its character.
If we do receive a formal planning application for the site, it will go before our committee, who will have to take all these things into consideration before granting permission for any development.
And, given our ambitions for Archway – to make it a thriving and attractive town centre at the north entrance to the borough – we are determined that any new development is absolutely right for the neighbourhood.
CLLR LUCY WATT
Lib Dem executive member for environment
• IN the article on the development at St Joseph’s, architect Eleanor Frost, of Frost Associates, stated that a new community centre has always been part of the scheme.
This is not so. The centre was provided for in what was called plan A, and a smaller one in plan B. But we are now – as far as I know – progressing with plan C, which has got no provision for a parish community centre.
I recall a document stating that a much-smaller centre would be provided under scheme C, like a large room within the Monastery for meetings and get- togethers.
For larger events such as bazaars and fundraisers, we would have to hire space elsewhere. There is no provision for a community centre anywhere near the size of the present one.
At the last parish meeting, where quite a few of the centre users turned up, there was quite a heated and lengthy debate about this. Father Mark said he would refer it back to Father Nicholas and perhaps have a meeting of the community action committee in the near future.
We await that meeting but in the meantime our community centre must be protected.
Residents must not allow this lovely area to be ruined by excessive and unnecessary building.
ANTON COYLE
Despard Road, N19 |
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