Highgate School plans: public meeting report

The public meeting about Highgate School’s planning applications was a great success. Catherine West was an excellent chair, and we had a very good turnout, estimated at nearly 250 people including online. There were over 30 speakers from the floor, and opportunities for everyone to make contributions, nearly all of them well researched, intelligent and thoughtful. The school will have lots to think about. The detailed notes are here and a recording here.

The Society demonstrated that we can hold a consultation in a structured way with a productive outcome. When we see developers who may seek to circumvent a genuine consultation we will not hesitate to hold a consultation ourselves.

We have secured agreement on further workshops so this is the start of a process to obtain changes to the schools plans, or if they go ahead, to obtain offsets for all the disruption. Importantly, Catherine West was as clear as she could be that she thought the school should submit an Environmental Impact Assessment, which they are at present seeking to avoid doing.

We will also be following up with the School, the questions which were raised during the meeting.

The Haringey planning officer who attended as an observer said: “It was an interesting and informative meeting and I am glad we did attend to listen to residents.…. it became apparent to me that residents would like officers to attend the workshops to be hosted by the school….. I do think it would be useful for an officer to attend those – albeit in an observational capacity but chipping in when appropriate.”