6 Lynton Avenue

Finchley N12 9JH

Topic : The Tower at Tally Ho Corner at North Finchley

Dear Editor

The current interest in the Tower at Tally Ho raises and illustrates a number of important issues which can be addressed by the following 10 questions, which are listed below in order of increasing seriousness.

1. Should the borough have an Arts Centre. If so, is Tally Ho the most appropriate site for it.

2. Should other uses of the site be considered which would benefit the local residents more.

3. Should a council involve the local residents at the outset in development possibilities of a site local to them.

4. Should the wishes of the local residents with respect to issues raised by a council be ascertained, considered, and complied with, or rather be given minimal attention, on the basis that residents are not in possession of the wider view available only to councillors.

5. Should it be possible to force a referendum on any issue by obtaining sufficient public support, such as occurs for example in California, in cases where residents feel that a council is not behaving in accordance with their best interests.

6. Should issues which involve relationships between a council and private companies be subject to special scrutiny, and should any confidential elements to such relationships be made explicit and made public.

7. Should issues be decided on a basis of party politics rather than on the merits of the issues.

8. Should a council be permitted to grant itself planning permission when controversial developments are involved, or should such developments be automatically referred to an independent authority, or be the subject of a public enquiry.

9. Should a council be able to ignore the requirements of its own Unitary Development Plan with regard to any issue whatsoever,. and where a precedent is set in breach of the requirements, how could a council avoid similar private developments going automatically to appeal. (A illustration of such conflict occurs in the current Barnet draft UDP where paragraph 6.3.7 directly contradicts Policies L3 (i) and (iii) and Policy D17 (i), (ii), (iv), and (vi))

10. Should a council strive at all times to disseminate correct information with regard to any issue.

I would suggest that questions 3-10 are of national, rather than of merely local, importance. I would be interested to read other readers comments on these very serious matters.

Yours Faithfully

and could a council employee legally refuse to obey an order which would involve them in such an activity. (A relevant example in Barnet is the case of the signs at the Tally Ho site claiming overwhelming public support for the Tally Ho Tower.)