Save Great Crested Newts - Protect the Wild

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Tell Mayor Sadiq Khan to save North London's Great Crested Newts

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Dear Mayor Khan,

I am writing to urge you to reject Arada's planning application for the Great North Leisure Park in Finchley (Barnet Council reference: 25/0213/FUL).

I am particularly concerned about the impact this development would have on the protected great crested newt population at the neighbouring Glebelands Nature Reserve. Great crested newts are a European Protected Species. It is a criminal offence under the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 and the Conservation of Habitats and Species Regulations 2017 to deliberately harm them, disturb their habitat, or damage their resting places.

Barnet Council's Strategic Planning Committee unanimously rejected the scheme on grounds of over-development and harm to the local environment.

Campaigners have separately raised that Arada has failed to deliver the ecological surveys required by law to protect the great crested newts at Glebelands Nature Reserve. Granting planning permission in the absence of these surveys would, in my view, place this consent on legally precarious ground.

I am also concerned about the broader impact on biodiversity. The Glebelands Nature Reserve provides essential habitat that supports not only great crested newts but a wider range of protected species. A development of this scale and density — 1,485 homes in 20 buildings rising to 25 storeys — on the boundary of this reserve poses a serious and unquantified risk to that habitat.

Barnet Council refused this application. Sarah Sackman MP opposed it. Thousands of residents signed a petition against it. I urge you to respect that democratic verdict and decline to approve this scheme.

Protected species are protected for a reason. I ask you to uphold that protection.

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Tell Mayor Sadiq Khan to save North London's Great Crested Newts

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