Policy information sourced from Barnet Local Plan Core Strategy DPD September 2012

CS10: Enabling Inclusive and Integrated Community Facilities and Uses

The council will work with our partners to ensure that community facilities including schools, libraries, leisure centres and pools, places of worship, arts and cultural facilities, community meeting places and facilities for younger and older people, are provided for Barnet’s communities.

We will:

  • ensure that our programmes for capital investment in schools and services for young people address the needs of a growing, more diverse and increasingly younger population
  • promote the role of schools as ‘community hubs’, providing a wide range of educational, advice, leisure and support services to children, families and the wider community
  • support the enhancement and inclusive design of community facilities ensuring their efficient use, and the provision of multi-purpose community hubs that can provide a range of services to the community at a single accessible location
  • expect development that increases the demand for community facilities and services to make appropriate contributions towards new and accessible facilities, particularly within the regeneration and development areas of the borough or improving existing provision, particularly within town centres
  • work with the Mayor and cemetery providers to establish current supply of burial space, identify barriers to supply and any necessary changes to planning policy.

In addressing educational needs within Barnet and responding to the need for parental choice we will support proposals for parent promoted schools or ‘Free Schools’ that:

  • conform with DfE guidance on becoming a new school and
  • meet parental demand for school places and
  • provide educational facilities that conform with basic school requirements as set out in relevant DfE guidance.

Through the Site Allocations DPD we will seek to allocate sites for development that are capable of providing new school premises including parent promoted schools that meet DfE requirements.

For more information please see Local Plan Core Strategy DPD September 2012