Plans to build a school to house both Hasmonean Boys and Hasmonean Girls Schools have been blocked by Barnet Council on the basis that they may endanger local wildlife.
The plan had been to demolish the current girls’ school on Page Street in Mill Hill and replace it with a building with different sections for the boys’ and the girls’ schools.
The new Orthodox Jewish school building would have been on Copthall Fields, which are considered a site of importance for nature conservation.
According to a report in the Barnet Borough Times, council officers recommended refusing the application, saying they did not have adequate information to assess certain habitat regulations and could therefore be at risk of “potentially very serious breaches”.
In February 2017, the same application was approved by councillors at a meeting, with councillors voting against officers’ recommendations to reject the application. However, because of its Green Belt impact, the approval was subject to referral to London mayor Sadiq Khan, who advised the council to refuse planning permission.
Currently, the boys’ school is split between two sites, with Years 7 and 8 in Belsize Park and the older years in Hendon.
Emily Benedek, whose child attends the boys’ school, supported the plans, saying in the Barnet Borough Times article that “fragmented structure” separated younger and older pupils and meant that families were denied “locally provided education”.
While she said that parents were concerned about the environmental impact, she added that she was “deeply concerned” about her son having to journey several miles every day to school.
Labour committee member Cllr Philip Cohen said although he understood the convenience of having the boys’ and girls’ schools on the same site, he expressed disquiet about the impact on the local environment.
In response to concerns over the committee changing its position with regard to the application, Cllr Cohen said biodiversity needs “have been strengthened by legislation” since the first application.
Andrew Beard, representing Hasmonean, said there were no suitable alternative sites other than the girls’ school, and without expanding on the current site, the new building would need to be up to six storeys tall.
He said: “It’s very important not to lose the fact we’re not proposing just to insert this school on to this site, the school partly exists. There was a big effort to try to keep it just on the developed land of the girls’ school.”
Labour committee chair Cllr Nigel Young concluded that in order to develop the new school it would be necessary to remove nearly three acres of woodland, and he questioned why an alternative plan which would preserve wildlife could not be proposed.
Committee members voted along party lines, with five Labour votes in favour of refusal and two Conservatives voting against refusal.
Hasmonean Multi-Academy Trust has been approached for comment.
