Chipping Barnet Community Plan consultation

Background

We are committed to improving residents’ lives and making our high streets great places to live, work, shop, socialise and visit. As identified in our Barnet Growth Strategy 2020-2030 we want to ensure that we work with our local business and communities to enable them to support and build their high streets.

Our high streets lie at the heart of our communities, creating jobs, nurturing small businesses and bringing investment into our local economy. We want our local high streets to thrive, adapt to the new ways our residents live their lives and also increase the diversity of businesses in our local town centres and high streets.

However, the way we shop and the way that our residents use their high streets is changing – this change started well before the COVID-19 pandemic – but as a result of the pandemic, more than ever our residents are now shopping online, making fewer big shopping trips, and shopping ‘little and more often’.

It is clear, that we need to build on our businesses and communities resilience to help them strengthen our town centres and local high streets, and so that they can help support the long-term economic recovery in the light of the COVID-19 crisis. That is why we are working with our local communities to help them develop their own town centre Community Plans.

A town centre Community Plan for Chipping Barnet

Chipping Barnet is classified as a ‘Main Town Centre’ and is prioritised in Barnet’s Growth Strategy 2020 -2030 in terms of having the potential to accommodate growth and investment in the town centre.

As part of this prioritisation, in December 2019 the council appointed Architecture 00 to work with the local community to help produce the Chipping Barnet Community Plan. This plan aims to develop an adaptive strategy to support local businesses, community groups, residents and other stakeholders to work together with the council to improve Chipping Barnet town centre.

Since the project launched in December 2019, we have already undertaken a range of public engagement activities, workshops and conversations with members of the local community to inform and develop a draft of the Community Plan.

We now wish to give you all an opportunity to review the draft Chipping Barnet Community Plan, providing comments, ideas to further develop the project and even volunteer to become a project champion or be part of a project working group. Your feedback will be considered and where relevant integrated into the final Chipping Barnet Community Plan.

How to have your say:

It is essential that the Chipping Barnet Community Plan is informed by local people who live, shop, work or run businesses within the local area. We encourage anyone with an interest in the town centre to give their feedback .

Architecture 00, who we have appointed to work with the local community to help develop your plan, have set up a participation website for the Chipping Barnet Community Plan. Here local residents and businesses can review their draft Chipping Barnet Community Plan and give further feedback on the priorities they have identified so far.

To find out more, and how to give your views, please visit the Chipping Barnet Community Plan webpage.

For any further information, or to request the Chipping Barnet Community Plan in an alternative format, please email hello@CBCommunityPlan.co.uk or message us on Facebook Chipping Barnet Community Plan.

For those unable to access the online version we have made available printed copies for loan as part of the Chipping Barnet Library select and collect service during the consultation period. Please call the library team on 020 8359 4040 - Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday – to loan a copy of the Draft Chipping Barnet Community Plan Summary document.

For any other queries please call Ashleigh Watkins, Town Centre Investment Manager on 07568605608.