Barnet is a successful suburb playing a major role in London’s global competitive success. It is clean, safe and offers good education at all levels. This, along with our high quality housing and public spaces, is what attracts people with the right skills to contribute to the city. People choose to live here, with 88% of residents showing satisfaction with our borough.

The council is not just a provider of services, but a community leader responsible for the current and future well-being of the borough and the people who live here. Through our work with other agencies at a local, national and regional level, we are promoting the interests of Barnet and its successful and sustainable development. We are also championing the cause of city-suburbs at a national level.

Barnet Council is shaping a borough that will continue to change. Our population in 2016 is likely to exceed 366,000, largely as a result of major regeneration and development. An extra 16,000 new homes will be built by 2016, attracting a much younger and more diverse population. With growth comes new businesses, retail and leisure facilities and new employment opportunities. We are helping to create new, socially integrated communities and planning effectively for this growth.

The Three Strand Approach to development and regeneration, namely “Protect, Enhance and Grow” recognises that sustainable development in Barnet needs different approaches. We know that there will be growth areas, mainly on the west of the borough, through the regeneration schemes of Cricklewood/Brent Cross, the borough’s largest social housing estates and major private developments. We are also, however, committed to protecting high quality suburban residential areas that people want to live in and the green spaces around them. We will be enhancing our town centres and areas suitable for mixed development.

Maintaining and building on Barnet’s strengths over the next 20 years at a  time of significant population growth is our major challenge. The population is set to increase by potentially 63,000 people over the next 20 years which is  equivalent to adding a town the size of St Albans. This will pose demands on the  physical infrastructure- transport, schools, shops, hospitals and community  facilities, and it is a major challenge to ensure this is in place before residents  arrive.

The Barnet Financing Plan, or ‘Barnet Bond’, is our response to funding infrastructure investment, using a combination of national and locally generated revenue sources to raise (and repay) finance directly from either public or private  sources. In this way Barnet is both investing in success and, through retaining revenues generated by this growth, seeking to provide the infrastructure  necessary to support it in a sustainable way. We are promoting this through central Government as an innovative mechanism that others may copy in future.

We are also undertaking a major programme through which we will deliver new primary schools in the borough – the Investing in Education Programme – and we are continuing to maximise financial contributions from developers for infrastructure improvements and work closely with Transport for London to improve transport.

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