This week, Nimby Watch is on its way to Edgware – but it’s taking the long route…
Ummm…where are we? Because I’m going to be honest, this doesn’t look too familiar… Well, for now, we’re in the West Bank, the larger of the two territories that make up Palestine – the other, of course, being Gaza.
Are you sure we’re in the right place? This is the Nimby Watch column, right? It is! I promise we’re going somewhere with this. But the West Bank has been in the headlines all week after the UK foreign secretary Ed Miliband introduced sanctions against illegal Israeli settlements in the West Bank.
That this has escalated to the stage where people see parallels between that and the situation in the West Bank perhaps says something about the collective mindset of Nimbyism at the moment
That doesn’t seem all that related to planning, to me. No, planning wasn’t high up on Miliband’s stated list of reasons for the measures, either. Miliband instead accused the Israeli government of either turning a blind eye to, or else actively encouraging, illegal settlements on Palestinian territory. He said these amounted to ‘ethnic cleansing’ and added that they could damage the viability of a two-state solution. He went further, endorsing an advisory opinion by the International Court of Justice that Israeli occupation of the territory is unlawful.
Yes, this all seems firmly in the realms of geopolitics, rather than planning. Doesn’t it just? The Israeli government is predictably furious, and it has retaliated by ordering the closure of the British Consulate in Jerusalem, expelling UK officials from certain initiatives on Gaza and banning a dozen MPs from travel to Israel. The UK’s Chief Rabbi accused Miliband of putting British Jews at risk, though rabbis from more liberal denominations have rejected that characterisation.
This does not sound like a dispute that has anything to do with planning, let alone Nimbyism. Are we not squarely in the realm of geopolitics here? You might think that, and I would completely agree. But not everyone would! Someone has looked at this incredibly difficult and high-stakes situation and decided it applies almost exactly to their local planning dispute.
Please tell me you’re joking. Oh, I wish I were. But a post from the Facebook group ‘Save Our Edgware’ felt differently. ‘Israel is about to be sanctioned because apparently they wish to build 300 homes in an area that resident Palestinians do not want them to be built on,’ it stated. ‘However, when the UK government want to build thousands of homes in Edgware despite the fact that the resident Edgware community does not want, that is OK?’. The post had 41 likes from group members, who thought it was a ‘very good point’ and ‘well said’.
Good Lord. Just to check… are there any parallels between the two situations? Well, let’s try to be thorough: the UN has had nothing to say about any development plans in Edgware, and it hasn’t reached the attention of any international courts. There haven’t been any violent attacks or gun battles involved. No land in Edgware is subject to dispute over which nation or peoples it belongs to. Few people, if any, think the question of land development in Edgware is likely to be material to any peace proposals. So…the parallels aren’t immediately obvious, no.
What are the actual plans in Edgware? Are they especially undemocratic? They are at least major: plans – which were first made in 2023 – involve demolishing and rebuilding a shopping centre, and building 3,365 new homes on the site, 1,150 of which will be designated as affordable and 463 will be spaces for student accommodation.
And Save Our Edgware aren’t in favour? Well, the group promises it provides ‘an impartial view on the proposed redevelopment’, before noting it will be ‘catastrophic for the area’, ‘negatively impact our daily lives’ and ‘make the site occupied by the shopping centre THE MOST DENSELY POPULATED DEVELOPMENT IN THE UK’.
Very impartial. So…let’s try to be generous to their, errr, somewhat hyperbolic argument here. Is this development in some way anti-democratic? Not by most people’s understanding of democracy, no. The developers have had to apply for planning permission in the usual way, which – as usual – has taken years. The council, which is elected by local residents, approved the plans last year.
Because of its scale, the plans were automatically referred to the Mayor of London’s office – the mayor, of course, is elected by Londoners – and the Mayor’s office said it saw no reason to intervene against the plans earlier this year.
That seems fairly democratic, no? I think in this instance democracy is defined as ‘me and my friends getting the outcome that we wanted’, which has not happened for the admins of Save Our Edgware in this case. That this has escalated to the stage where people see parallels between that and the situation in the West Bank perhaps says something about the collective mindset of Nimbyism at the moment. It is sometimes suggested that if the pro-development side just explained more, or did more outreach, we could avoid Nimby standoffs. I think this might illustrate the limitations of that approach.
Huh, so this really did come around to being about planning in the end. It really did!
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