Mill Hill Jewish school merger plan blocked over green belt and wildlife concerns
Hasmonean’s expansion rejected despite capacity crisis and long travel times for students
Barnet Council has rejected a controversial proposal to rebuild Hasmonean High School for Girls in Mill Hill as part of a merged, co-educational campus with the boys’ school, citing serious environmental concerns and potential breaches of habitat regulations.
The application, submitted on behalf of the Orthodox Jewish school, sought to demolish the current Page Street building and replace it with a larger facility that would also accommodate Hasmonean’s boys, currently split between Hendon and Belsize Park. Part of the planned site falls on Copthall Fields, a designated green belt area and nature conservation site.
Council officers recommended refusal, warning that the scheme lacked critical ecological assessments and risked “potentially very serious breaches” of regulations protecting the Green Belt and local biodiversity.
“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,” said Andrew Beard, agent for the applicant. But he admitted that without extending onto surrounding land, the building would need to rise to six storeys.
Emily Benedek, a Hasmonean parent, told councillors that the current split-campus structure is “deeply concerning”, requiring her son to travel “several miles every day and to a different borough”.
Councillors ultimately voted five to two along party lines to reject the plan. Labour committee chair Nigel Young said the proposal would require the loss of “nearly three acres of woodland,” adding that he struggled to see how a different approach that “still preserved wildlife” could not be brought forward.
While a similar application was approved in 2017, and referred to Mayor Sadiq Khan, who advised against it, Labour councillor Philip Cohen stressed that legislation had changed. “It’s not about ‘Oh we considered this in 2016’ – we’re dealing with it now,” he said.
Jewish News has contacted Hasmonean Schools for comment.
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