Who are the Keep Croxley ‘Green’ Group?

The Keep Croxley ‘Green’ Group was founded as a result of the application by London Underground Ltd/Metronet to build a rail track replacement depot on a green belt site in Croxley Green. London Underground, or LUL for short, first applied for this depot in March 2004, however, after a rather vocal Public Forum, LUL departed with promises of a second Public Forum to answer all the questions that they had been ill-prepared for in the first Forum.

Unfortunately, instead of holding the second Public Forum, LUL withdrew their original application and made a revised application for their depot. This meant that all the objections raised against the original application became obsolete. Only the residents who had put their objections in writing to the Planning Department were advised of the second application. LUL refused to hold a second Public Forum because, “they felt it would not be in their best interests”(!)

Two concerned residents realised that the majority of residents were unaware of these developments and leafleted a number of houses requesting that we all put our objections in writing for a second time. One thing led to another and a small group of very dedicated residents got together and formed an action group and we haven’t looked back since! We meet regularly, depending on urgency(!).

Although we had expected LUL to appeal, a small part of us had hoped that they would build their depot elsewhere. The reason the application was rejected was inappropriate development of green belt. It was felt that they hadn’t proved the special circumstances necessary to allow development on green belt. The general consensus is that the document of alternative sites supplied by LUL was, at best, sketchy and in places contradictive – what was considered okay for one site was not okay for another! We believed that LUL had other, far more suitable sites for this industrial development. We conducted our own research and were able to ear-mark several alternatives which would be better suited to this type of heavy industry. In fact, the Croxley site was the only green belt site considered in their list of 34 alternative sites!! Several of the alternatives had already been ear-marked by LUL for other uses, so just why did LUL list them at all? A prime example of this was the Rickmansworth site – where Waitrose now stands!

Our second goal was to prevent the Planning Committee’s decision being overturned at the Public Inquiry to be held by the Planning Inspectorate. This goal was achieved as a result of the withdrawal by LUL on April 1^st 2005.

As a result of the registration of the Village Green application site (with the exception of the application land owned by IMC /Lincat plc) in December 2007 we have fulfilled our main goal – the preservation of the Village Green site as an amenity for local residents. In the course of our research we have discovered that we have several rare and protected species of wildlife and flora inhabiting the site – see our interesting information section for more facts.