Doggetts Close Village Green Project

Welcome to the Doggett’s Close Village Green Project!

We live in a lovely quiet cul-de-sac in North London with great neighbours. There is a large area of grass in the road that has been in constant use as a community green-space & playing area since the houses were built in 1966. It has been tended to by people living in the road all this time (cutting the grass etc), and using it for community and entertainment purposes. The belief is it is crown land (as the original developer/land owner went bust in the 1980’s) and the land registry does not show it as being registered to anyone else (it has hatched lines across it on land reg maps).

So as crown land, and the Queen is far too busy to cut the grass(!), we have been doing it for her for most of the past 50 or so years its been in use. Personally I have been part of the grass cutting & maintenance team since 2005/6 (Free workout!!). The Green Space has hosting Birthday Parties, Community events (like the Big Lunch), even stories of BBQs on Xmas day (in 2009 when the Gas & Electricity went down across the area for the best part of 2 weeks)! Never mind being a safe children’s play area and hosting the odd impromptu football game.

We want to preserve it for years to come and ensure its available to whomever is lucky enough to find themselves living in Doggett’s Close. To that end we are looking for Village Green status for the land to ensure it is never developed, and remains a space for community use for the next 50 years! There is a lot of pressure to develop sites in Barnet over the next 20 years (Barnet 2036 plan) –

“Barnet has made the decision to deliver the 46,000 homes over the 15-year Local Plan
period. This equates to approximately 3,067 homes per annum for 15 years” (that’s new homes between 2021 and 2036)

This means any undeveloped land, including parkland, is under threat of development, we have seen applications for development around us being granted and denied applications being overturned by central government.

So we are overdue getting this community amenity protected and managed for the future of Doggett’s Close.

May I ask you to join us please, help get photos and memories of its use over the past 50 years recorded so we can make our case for it to be a village green for the community!