Highgate Festival 19-27 June

The exciting programme for this year’s Festival is growing, with a mixture of walks, trails and open gardens – people can enjoy themselves outdoors, hearing and learning about the history of Highgate, plus there’s lots of on-line content for those happier to stay indoors. A handful of outdoor community events will be taking place including a Dog and Human Fashion Show and various music events. New for this year, we have Highgate Stories and a Pub Insta photo competition. If you are interested in putting on an event or to sign up for the newsletter and programme when it goes live please email info@highgatefestival.com or visit https://highgatefestival.org/

Think&Do Pop-up in June

How Green can Highgate get???? Be inspired by a visit to our nine day pop-up and exhibition to find out how to take climate action. Read about what local organisations, businesses and activists are doing as they address themes of transport, greening/growing, waste and recycling, energy and buildings and economics/democracy. Sign up for a project or organisation that you are passionate about. Organised by members of the Highgate Eco Network including the HNF, Highgate Society and Transition Highgate http://transitionhighgate.org/ – central village venue tbc.

How to contact the Councils

We asked our two Councils how they preferred to be contacted for help or information and then some detailed questions about how they handle queries from residents and residents’ groups. You can read their answers here.

Building on the Hillcrest Estate?

Some readers may remember that we had hoped to allocate Neighbourhood CIL monies to a play project on the Hillcrest Estate. Indeed, we had originally designated  the Estate’s gardens as a Local Green Space in our first draft of the Neighbourhood Plan. But both of these were denied on the grounds that Haringey had allocated the Estate as part of their programme to build new council homes.

As things had gone quiet on this front, Cllr Liz Morris kindly enquired of the Council on our behalf as to what their latest plans were. They responded: “The Hillcrest estate area remains a site that we are considering for the provision of new homes…The Council will provide Councillors with an update in the next six months…If the Council does proceed with proposals for new housing, there will be a separate period of extensive engagement and consultation with ward councillors and residents before any final decision is made to build new homes at this location.  Improvements and enhancements to the wider play space on the estate would form part of that discussion should the scheme progress to this point.”

We will continue to press them on this and keep you posted!

Virtual Coffee & Computers 

Highgate Coffee & Computers continues to have Zoom sessions on the first Friday of the month. In addition to one-to-one help, there are presentations on topics of general interest, such as What is the cloud? and What is a good password?. Contact us to be on the mailing list: highgatecoffeeandcomputers@gmail.com

Have your say on the future of Highgate Cemetery

The Cemetery are inviting views on the four shortlisted Landscape Masterplan submissions to guide the development of the Cemetery over the next 25 years. Your ideas and thoughts should be submitted by April 25 and will be shared with the judging panel and winning team to inform their ideas as they develop. Fine out more here.

Creating space for nature in Camden

Camden Council would like your views on their new Biodiversity Strategy for the borough. It is part of its efforts to address the ecological and climate emergency and to protect and increase Camden’s wildlife and natural spaces. Find out more and have your say before May 14 here.

Share your ideas to reimagine London

The London Mayor and Assembly want to hear from you too! They want to know what you like about your neighbourhood and how it could be improved, as the city recovers from the Pandemic. You can post your ideas or comment on others here until the end of June.

You can also check out the newly published London Plan 2021 here.

Alicia Pivaro
Chair, Highgate Neighbourhood Forum