As a community in Barnet, we all have a responsibility to protect our planet and ensure a sustainable future for generations to come.

Climate change affects us all, from rising temperatures and extreme weather events, like more frequent heatwaves and flooding, to health implications like asthma and other respiratory related diseases, caused by air pollution.

BarNET ZERO, which was launched this month by Barnet Council, is a campaign focused on reducing our carbon footprint and lessening the impacts of climate change. The BarNET ZERO campaign also offers help and support services, including top tips and the benefits that being more sustainable brings to our planet, and your pockets too.

Watch the BarNET ZERO campaign video here

For us, sustainability is at the heart of the Brent Cross Cricklewood regeneration programme.

From how we are designing the programme, to how we build it and the materials being used, to how we envision the area evolving in the future. We want to leave a sustainable legacy.

Brent Cross Town is the neighbourhood at the heart of the Brent Cross Cricklewood regeneration programme. It will deliver up to 6,700 new homes, 3 million square feet of new office space, as well as leisure, retail and dining spaces – and it plans to be a net zero carbon town by 2030 at the latest.

As well as pledging to be net zero carbon by 2030, Brent Cross Town will also:

• Deliver a district heat network, which will have the largest air source heat pump installation in Europe and provide low carbon heating and hot water for all residents and businesses.
• Create a sustainable electrical substation which uses innovative concrete mixes and is built from reused steel salvaged from unused oil pipelines to minimise environmental impact.
• Use renewable energy with 100% of the energy supplies controlled by Brent Cross Town coming from renewable sources.
• Create an improved network of walking and cycling routes with 75 km of new cycling routes, and a pedestrian and cyclist-friendly network of new streets that will be low-speed.
• Allocate more than a quarter of the town to public open and green space. 50 acres of new parks and playing fields (including eight public squares and seven new and improved parks) will be incorporated.
• Adopt sustainable construction practices with some buildings like the Brent Cross Town Visitor Pavilion and Eastern Entrance of Brent Cross West station constructed using cross-laminated timber (made of renewable wood) to reduce carbon emissions. Concrete and brickwork from the initial demolitions back in 2019 have now been re-used three times which has reduced the number of lorry importation journeys by 15,000.

As part of the new Brent Cross Cricklewood regeneration programme, the Council is also delivering the new Brent Cross West station which is due to open this year. Brent Cross West station will be the first major new mainline station in London in over a decade and will take just 12 minutes for passengers to reach Kings Cross St Pancras from Brent Cross West.

The station will take vehicles off some of the country’s busiest roads including the North Circular – the UK’s most congested highway.

Brent Cross West is being integrated with other forms of sustainable transport too. The eastern entrance building will offer cycle parking for 68 bikes, whilst the new overbridge, part of the station, will offer a pedestrian and cycle route across this part of the Midland Main Line for the first time since it was built 150 years ago, linking our communities.

By working together to reduce our carbon emissions in Barnet, we can protect our community from these impacts, for generations to come.

Read more here about how we’re doing our bit to create a sustainable borough, fit for the future.