What with the Test Match washed out for the day, Glorious Goodwood drowned and well-known people going on very long summer holidays, it can only be the Silly Season.  Accordingly, and just to prove it, two of our most courageous (maddest?) Members climbed the 140 foot high tower crane on the Barnet College site in July. Thankfully, an hour or so later, they returned from the sky.

Meanwhile, for those Members who prefer to stay nearer to ground level, the June visit showed the early metamorphosis from naked structure to a recognisable building. What a difference a roof makes. Service pipes, drainage fittings, floor screeds and glazing attachments were beginning to appear. With the project a week or so ahead of schedule the Site Manager could be quietly confident.

Back in May, the President and others were invited to the ‘Topping Out’ ceremony. Held on the roof of a new building, this function, which traditionally celebrates the builders reaching the highest point, is a thanksgiving for safety so far and blesses the building and those who will later use it. Simpler now, it involves the guests in a chilly half hour listening to speeches, followed by many hours of re-warming (with suitable stimulants).

Forward to Wednesday 10th September, when we anticipate the Project Architect meeting us to explain how and why the building is the way it is, before taking us on his personal guided tour.

The most significant recent event was the long awaited meeting between Theresa Villiers, MP, senior representatives from LBB (Dorne Kanarek, Acting Director of Environment and Transport, Lucy Shomali, Head of Strategy for Planning & Housing and Councillor Harper with Cabinet responsibility for Environment & Transport), and ourselves. The purpose was to discuss the ailing and unappealing town centre, its pros and cons and what might be done to help it forward. Judith Clouston, Gail Laser and I had put together a Discussion Paper and together we introduced a range of concerns and ideas.

We all recognized that, particularly in these straitened times, it would be difficult to achieve great changes. However, there was no reason why the team should not plan for change when it became possible, for example earmarking a permanent site for the Stall Market. LBB broadly felt that external funding was always going to be a factor in long term improvements. A ‘walkabout’ was proposed to look at vehicle parking problems and retail premises with evident difficulties. The possibility of linking up the two Conservation Areas via the High Street, which we have so long wanted, will be reviewed again. A town audit and character appraisal was suggested, although this may duplicate work already done. There was a good deal more, but perhaps after the ‘walkabout’ and another round table meeting later in the year, some clear positive strands will emerge.

Last month saw the closure of Barnet Hill School in the Dollis Valley Estate. How sorry we were. Our sympathies go to all those parents and children forced into unreasonable choices and unnecessary journeys to schools much further away.  We believe that the school and its multi-use spaces provided an important element in the community fabric and that its removal is much more than just the loss of teaching space. LBB might ponder the problems of the New Towns after the Second World War.

Back in the late autumn of 2007, the unexpected policy decision by the LBB cabinet to close the school led to the development team abruptly backing off from the then well - advanced plans for a new and brighter Dollis Valley. What a terrible waste. For the only time in my experience of real community working, the many parties involved, blessed with a first class architect, had reached concordance on a layout, a content, a scale, site access, open space treatment, community facilities and, yes, a school. Now, in limbo, we have nothing except the memories of what might have been. We can only hope that the politicians and officers concerned can live with their consciences. The Barnet Society had been pleased to be accorded the status of Stakeholder in this stimulating exercise, but we were not asked our opinion about its sudden close-down. After such a cruel pulling of the plug, I doubt whether an equivalent working relationship or satisfactory outcome can ever again be achieved.

Will political pressure emerge again to stifle the imaginative ideas for a new light railway crossing north London, joining up the two arms of the Northern Line, linking Finchley Central to Brent Cross, Hendon, Finchley Road, Wembley, Acton and Ealing amongst others? The North and West London Light Railway is one of the most exciting proposals to emerge in years and I don’t apologize for writing about it again. Its sponsors are trying hard to persuade the several local authorities concerned (including Barnet) to give the proposals a fair hearing and meanwhile to safeguard the possible routes.

The greater part of the proposed line consists of old lines, hardly used or still existing track beds. Docklands Light Railway technology is envisaged; a quick, clean, quiet form of transport, already shown to be efficient and popular. The sponsors suggest (and I agree) that a significant easing of private vehicles on many roads would result. Brent Cross investors and traders could be considerably advantaged. Questions about the location of the North West London Waste Plant, the Thames Link train yard and railway station are clouding the issue, but we hope that the planners will see through clearly. Don’t forget Boris said ‘We can do more to develop orbital transport as well as radial.’ (For more on this see www.bettertransport.org.uk)

The Barnet Stall Market is stalled - or rather the negotiations are. How on earth the market owners have allowed the present situation to develop is beyond understanding. They bought the market in 1999, a time of financial stability my friends tell me. We understand that they signed a covenant to retain the market for 15 years, that is until 2014. Did they intend it to survive any longer? We cannot tell.

After several attempts at producing an additional revenue-making development for the St Albans Road site, they obtained planning approval for 14 flats on two upper floors, a basement car park and a market hail on the ground floor. Why did they not then build it all? We cannot tell.

They finally expelled the traders from the site at the end of 2007 and we all assumed that building would then start, especially as all the useful things like shelters, roofs, drains, toilets, access gates, etc. were all ripped out. But still building did not start. Why? We cannot tell.

Against the clock a short term lease for temporary space on part of Staplyton Road Car Park was then agreed.

The seventeen month period expired last June and once again the traders became homeless. The Barnet Society is absolutely delighted that wise heads in LBB have found a way (it’s called a ‘Tenancy at Will’) to extend the traders’ chances of survival, for it’s quite clear that the market owners have no determination to do so. The recent article in The Barnet Times (errors apart) took the lid off some of the extraordinary wrangling and buck-passing that has taken place during the last 18 months. The present planning approval runs out in November 2010. It remains to be seen what will happen next. We cannot tell (and nor can anyone else). 

Meanwhile, if you want to help, don’t wring your hands - go there and buy stuff!

That’s enough but, before you nod off on a drowsy summer afternoon, remember that the Gaming Shop entrepreneurs have not gone away; those New Barnet bullies - ASDA and Tesco - are still lurking out there and that the Silly Season is a traditional period for slipping through shady deals of all sorts.

So stay awake!