Author: Nick Jones

A community garden in New Barnet where passers-by can help themselves to vegetables, fruit and herbs is the first of what might become several similar ventures if the self-help group Incredible Edible Barnet can find sufficient volunteers.

Continue reading Encouraging neighbourhood plots for growing fruit and vegetables

Volunteers are getting prepared for a High Barnet litter pick on the last Sunday in September. Among the top town centre targets will be the Moxon Street and Stapylton Road car parks, the Byng Road playing fields, and perhaps the worst litter black spot of all, the pavements and verges of St Albans Road, just north of the graveyard.

Continue reading Much needed High Barnet litter pick going ahead

A newly formed team of volunteers has started picking and collecting surplus fruit across the Borough of Barnet so that unwanted produce can be diverted to food banks and distributed by other organisations helping the needy.

Continue reading Apple trees laden with fruit to help local food banks

Kenneth Grahame’s classic children’s story The Wind in the Willows is to be performed live in the open air at East Barnet – a rare chance for a family outing for theatre lovers who have missed out on so much during the many months of lockdown.

Continue reading Live theatre back in East Barnet – for one day only!

Passers-by and property owners within High Barnet’s conservation areas are being urged to be on the lookout for thieves stripping lead from old and historic buildings.

Continue reading Lead thieves threaten High Barnet’s heritage

Brake Shear House, one of the last of the many small factories and workshops that were once dotted around High Barnet, is currently being demolished to make way for a new development of flats and houses on a site just off the High Street.

Continue reading Demolition of another of Barnet’s historic industrial workplaces

Residents are being asked in an online survey whether more roads should be included within the Barnet Hospital controlled parking zone and whether pay and display parking should be allowed in those streets where parking is currently restricted to residents only.

Continue reading Possible extension to Barnet Hospital controlled parking zone

Separate cycle lanes up and down Barnet Hill – an ambition ridiculed for so long by Barnet councillors – may have become a step closer as a result of the government’s decision to pump £2 billion into schemes to encourage cycling and walking as a way of fighting the coronavirus pandemic.

Continue reading Pressure for new A1000 cycle lanes to reach High Barnet

In a dramatic U-turn, Barnet Council has dropped its plan to temporarily close Barnet High Street to through traffic as a way of ensuring safe social distancing for pedestrians and shoppers.

Continue reading Barnet Council retreats: High Street to remain open to traffic

Barnet High Street is to be closed temporarily to all through traffic from the last week of August to ensure there is safe social distancing on the narrow pavement beside the parish church of St John the Baptist.

Continue reading Temporary ban on through traffic in Barnet High Street

Ambitious plans are being drawn up to celebrate the 550th anniversary next year of the Battle of Barnet.

Continue reading Looking ahead to 2021 and 550th anniversary of Battle of Barnet

By installing two male mannequins dressed in white in the Old Courthouse Recreation Ground, Barnet Lawns Bowls Club has managed to frighten off crows that have been digging holes in the fine turf of their two bowling greens.

Continue reading Crows beware – mannequins on parade at Barnet’s bowling greens

Work has started clearing the site off Rowley Lane, Boreham Wood, for the construction of the new Sky Studios Elstree, which were granted planning approval by Hertsmere Borough Council earlier this month.

Continue reading Elstree predicted to be a new “British Hollywood”

By shortening its route through New Barnet and High Barnet, Transport for London is hoping to give “a new lease of life” to the 384 bus service, by ensuring faster travelling times and by providing a new direct connection to Edgware.

Continue reading Faster times from High Barnet to Cockfosters and Edgware

Swift awareness week has been judged a success by admirers of High Barnet’s rare, elusive summer visitors who have again take up residence under the eaves of houses or in nest boxes.

Continue reading Bird lovers delighted to see swifts swooping over High Barnet

Barnet Council is appealing for volunteers to give advice and support to shoppers and the public on safe social distancing as lockdown is eased in High Barnet and other town centres across the borough.

Continue reading Appeal for volunteer advisers on lockdown easing guidance

Fred Jarvis, Barnet’s most celebrated trade union leader – and a New Barnet resident for well over 60 years – has died at the age of 95. He lived in Hadley Road and his wife, the late Anne Jarvis, was a teacher in Finchley for 30 years and spent eight years chairing Barnet Council’s education committee. 

Continue reading Death of Barnet’s veteran trade unionist

Customers were welcomed back in Barnet High Street and the Spires shopping centre on the first day of the easing of lockdown restrictions on shopping. Most of the leading chains were open for business.

Continue reading Lockdown easing a much welcome boost for town centre shops

For the first time since the start of the coronavirus lockdown at the end of March, High Barnet’s stalls market is back in business, leading the way for the re-opening of shops in the Spires shopping centre on Monday 15 June.

Continue reading Barnet Market leads way in reviving town centre trade

Transport for London’s plan to extend the route of the 384 Cockfosters to High Barnet bus service to Edgware, via Arkley and Mill Hill (Apex Corner), is meeting strong opposition because it would take a more direct route and serve far fewer streets.

Continue reading “Sneaky” move to re-route 384 bus

Swifts have again been seen swooping and squealing high overhead in High Barnet — aerial summer visitors that are an especially welcome sight in Fitzjohn Avenue where at least two pairs are thought to have chosen sites for nests.

Continue reading High Barnet welcomes its much-loved summer squealers

After almost a year’s trial and error, local sculptor John Somerville finally feels ready to display his clay model of High Barnet’s feline celebrity, Millie the Waitrose Cat, before she is cast into a small bronze statue.

Continue reading Millie the Waitrose cat: unveiled at last

Neve Mayes,star trumpet player at Dame Alice Owen’s School, marked the start and finish of the Victory in Europe Day two minute silence for residents in Fitzjohn Avenue, with her mother making sure the timings were correct. Ceremonies were held across High Barnet with Neve’s teacher, trumpet player John Young marking the start of the silence in Byng Road.

Continue reading Last Post starts two-minute silence in Fitzjohn Avenue

Church services streamed live online have become a regular Sunday morning point of contact for worshippers staying at home under lockdown. Christ Church, High Barnet, is trying to widen its reach by inviting the public to post requests for prayers.

Continue reading Christ Church reaches out with prayer box

A pub on wheels offering a freshly pulled pint of stout delivered straight to the door is proving to be a popular lockdown innovation for a High Barnet landlord. Jason Bourke, licensee of the Sebright Arms in Alston Road, has converted his pick-up truck into a mini-bar complete with a pump and two barrels of Guinness.

Continue reading Pulling pints in lockdown: mobile pub is the answer

Professional singer Iain Mackenzie with his daughter Poppy lead a community sing song which has become part of the regular Thursday night clap for NHS workers held by residents of Carnarvon Road, High Barnet. Each week during the 8pm Thursday clap sisters Lois and Maggie stand with their parents outside Barnet Hospital waving their rainbow posters in support of medical staff tackling the coronavirus pandemic.

Continue reading Imaginative community support for Barnet Hospital staff