Barnet Council has almost £150,000 available which could be spent immediately on improving the road junction at the top of Barnet Hill, if only an agreement could be reached on how best to ease traffic congestion and make it safer for pedestrians.
Continue reading Loads of cash to improve Barnet’s traffic bottleneck
A restaurant with an outside seating area will become part of the High Street frontage of the Spires’ shopping centre if Barnet Council gives its approval.
A new layout for High Barnet’s bus stops could benefit passengers and speed up traffic flow. Transport for London has been asked to consider reorganising the bus stops at the top of Barnet Hill in order to reduce traffic congestion around Barnet parish church and to provide easier access for bus passengers.
The Friends of Barnet Market have orgainsied a series of events this Spring to encourage new shoppers to visit the Market site.
The Barnet Society pinpoints the sites of missing telecoms cabinets needed to deliver a fast broadband service. The Barnet Society has identified eight sites where it believes British Telecom needs to install additional kerbside telecoms cabinets if several thousand High Barnet households are ever going to have the chance to obtain a fast broadband connection.
An imaginative array of ideas for reviving Barnet’s shopping centre was outlined at the Barnet Society’s annual question and answer session with the Chipping Barnet MP Mrs Theresa Villiers.
Barnet Museum is staging a display of instruments and memorabilia belonging to Barnet Band, thought to be the oldest musical group in the London Borough of Barnet, which is celebrating its 125th anniversary this year.
Local historians are busy researching the lives of Barnet men who lost their lives in the First World War. The aim is to compile as many life histories as possible in support of a special exhibition which is being organised by Barnet Museum to commemorate the centenary of the Great War.
After collecting High Barnet’s rainfall figures since the 1980s, a Barnet family can say without hesitation that this winter has been the wettest locally for at least thirty years.
Hopes have been dashed of getting approval for an early start to an archaeological excavation to determine the precise site of the Battle of Barnet of 1471. An application for funding has been rejected by the Heritage Lottery Fund.
Continue reading Battle of Barnet dig – will Boris intervene?
A controversial plan to demolish the twin spires to provide a new entrance to the Spires shopping centre has been dropped after overwhelming opposition from Barnet residents and shoppers.
Two designs for a new High Street entrance to the Spires shopping centre – one of which would be without the two original spires of Barnet Methodist Church – are now on public display and open for consultation.
A long-awaited meeting between Theresa Villiers MP and senior executives of British Telecom has still left unanswered many of the questions about when – or if ever – many High Barnet residents will be offered a superfast broadband connection.
Continue reading MP tackles BT but is High Barnet any the wiser?
Barnet has probably more to thank the politicians and planners of the 1930s and 1940s for than any other town in north London. With protected Green Belt land on three sides, the High Barnet of today is blessed with some unrivalled countryside on our door-step.
Continue reading Green belt “critical to the health” of Barnet
Members will recall that a previous update on 11th September 2013 referred to the closure of the Totteridge Village/Lime Grove footpath in the summer of that year without any notice showing an alternative route back to the footpath.
A final decision is expected by the end of January on the extent of financial support from the Heritage Lottery Fund towards the cost of an archaeological excavation to determine the precise site of the Battle of Barnet of 1471.
A planning inspector has ordered that unauthorised timber cladding must be removed from the frontage of retail premises in the heart of the High Barnet conservation area.
Is Barnet in danger of losing another historic link with the past? The well house protecting the town’s famous physic well is looking decidedly the worse for wear.
Continue reading Barnet’s historic physic well now sad and forlorn
Like much of the south-east of England, Chipping Barnet is seeing a rapid rise in home extensions and offices being converted into flats. An easing of planning restrictions has given home-owners and property developers greater freedom. But are large home extensions an intrusion for neighbours? Will more flats instead of offices change the character of the town centre?
Ronnie Biggs, who spent the final years of his life at the Carlton Court Care Home in Bells Hill Barnet, has died at the age of 84.
He was released from jail on parole in 2009, shortly before his 80th birthday, after completing a third of the 30-year sentence that was imposed after the Great Train Robbery in August 1963.
Local residents who are against plans for tree-felling and landfill on the site of Old Fold Manor Golf Club off Hadley Green have been promised the support of the Chipping Barnet MP Theresa Villiers.
Continue reading Theresa Villiers opposes golf course landfill
After sustained pressure from local traders and community groups, Barnet Council has agreed to provide a sizeable number of free spaces for car parking close to the High Barnet town centre.
All the fun of the fair filled the High Street for the annual Barnet Christmas Fair, which many judged was the most ambitious and best supported since the event was first held twenty years ago.
Transport for London say its decision to allow Asda supermarkets to use High Barnet tube station for its click-and-collect collection service will not cause unnecessary congestion in the station approach road and car park.
Continue reading Will grocery collection add to Tube station congestion?
A planning inspector has now been appointed to consider the objections made by the Barnet Society and other local groups to the installation of unauthorised timber cladding above retail premises in Church Passage, in the heart of the High Barnet conservation area.
Continue reading Church Passage cladding: An inspector decides
Rambles Round Barnet 2 went on sale for the first time at the Christmas Fair on Sunday 1st December 2013.
It was gratifying to talk to local people who had bought Part 1 at the last Christmas Fair or, subsequently, from The Paper Shop, Waterstones or the Barnet Museum and were keen to see some more of the surrounding countryside using this new guide.
Local shops and businesses are pulling out all the stops to ensure a spectacular line-up of events and attractions for High Barnet’s annual Christmas Fair on Sunday 1st December.
Celebrations along the high streets of Britain have been few and far between in the last few years, so the official re-opening of Barnet Market after its recent make-over was just the kind of fillip local traders have been crying out for.
Hopefully the revival of the market, much strengthened by the attraction of additional stallholders, will give a much-needed boost to the Spires shopping centre and help to stem the run of retail closures.
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New steel frames for the market stalls, topped off with a smart set of awnings, gave the market a fresh look as friends, supporters and stallholders celebrated the first Saturday’s trading on the resurfaced site (9.11.2013).
At last the Friends of Barnet Market had a positive story to tell: after six years’ disruption and uncertainty the market finally had a settled site and an opportunity to rebuild the custom lost since the demolition of what was once Barnet’s cattle market.
Rarely has High Barnet been so united than in its campaign to preserve one of the town’s few remaining living links to its historic past – a market that was originally given its royal charter by King John in the 12th century.
Among those who joined the celebrations to mark the re-opening were the Chipping Barnet MP, Mrs Theresa Villiers, and leading members of the Friends of Barnet Market, the Barnet Society, Barnet Residents Association and other local groups.
Their presence was a chance to say a collective “thank you” to all those who had campaigned so steadfastly on the market’s behalf and who have done all they can to encourage customers to remain loyal to the small band of stallholders who never gave up of returning to their traditional site.
If planning approval can be obtained, Barnet Council will allow landfill to be used to re-contour a golf course at Monken Hadley over what is thought to be part of the Battle of Barnet site.
Continue reading Golf club wins first round in new Battle of Barnet
New recycling service: an eyewitness report from a Barnet Society member.
High Barnet householders have been told they should become their own recycling monitors and report back to Barnet Council on the efficiency of the new service for collecting recyclable refuse.
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