Reorganise chaotic approach to High Barnet tube station to provide space for a bus service direct to the Spires and Barnet Hospital – plea by the Barnet Society.
Transport for London is being urged by the Barnet Society to carry out a full investigation into the possibility of running a bus service from High Barnet tube station to the Spires shopping centre and then on to Barnet General Hospital.
The council is proposing to change the way that decisions are taken and introduce a Committee System form of governance. Barnet are currently operating an Executive System of governance.
Under this system, the majority of decisions in the council are taken by the single-party Executive (or Cabinet) either in the Cabinet meeting or by individual Cabinet Members.
After a rising chorus of protest from local community and residential groups, Barnet Council has finally issued an enforcement notice requiring the removal of timber cladding to the frontage of a former cafe and shop in Church Passage, just off the High Street.
Continue reading Council enforcement notice on ‘Swiss Chalet’
After having originally threatened to appeal against a High Court ruling that it had acted unlawfully in doubling charges in controlled parking zones, Barnet Council has now agreed to make refunds and take no further legal action.
Continue reading Barnet Council finally backs down after High Court defeat
A successful petition has helped to stop Barnet Council from appealing against the High Court ruling on controlled parking zones.
Continue reading Clamped! how petition spurred council to give up fight
High Barnet’s most popular children’s playground in the Old Court House recreation ground could become even more inviting if a new tenant can be found for the vacant park café.
Continue reading Sad café: Old Court House park in need of refreshment
For well over 60 years the Victoria Maternity Hospital served the people of the Barnets, but today there is scant recognition of the vital role it once played in the area.
Continue reading Know any famous people born in Barnet’s maternity hospital?
Footpath closure affecting ‘Rambles Round Barnet’ Part 1.
Update to infomation.
Barnet Market’s improved site should be open for business by September, ready to attract new stall holders.
Continue reading Barnet Market improvements ready by September
The Spires’ new owner wants to create a more ‘enticing’ entrance from the High Street that would attract more shoppers – and that may include the removal of the twin spires.
Continue reading The Spires shopping centre: will the twin spires have to go?
Resurfacing the site of Barnet market and installing basic facilities for the stallholders is the first test of the William Pears Group, new owners of the Spires shopping centre.
Continue reading Barnet market: now it’s up to Spires’ new owners to deliver
High Barnet residents have been invited to come up with ideas to use the facilities at the Wood Street campus of Barnet and Southgate College, which was rebuilt two years ago at a cost of £48 million.
Continue reading Barnet and Southgate College: ‘Our doors are open’
In the two years since the Barnet Society began protesting about derelict NHS buildings nothing has changed. The abandoned Marie Foster Home in Wood Street is still an eyesore, and so is the fire-ravaged former nurses’ home at Arkley.
Continue reading Barnet’s derelict NHS buildings: Same tired excuses
A donation of £750,000 will enable work to start this summer on the construction of a new eco-friendly environment centre for Barnet and the site clearance needed for the new Noah’s Ark Children’s Hospice.
Continue reading Go ahead for Barnet environment centre rebuild
North London’s much-troubled plan for handling municipal rubbish and waste is out for consultations once again.
Barnet Society publication ‘Rambles Round Barnet’ is the no 1 local best-seller at Waterstones Barnet!
A fresh start for retailing in Chipping Barnet: the Spires shopping centre has been purchased by the William Pears Group, one of Britain’s biggest privately-owned property groups which keeps a low profile but has its roots in north London. Contracts have been exchanged and the sale of the shopping centre by UBS Triton is due to be completed by late April.
Restoring and putting to good use Barnet’s rich heritage of historic buildings has become an increasingly challenging task which makes the story behind the project to preserve and re-open the former Red Cross building in St Albans’ Road all the more remarkable. Ten years ago the Red Cross indicated that it intended to vacate what had once been Christ Church School and put the 169-year-old flint-faced building on the market.
Continue reading Saving the Red Cross building: Mission nearly accomplished!
Barnet Football Club’s match against Wycombe Wanderers in the npower League 2 on Saturday 20 April will be the Bees’ last fixture at Barnet’s Underhill stadium. From the end of August and the start of the 2013-14 season, Barnet FC’s home fixtures will be played at the Hive Football Centre in Camrose Avenue, Edgware.
Continue reading Barnet Football Club’s departure going ahead as planned
Barnet Football Club’s departure going ahead as planned. Barnet Football Club’s match against Wycombe Wanderers in the npower League 2 on Saturday 20 April will be the Bees’ last fixture at Barnet’s Underhill stadium.
Barnet Museum has been fighting for its life since December 2010 when the Council announced that it would be withdrawing its funding.
Barnet’s former town hall, opposite St John’s Church, provides a positive reminder of the imaginative uses which can be found for redundant municipal property. This iconic building has now completed three years as the home of the North London Coroner’s Court and its future seems assured.
Continue reading Barnet’s town hall: an inspiring conversion
Like so much of the rest of the country High Barnet is losing its historic public houses at an alarming rate. The Black Horse at the junction of Wood Street and Union Street is the latest to boarded up but Punch Taverns say the closure is only temporary and the company’s “priority is to reopen the pub as soon as possible.”
Some long-awaited summer sunshine in late July provided the final seal of approval for Barnet’s town centre uplift and the newly-created meeting and seating area beside St John’s Church. Instead of a line of forbidding holly bushes there are now new walkways and benches, sweet smelling lavender in freshly formed flower beds, and an attractive beech hedge to provide some privacy.
A major planning application for the redevelopment of the former Middlesex University campus at Cat Hill in New Barnet was rejected by Enfield Council in March 2012.
An exhibition was held in mid-January to show plans for the proposed redevelopment of St Martha’s Convent Junior School on Union Street prior to a planning application being made.
Noah’s Ark Childrens’ Hospice has received planning consent for reserved matters for their proposed redevelopment of Barnet Countryside Centre (the former Curriculum Centre) in Byng Road.
In 2011 an application to demolish the Barnet Court House and replace it with a modern block of flats was refused by the Council and that decision was subsequently upheld at appeal.
Continue reading Barnet Court House – conversion to flats receives consent
People have again been enjoying the view from the top the tower of our parish church, St John the Baptist.
The constitution of The Barnet Society requires us to seek to protect the Green Belt around Chipping Barnet. Indeed that was the Society’s founding purpose.
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Mark posted a comment on From toy shop to branch Post Office – another franchised business moves into Barnet High Street
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graham posted a comment on Work underway to stabilise precarious brickwork in fire-ravaged Hadley Green house before reconstruction starts