When work starts in October on a survey and excavation to find the site of the Battle of Barnet of 1471, local residents and schoolchildren will have their chance to play a part in the great upsurge in interest in medieval history that has occurred since the discovery of King Richard III’s remains in a Leicester car park.
Continue reading New finds may throw light on Barnet’s history
Barnet High Street is once again bedecked with flowering hanging baskets – their arrival was delayed by the late spring and they are still in need of some more warm weather!
Barnet Football Club’s vacant stadium at Underhill has been purchased by the government’s Education Funding Agency as a site for a new free school. Two applications for new schools to serve the Barnet area are currently being considered by the Department for Education.
Barnet Football Club’s vacant stadium at Underhill is to be demolished to make way for a proposed new free school – Ark Pioneer Academy – that would eventually accommodate more than 1,800 pupils.
Continue reading Underhill stadium: site for new six-form-entry academy school
Work could start as early as January next year on High Barnet’s largest housing development since the opening of the Dollis Valley estate. If planning permission is obtained, Linden Homes plan to construct over 100 new homes on the vacant Elmbank site that extends from Barnet Road, Arkley, almost to Barnet Hospital.
After a run of closures over recent months, the High Street now offers several new restaurants and cafes. The proprietors are hoping the custom they attract will encourage increased business for other shops and traders in High Barnet’s shopping centre and perhaps attract other new retail ventures.
Barnet residents who cannot get high speed broadband from British Telecom have been offered an alternative solution that can offer speeds of between 16-30mps.
A street-by-street survey conducted by local residents has demonstrated overwhelming support for a campaign to persuade British Telecom to provide up to 3,000 High Barnet residents with the fast broadband connection they so desperately need.
All seven primary schools in High Barnet and Underhill have again been oversubscribed, leaving 32 children without an agreed place in September – yet another indication of the strength of local demand for an additional school.
Barnet Council has been accused by supporters of the Campaign for Real Ale of acting in an underhand way in rejecting an application to grant community asset protection to the now closed Old Red Lion public house at the bottom of Barnet Hill.
One of High Barnet’s worst eyesores, the derelict former nurses’ home opposite the Arkley public house, is to be demolished to make way for a housing scheme that aims to provide approximately 100 new homes.
Torchlight tour of Barnet’s historic physic well but is another historic building at risk? Local residents had a rare opportunity to see inside Barnet’s historic physic well when Barnet Museum organised an open day at the well house, a short walk from Barnet Hospital.
Six candidates have been nominated for the Chipping Barnet constituency in the general election on Thursday 7 May – a seat currently held by Theresa Villiers, who has been the Conservative MP for the constituency since 2005.
Barnet Society member Sheila Durchslag has issued an alert over two missing George V plaques from the entrance to the fields off Barnet Lane.
High Barnet residents without access to a fast broadband connection are canvassing their neighbours in the hope of demonstrating to British Telecom that there is strong local demand that would more than justify investment in the nine additional fibre-enabled cabinets that are needed.
A scheme to re-landscape much of the Old Fold Manor Golf Club at Hadley Common that involves felling mature trees along half a mile of the St Albans Road needs to be explained in much greater detail before being granted planning permission by Barnet Council.
Continue reading Golf course landfill plan: questions that need answering
Military archaeologists from Huddersfield University hope to start work in May surveying the possible site of the Battle of Barnet of 1471, in preparation for a full-scale investigation.
Barnet Council is being urged by the Campaign for Real Ale to prevent the demolition of the Old Red Lion public house, at the bottom of Barnet Hill, by declaring it a community asset for the use of local residents.
A joint attempt by the Barnet Society and the Barnet Times to persuade Barnet Council to introduce a period of free car parking to boost trade in the borough’s high streets was rejected by the environment committee.
Continue reading Barnet Council says no to free parking – but campaign goes on
Barnet Council is being asked to give its support to a bid to re-open Barnet Cricket Club pavilion at Underhill and to convert its disused pitch into a new community playing field for cricket and football.
Continue reading New facilities planned for Barnet football and cricket
A group of feisty women, happy to be renowned for their stubbornness, gathered in Union Street, Barnet, for a ceremony marking the start of construction on a unique project – the first purpose-built co-housing scheme of its kind in the country.
Continue reading UK’s first purpose-build co-housing starts in Barnet
British Telecom has promised to send an executive to High Barnet in mid- March to meet the Chipping Barnet MP, Theresa Villiers, and local residents to discuss the lack of high-speed broadband in many of the roads in and around the town centre.
Continue reading Visiting BT executive to resolve broadband speed fiasco?
At a time when Barnet’s library service is threatened with savage cuts, The Hyde Institute in Church Passage is a reminder of the proud place libraries deserve in the community, and a celebration of craftsmanship.
Sunday mornings are quite a rush for the bell ringers of High Barnet. At 9 a.m. they meet up at the Parish Church of St John the Baptist and the bells ring out for half an hour before the start of the main morning service at 9.30.
Andrew Dismore, London Assembly member for Barnet and Camden, has stepped in to try to badger British Telecom to complete the High Barnet roll-out of high-speed broadband.
Valley Pre-School, a community-run nursery for children on the Dollis Valley estate, is appealing to Barnet Council for a three-month stay of execution of a notice to quit its temporary premises.
Another of High Barnet’s oldest public houses is to close – the Old Red Lion, at the bottom of Barnet Hill, is to serve its last pint on Saturday 28 February, following its sale by the Hertford brewers McMullen and Sons Ltd for housing development.
Suggestions that the White Lion pub in St. Albans Road is threatened with closure, and that the site may be sold off for housing, have been denied by Fuller’s Brewery’
Almost 2,000 people visiting shops and other premises in the High Street have signed the Barnet Society’s petition calling on Barnet Council to consider offering an hour’s free parking to help the town’s retailers.
Consultations have started on proposals to redevelop part of the course of the Old Fold Manor Golf Club, across land that is currently included in the registered site of the Battle of Barnet.
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