Category: Planning

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Barnet’s promotion to League Two of the Football League is being hailed as a boost to campaign to build new stadium at Underhill

After Barnet secured their return to the Football League with a decisive 4-0 win against Aldershot, supporters of the BringBarnetBack campaign hope it might strengthen the club’s chances of obtaining planning permission for a new stadium at Underhill.

There was a sell-out crowd for the last home match of the season (Saturday 26 April) at the club’s current stadium, The Hive, Harrow.

Their comfortable defeat of Aldershot ensured the Bees’s promotion to League Two of the English Football League.

Post-match celebrations for the team and spectators made the front page of The Non-League Paper (27.4.2025)

A largely unbeaten run had kept Barnet safely at the top of the Vanarama National League for months on end – a lead which extended for a time to nine points.

Barnet’s success – and a place back in League Two after relegation in 2018 – has boosted the efforts of supporters who have put up banners and posters around the town backing the club’s bid to build a new stadium at Underhill.

After seven years out of League football, securing promotion with a game in hand, has added further impetus to calls for Barnet residents and community groups to back the club chairman Tony Kleanthous who has promised to invest £14 million in a new stadium. 

Arrangements are already in hand by BringBarnetBack for a celebration in High Barnet to congratulate the club and manager Dean Brennan for turning around the club’s fortunes.

Barnet have only lost once this year and nine consecutive wins from February to March had already given the club a commanding lead.

Tickets sold out fast for the crucial match against Aldershot with 4,500 home supporters expected at the stadium together with away fans – for full match report see club’s website above https://barnetfc.com/

Two first half penalties by Mark Shelton and then two goals within four minutes in the second half by Callum Lee Stead sealed the match and promotion with a game to spare.

Victory over Aldershot put Barnet on 99 points (followed in second place by York on 93).

Barnet now have the chance in their final match of the season against AFC Fylde on 5.5.2025 to break the 100-point barrier.

After failing to gain promotion in the two previous seasons after being beaten in the play offs, Dean Brennan’s success in steering the team to automatic promotion does raise the club’s profile at a critical point in their future.

Since moving to The Hive in 2013, Barnet have failed to match previous attendances at Underhill.

The average gate in recent months has been around 1,800 and club officials believe a move back to Underhill could increase that to around 3,500 given the strength of local support.

Campaigners for Barnet FC to return to Underhill encouraged by club's promotion to League Two of the Football League

Discussions are continuing with Barnet Council’s planning department over the plan to return the club to “where it belongs” – a constant refrain of BringBarnetBack.

In February, Barnet FC completed another stage in its attempt to gain approval when its application to construct a 7,000-seat stadium on playing fields at off Barnet Lane was validated by Barnet council, a step which enabled the club’s consultants and architects to start discussions with planning officers.

There is no indication yet of how the talks are going and so far, no date has been set for when the application might be considered by the strategic planning committee.      

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Vote for Something for Young People in the Community Plan

Our teenagers and young adults could be among the greatest casualties of Covid-19. The Plan must offer them something, whether work experience or youth-focused leisure attractions.

The Council is consulting us on projects to help regenerate the Barnet High Street area. Our web post on 1 February described how the Barnet Society has responded to the Community Plan by agreeing five priorities: something old, something new, something for children, something for young people and something green.

The prospects of secondary school and college students have been thrown into disarray by the pandemic and its economic consequences. Not only have their pathways to educational qualifications been disrupted, but their chances of secure and well-paid employment have been reduced. On top of that are the adverse consequences for their health and wellbeing. It is essential for the Plan to do something to repair the damage and give them hope for the future.

Here we invite you to consider the two potential projects in the Plan that would specifically offer something for young people – and would also benefit the wider community:

  • The Bull Theatre
  • Teenage Makers

Don’t miss the opportunity to let the Council know that you support at least one of these projects in the Community Plan here. The deadline for comments is Friday 19 February.

The Bull Theatre is the heart of the Susi Earnshaw Theatre School (SETS), which offers a specialist curriculum to pupils aged 9-16, focused on the performing arts. In normal times, SETS plays a prominent part at Barnet and London events.

The Community Plan project is not intended to alter SETS’ core educational role, though if successful, SETS would certainly benefit. It’s partly about taking school performances out to local schools and other audiences. It’s also about attracting the community into its building, particularly its auditorium, to engage in a range of educational and enjoyable activities at times of day, evening or weekend when it would otherwise be empty.

SETS has expertise in, and passion for, the creative and expressive aspects of the curriculum that research shows are invaluable to the development of children and young adults, but for which mainstream schools are often unable or unwilling to provide. Lockdown has made us aware of how important the arts are for all of us. Whether as participants or audiences, our mental health and wellbeing depends on them to some degree.

The Bull Theatre has been a valued but under-used resource in Chipping Barnet in the past. A project to broaden public access to it would be well worth your support.

https://cbcommunityplan.co.uk/the-bull-theatre/

The other project in the Community Plan for young people, Teenage Makers, would build on the success of the Teenage Market that ran for two years pre-Covid on The Spires bandstand site. That provided a platform for youngsters to market their own goods and to entertain visitors with musical gigs. Teenage Makers would take this model a step further.

Partnership with Barnet & Southgate College, and possibly local secondary schools, would enable a programme of teaching and learning through making and selling that could lead to formal qualifications, work experience, employment – and with luck, a new generation of entrepreneurs.

This would also fit well with the government’s recent recognition that vocational education has in the past been undervalued and underfunded, and deserves better support in future.

A Teenage Makers market on the College’s square would also bring life to that attractive but under-used space, and encourage staging of other public events there.

https://cbcommunityplan.co.uk/teenage-makers/The Society would like to hear how you rate these ideas. If you’re a member, we’ve already written to you, so email us at the address in the letter, by Monday 15 February. If you aren’t a member, please contact us via the comment box below – and consider joining us!

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Vote for Something Green in the Community Plan

Barnet has precious green open spaces, mature woodlands, streams and wetlands. Last year brought home what we stand to lose with climate change and bad building development. Surely this is the moment to invest in green initiatives.

The Council is consulting us on projects to help regenerate the Barnet High Street area. The Barnet Society’s web post on 1 February described how we’ve responded to the Community Plan by agreeing five priorities: something old, something new, something for children, something for young people and something green.

Chipping Barnet’s abundance of green spaces is one of its unique selling points. Wherever you may be in the area, you’re never more than a few stones’ throw away from a park, wood or nature of some kind, which is indeed a luxury considering our proximity to central London. But protecting the environment is also about reducing our carbon emissions in other ways, which can be active (e.g. generating energy from renewable sources) or passive (e.g. saving and enhancing existing buildings).

Here we invite you to consider projects in the Plan that would support something green in various ways:

  • Routes & Riches Wayfinding
  • Rewilding
  • Community Energy Company
  • Opportunity Clusters: Historic Centre, Civic & Market and Hadley Green

It’s important to let the Council know that you support at least one of these projects in the Community Plan here. Below we explain why they are worth considering in more detail.

Our green assets aren’t always utilised and enjoyed to their full potential. In her recent web post something old, Judith Clouston described how Routes & Riches Wayfinding could result in a series of specially-commissioned signs or markers to highlight the locations not just of our historical and architectural gems, but of our green spaces. This would celebrate them and make them as accessible and enjoyable as possible.

How many people know that loads of free blackberries grow in public spaces within 10 minutes’ walk of the High Street? Or that one of the best views of our Green Belt can be seen from Whitings Hill, only five minutes’ walk beyond Barnet Hospital? This project would be an inexpensive way to show locals and visitors where these delights can be found.

https://cbcommunityplan.co.uk/routes-riches-wayfinding/

The Society is particularly glad to see Rewilding among the Plan projects. Over the last 25 years, we’ve planted, and persuaded the Council to plant, many hundreds of trees and shrubs in and around the town centre. We’ve supported other local organisations active in conserving and enhancing the environment such as Green Beings and Barnet Environment Centre (illustrated above, right). And we’ve drawn attention to neglected corners that would benefit from better design and management, such as the pocket park between The Spires and the Stapylton Road bus-stop (illustrated above, left).

The strengths of this project are many. It would require relatively little to deliver: mainly seeds or saplings – which are cheap – and labour to find, prepare, plant and maintain new spaces. There’s great and growing enthusiasm for planting among the public, and especially in schools, so much of the labour could be voluntary. It would produce results within a growing season or two, but could also be carried out in stages as money and enthusiasm allow. It would bring quiet satisfaction to those taking part, and to all the passers-by who enjoy the results.

We know that Green Beings are particularly keen to engage the community with re-wilding (and maintaining) suitable pockets of land in and around the town. Provided we can get a handle on our litter problem, this can add significantly to the character and identity of Chipping Barnet, as well as offer opportunities for pollination, biodiversity and habitat creation.

https://cbcommunityplan.co.uk/rewilding/

The idea of a Community Energy Company could hardly be more different. Given sufficient uptake by local residents and businesses, this could lead to a significant reduction in our energy costs and carbon emissions.

Putting solar panels on the roofs of suitable buildings around the town centre must be a better response to the need for renewable energy, surely, than the Council’s current inclination to approve solar panels and battery stores in parks and open spaces that it deems to be ‘low quality, low value’?

Of all the green projects in the Plan, it is the most ambitious but could have the greatest impact. But it would need substantial investment upfront before economic and environmental benefits would be felt. And for it to remain a locally controlled initiative, the Council and Chipping Barnet Town Team would need long-term commitment and in-house expertise.

https://cbcommunityplan.co.uk/community-energy-company/

Green initiatives on a more modest scale are also contained in the ideas for Opportunity Clusters in the Historic Centre, the Civic & Market Quarter and Hadley Green. Some could involve actual new greenery – in, around, on the rooftops of, and growing up the walls of existing buildings. But a sustainable environment is not just about plants: it’s about safeguarding the massive amounts of embodied carbon locked up in building fabric. Our town centre is full of interesting architecture, but often so neglected that it goes unnoticed. We already know how to transform the environmental performance of old buildings without destroying their character; what we need is the care and imagination to do it.

https://cbcommunityplan.co.uk/opportunity-cluster-historic-centre/

https://cbcommunityplan.co.uk/opportunity-cluster-civic-and-market/

https://cbcommunityplan.co.uk/opportunity-cluster-hadley-green/

The Society would like to hear how you rate these ideas. If you’re a member, we’ve already written to you, so email us at the address in the letter. If you aren’t a member, please contact us via the comment box below – and consider joining us!

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Reduced height for New Barnet tower blocks

After feedback from a public exhibition in January, the Victoria Quarter housing development on the former gas works site in New Barnet has been scaled back slightly by lowering the height of the proposed blocks of flats and by making a small reduction in the number of new homes.

A 14-storey tower block has been cut to ten storeys and most of the blocks will now be seven storeys high instead of eight.

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High Barnet Station – our response to the revised proposals

Plans for the station land have been scaled back, as Nick Jones reported on 7 November. But unless more radical improvements are made, the Barnet Society will oppose them.

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Scaled back plans for Barnet station development

Mature trees are to be kept and the multi-storey blocks of flats to be built around High Barnet tube station have been reduced in height, but there is still to be a drastic reduction in the number of car parking spaces.

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Two blocks of flats abandoned and instead trees to be preserved

Transport for London and developers Taylor Wimpey have reduced significantly their original plans to redevelop land in and around High Barnet station with five-storey blocks of flats.

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Design of quality proposed for Whalebones – so why does the Barnet Society oppose it?

Masterplan of Whalebones development (Architects: Pollard Thomas Edwards)

A planning application (19/3949/FUL) has been submitted to build 152 new homes and a replacement artists’ and bee-keepers’ studio on the Whalebones site.

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High density housing for High Barnet station?

According to a circular being distributed around Chipping Barnet, proposals are being developed to ‘improve’ the area around High Barnet station. These will include new public space and new homes, including affordable homes.

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Plans for houses and public parkland in Whalebones

A woodland walkway, a healing garden and children’s play area are among the latest proposals for inclusion in the fields and woods that make up the Whalebones estate in Wood Street, Barnet, where developers are proposing to build around 150 new homes.

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