Category: Planning

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Work well underway on Victoria Quarter flats at New Barnet…but uncertainty over much-used footpath and tunnel

A long-established footpath under the main railway line at New Barnet faces an uncertain future after being deemed unsafe during redevelopment of the former gas works site off Victoria Road.

Victoria Quarter – a massive new complex of 420 flats in eleven blocks of up to eight storeys in height – is rapidly taking shape after finally securing planning approval last year.

Save New Barnet mounted a sustained campaign to try to ensure improvements and safeguards during lengthy appeals and legal challenges over a succession of applications to develop the vacant site which lies between the main line and Victoria Park recreation ground and leisure centre.

Developers Citystyle Fairview promised that as part of the scheme it would install a well-lit new footpath to a tunnel which provides a right way connecting Victoria Park and its surrounding roads with streets on the other side of the main line around Cromer Road and Tudor Park.

But there is uncertainty now because Network Rail has detected structural faults in the railway embankment and tunnel which forced the closure of the footpath last year soon after construction work started.

East Barnet councillor Simon Radford (above) has taken up complaints made by residents and the Save New Barnet campaign about the continued closure of the existing overhead walkway leading to the tunnel, and the resulting loss of a much-used public right of way.

“Unfortunately, there is no indication yet as to what work is needed to stabilise the embankment and tunnel or how much it will cost,” said Councillor Radford.

“The footpath should have re-opened in July. We hope it might be sorted out by the end of the year, but who knows now.”

At his request there will be regular joint meetings between Network Rail, Fairview and Barnet Council and he has promised to keep the community informed.

“The trouble will probably be sorting out who should pay for any remedial work that is needed to the tunnel.

“Clearly the developers have a responsibility as they promised a new footpath, but it is complicated now Network Rail and Barnet Council are involved.”

The uncertainty has been criticised by John Dix of the Save New Barnet campaign who agreed with Councillor Radford that the re-opening of the footpath might take “significantly longer” than the target date of November.

“Apparently the embankment is already subject to cracking and instability at track level, and this has necessitated a redesign of the works.

“Sadly, this is something we specifically warned the council about before they granted permission to close the public right of way, but when do they ever listen to residents.”

The frontage to the Victoria Quarter redevelopment off Albert Road has been transformed by the completion of the new Park Quarter flats which front on to Victoria Road. Many are now fully occupied.

A start has already been made to marketing homes in the larger Victoria Quarter complex – as seen in the image above from the housing association Sovereign Network Group which is promoting the sale of some of the flats on a shared ownership basis.

SNG, which started promotion in June of the sale of a group of 22 one-, two- and three-bedroom flats in an area to be known as Quartoria, says that priority for the shared-ownership homes will be given to people who live or work in Barnet.

Its website says that based on a 25 per cent shared ownership one-bedroom apartments will be available from £91,250; two-bedroom from £113,750; and three-bedroom from £142,500.

There will be one parking space per apartment, either off-street or under croft parking.

There has been a succession of applications to redevelop the cleared site of the former New Barnet gas works in a long-running saga dating back over 16 years.

Residents and amenity group mounted fierce opposition fearing developers would cram in too many high-rise blocks.

It started when ASDA dropped their 2008 plan to build a new supermarket on the 7.5-acre site.

In 2017 approval was given for 317 flats but this was increased to 652 in a subsequent application proposing ten-storey blocks.

After local criticism this was reduced to 554 and finally Citystyle Fairview gained permission last year for 420 flats in blocks ranging from four to eight storeys with an undertaking to ensure the “removal of the existing elevated footbridge (leading to the tunnel) and creation of new pedestrian routes”.

A separate development is proposed by Berkeley Homes for the northern section of the gasworks site.

Victoria Quarter complex of 420 flats in New Barnet is well underway but residents fear for future of pedestrian tunnel under main railway line.

Late last year, it unveiled a plan to build 200 homes – a scheme which would result in the demolition of the 90-year-old gasometer, a well-known local landmark.

National Grid Property Holdings said the 38-metre-high frame of what was originally known as a column guided gasholder had “no particular historic or architectural merit” and “little, if any heritage value”.

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The High Barnet Station car park planning application is in!

Places for London (PfL), the partnership of Transport for London and Barratt London that wants to build on High Barnet Station car park, has submitted a planning application to the Council. Members of the public have until 2 September to comment on it. Above is a visualisation by jtp Architects & Masterplanners.

The designs are basically the same as those exhibited in February-March this year. The Barnet Society’s web post on 17 March set out our views on the development. Our conclusion then was that unless our concerns – especially regarding its overbearing scale, alien character, poor accessibility, and loss of almost all car parking – were addressed, the Barnet Society was minded to oppose the plans.

Since then, PfL have reduced the number of homes from 300 to 283 but increased the height of the tallest block to 11 storeys. They’ve also made some other adjustments to the designs of buildings and landscape. We’re scrutinising the 120-odd documents in discussion with Barnet Residents Association. As soon as we’ve come to a conclusion, we’ll publish a more detailed web post.

Meanwhile, you can view the application on the planning portal (reference 25/2671/FUL). The best documents to begin with are the Summary of Proposals followed by the Design & Access Statement (in 8 parts). Have your say via the Comments tab (but you’ll need to register first).

One drawing we haven’t been able to find so far is a single view of the whole scheme, but cut’n’pasting two elevations gives an overall impression of it from Barnet Hill.

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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.

Continue reading Reduced height for New Barnet tower blocks

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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.

Continue reading High Barnet Station – our response to the revised proposals

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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.

Continue reading Scaled back plans for Barnet station development

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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.

Continue reading Two blocks of flats abandoned and instead trees to be preserved

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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.

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