News from The Barnet Society

Potters Bar residents have had their first chance to learn more about a proposed data centre which is to be built on an 85-acre suite alongside the M25 motorway.

Completion of the Brook Valley Gardens estate off Mays Lane – which is a regeneration of the Dollis Valley estate – has moved a step closer. Progress has been stalled since 2023, but a revised deal has been agreed with the developers and approved by Barnet Council.

Since Barnet Council decided in December that it was minded to refuse Barratt London’s planning application, the Mayor of London has called it in for review. A public hearing seems likely directly after the local elections on 7 May 2026. The Barnet Society & Barnet Residents Association are greatly concerned that the Mayor’s decision won’t be impartial, and has sent the letter below to our MP, Barnet Councillors and its Greater London Assembly Member.

Three piano recitals are to be held at St James’s Church, New Barnet, over the coming months to celebrate the departure of a baby grand piano which has been largely unused in recent years, and which is about to be rehomed.

An application has been made to Barnet Council by a housing developer seeking permission to start discussions on building up to 300 homes on 17 acres of green belt land off Rowley Lane, Arkley.

Entertaining groups of Barnet’s senior citizens to a monthly supper evening is one of the many activities organised by one of the town’s oldest charities, the Puddenecks Club. The Puddenecks are volunteers whose mission is to hold events which help elderly residents overcome the loneliness of being home alone.

Arkley residents who have been campaigning for several years to safeguard woodland in Rowley Lane were shocked to see protected trees being felled across a one-acre plot – and their anger increased still further when Barnet Council apparently failed to take immediate action to stop the clearance.

Organisers of a busy programme of summer shows and festivals in and around High Barnet hope there will be maximum support this year because today’s tough times are forcing the postponement and even cancellation of some popular events.

QE Boys, established by Queen Elizabeth in 1573 as a free grammar for the “boys and youth” of Barnet, is about to begin a new chapter in its history with the opening in August of the first two of three new international schools bearing the brand name “Queen Elizabeth’s School”.

Traffic in Barnet High Street was at a standstill after a dramatic late morning crash when a car being followed by police cars struck the side of a No 34 bus waiting in the lay-by next to the Red Lion public house.

Plans are being finalised for a fresh attempt to determine the site of the 1471 Battle of Barnet which has remained unidentified despite previous searches and an extensive archaeological excavation.

Sebright Arms in Alston Road is one of three Barnet public houses which the Hertford family-owned brewers McMullen’s have sold to Punch Pubs & Co. Two others included in the sale of a total of 30 pubs are the Kings Head in Barnet High Street and the Queens Arms, next to the Everyman cinema.

Despite the wettest of winters and having to struggle through mud, volunteers completed the planting of a community orchard in former farmland off Mays Lane, Barnet, which has become the home of The Green Wellbeing Hub.

Barnet town centre is to lose one of its four remaining banks – and customers feared another might be going as well – as the big banks announced another massive round of branch closures.

This is a Badger Boar in Chipping Barnet Woodland at 5:53 am on New Year’s Day 2026. It’s one of several fine photographs in this article by Marianne Nix, a Barnet Society member who lives opposite the spinney by Christchurch Lane and designs leaflets and posters for the Save Chipping Barnet Woodland petition. She writes here in her personal capacity.

Long-established businesses fear they might have to close unless Barnet Council can be persuaded to drop parking charges which were introduced in mid-December outside the Mays Lane parade of shops.

An attempt is being made to safeguard the long-term future of a Barnet landmark, the Black Horse public house, which has been closed to the public since mid-September last year.

A sparrow hawk seen hovering and alighting in the trees disrupted the start of the Big Garden Bird Watch which was held at the Barnet Environment Centre in Byng Road. Once it had flown off and they no longer felt threatened by a bird of prey, smaller birds returned to the centre’s bird table.

Barnet Council is facing another challenge to its policy of encouraging developers to keep or offer space for workrooms and offices in new housing developments close to High Barnet town centre.

Robin Marson, who dedicated much of his life to supporting the work of organisations, societies and charities which over the years have strengthened Barnet’s strong sense of community, has died at the age of 89.