News from The Barnet Society

Urgent action is needed to save 33 Lyonsdown Road following Barnet Council’s recent decision to allow its demolition. Together with local residents, the Barnet Society has been campaigning since 2017 to save this beautiful Victorian villa but the owners have used the permitted development route to apply to knock down the locally listed building.

After a two-week inquiry into the latest plans to redevelop the former gas works site in New Barnet, a planning inspector will have to decide whether developers Citystyle Fairview should be allowed to squeeze in 168 more flats than were originally agreed in 2017.

New Barnet's Salvation Army Hall is about to be demolished  a poignant reminder of the many local connections with the movement's founder, General William Booth, who lived in Hadley Wood until his death in 1912.

Converting the former Grasvenor Avenue Infant School to take pupils with special education needs will help meet the lack of places within the Borough of Barnet for children with learning difficulties.

Record temperatures and an unprecedented red alert heatwave warning are claimed to be further justification for opposition to a scheme to build high-rise blocks of flats on the former gas works site at New Barnet.

Record temperatures and an unprecedented red alert heatwave warning are claimed to be further justification for opposition to a scheme to build high-rise blocks of flats on the former gas works site at New Barnet.

For the first time in a decade Tudor Park Pavilion was brought back to life hosting a Picnic for the Pavilion for the residents of Barnet Vale...well almost!

Barnet Council has intervened on planning and licensing grounds to ensure a full hearing of the views of local residents before a decision is made on whether to allow an adult gaming centre to open in Barnet High Street.

A concert by pupils at Queen Elizabeth's Boys School was another first for the High Barnet Chamber Music Festival which is now in its second year. Reaching out to local schools and working in partnership with them is one of the long term aims of the festival’s organisers.

A planning inspector has given the go ahead for Barnet House, the twelve-storey vacant office block in High Road, Whetstone, to be converted into 260 flats with affordable workspace on the ground floor.

An artist's impression illustrates how Green Belt fields off Mays Lane, Barnet, are to be transformed into London's first purpose built equine therapy centre where challenged youngsters will be able to interact with specially trained horses.

Barnet parish church is to host the first concert of this year's High Barnet Chamber Music Festival -- and the two soloists on the opening night, French horn player Annemarie Federle and tenor Brenton Spiteri have been busy rehearsing.

Barnet Council, now under Labour control, is intent on building a new relationship with the borough's residents to ensure improvements in key areas such as planning, public amenities, bus services and the protection of the Green Belt and open spaces.

London's first purpose built equine therapy centre  -- where challenged youngsters interact with specially trained horses -- is to be established at derelict stables in Mays Lane, Barnet.

Barnet Council has rejected plans for the installation of a 20-metre high 5G network telephone mast on the approach road to Barnet Hospital, close to the mini roundabout at the junction of Wellhouse Lane and Wood Street.

An application is being made under the Gambling Act to open a bingo hall on Barnet High Street in the historic building that was most recently a branch of the TSB bank and which was formerly the offices of the Barnet Press weekly newspaper.

Barnet Medieval Festival's spectacular re-enactments, attracting ever-loyal audiences, are generating increased interest in the role played by the two Battles of St Albans, as well as the Battle of Barnet.

Displays by mounted knights in armour and men at arms were another first at the increasingly popular Barnet Medieval Festival, now in its fourth year. A record number of over 300 re-enactors and 70 medieval tents filled the Byng Road playing fields for the two-day festival.

The Barnet Society is collecting photographs and stories that captured the fun and friendliness of the many street parties held over the four-day Platinum Jubilee celebrations.

A veteran High Barnet motorcycling enthusiast, 86-year-old Peter Biles -- who bought his first motorbike just before the Coronation in 1953 -- was one of the veterans taking pride of place in the pageant The Times of Our Lives on the final day of the Platinum Jubilee celebrations in Whitehall and The Mall.