News from The Barnet Society

If Transport for London gets the go ahead to build four high-rise blocks of flats alongside Barnet Hill, they will transform the approach to the town from Underhill. Plans for redeveloping the land around High Barnet tube station to provide 300 homes have now been updated.

Restoring the 140-year-old organ at Barnet parish church is proving a massive task -- well over 2,000 organ pipes are having to be individually cleaned and if necessary repaired before they can all be re-assembled.

Barnet Football Club has completed another stage in its attempt to gain approval from Barnet Council for the construction of a 7,000-seat stadium on playing fields at Underhill.

Concern about possible harm to great crested newts and bats is on the agenda at a public inquiry which is hearing an attempt to overturn the refusal to grant planning permission for two travellers' caravans in a field off Mays Lane, Barnet. Someline goes here.

After months of uncertainty a deal has finally been agreed: High Barnet's historic Tudor Hall in the middle of the Barnet College campus has been saved for community use. A bid by the trustees of Barnet Museum has been accepted by the board of governors of Barnet and Southgate College.

Barnet Council is to take on the task of helping to promote and support arts and cultural events across the borough -- a role previously performed by a network of volunteers. An online guide is to be published by the council listing a wide range of arts, leisure and sports events.

Answering questions from Barnet Friends of the Earth was a chance for the Chipping Barnet MP Dan Tomlinson to say more about his plans to encourage initiatives such as helping to finance the installation of solar panels on community buildings.

A plan to introduce bus lanes along both sides of the busiest section of Barnet High Street -- between the Wood Street junction at the Barnet parish church and Meadway -- has been approved by Barnet Council and Transport for London. Only six objections were registered after 456 letters were sent to nearby residents and businesses.

Daily life in High Barnet well over a century ago has been re-imagined for a new play which looks back even further in time to the years when the Victorian explorer Dr David Livingstone and his wife Mary lived on Hadley Green.

Sarah Parish, well known for her role in tv series such as Peak Practice and Pillars of the Earth, and her husband, actor James Murray, are supporting drama therapy sessions at the Noah's Ark Children's Hospice in Byng Road, Barnet.

Regular customers at The Queens Arms, Barnet, have been fearing the worst with the doors remaining locked and no sign of life inside. However, they have been assured that the closure -- and also the closure of the Kings Head in Barnet High Street -- are both only temporary.

Plans to demolish a group of workshops and other industrial premises mid-way between Barnet and Whetstone has revived family memories of how it was once the site of a well-regarded laundry serving customers in and around North London.

NEW – What an amazing and exciting word, full of hope and invigoration, isn’t that exactly just what we all need right now! NEW investment, NEWly recreated, NEW experience. The Council is consulting us on projects to help regenerate the Barnet High Street area here.

Champions of Barnet's history, heritage and culture are determined to ensure the town does all it can -- despite covid.19 restrictions -- to commemorate the 550th anniversary of the Battle of Barnet.

People walking across the Shire London golf course during lockdown are being urged to act responsibly after repeated reports of swans and geese being harassed by dogs running off the lead.

Just as the New Year lockdown was announced, the proprietors of High Barnet's newest brasserie, Botannika, went ahead with their planned opening -- offering a take-away menu and a range of bread and cakes.

Lockdown and self-isolation have imposed few significant changes in the daily life of the nuns of the enclosed order of Barnet Poor Clares who this year are celebrating the 50th anniversary of the opening of their monastery in Galley Lane, Arkley.

A New Barnet institution, the French restaurant Chez Tonton has closed after 37 years -- an emotional farewell for proprietors Eric and Claudine Michel, who are known to legions of loyal customers, and who are looking forward to fresh challenges in their retirement.

At the close of 2020, after one of the bleakest years for High Barnet in recent living memory, the long wait for spring should be relieved by the recognition that the local community enjoys perhaps the greenest surroundings of any comparable north London community.

Boxes of chocolates, gift bags - and volunteering to have on-line chats with lonely dementia patients - are just some of the many ways in which residents have been showing support and solidarity with the medical and ancilliary staff at Barnet Hospital coping with the added pressures of the covid.19 emergency.