News from The Barnet Society

This peaceful spinney in Christchurch Lane is a haven of wildlife less than 200 metres from Barnet High Street – but it’s threatened by new building. How can that be? Barnet Council declared a Climate and Biodiversity Emergency in 2022. Its recently-adopted Local Plan contains policies and supplementary planning documents specifically to protect green spaces of all kinds. Mayor Khan has similar planning policies and is currently consulting on London’s first Nature Recovery Plan (LNRS) to reverse biodiversity loss. Surely the spinney’s future is safe? Worryingly, the answer is no.

… or High Barnet Place, as the development proposed next to High Barnet Station is officially called (see above). But Barnet Heights would be a more accurate description of 283 flats over the whole of the present car park in blocks of 5 to 11 storeys high. Whichever, it’s the most serious threat to Chipping Barnet's character and functioning in decades. And Friday 19 September is the deadline for public comments on the planning application.

This development would permanently alter the identity of Chipping Barnet. If approved by the Planning Committee, it would set an extremely damaging precedent for the town centre and neighbouring areas. We have until Friday 19 September to comment on it.

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.

A 100+ crowd packed planning committee rooms at Barnet Town Hall last night for the big match – Barnet Football Club v defenders of Barnet Playing Fields, the proposed site of a new 7,000-seat stadium. After more than two hours of impassioned debate, the result was announced: 6-0 against the Bees.

Chipping Barnet constituents filled most of the pews in St John the Baptist’s Church on Thursday evening, 20 March 2025, to tell Transport for London (TfL) what they thought about their proposal to build 300 flats next to High Barnet Station. After a passionate and occasionally acrimonious meeting, the TfL team will have no illusions about local opposition to their development. But the audience were also left in no doubt that – barring unforeseen constructional challenges or political events – we have little chance of securing more than a few tweaks to the design of the buildings or their outdoor spaces.

Following the recent public consultation about proposals for this highly prominent site, Dan Tomlinson MP is holding a meeting for residents to share their thoughts with the landowner, Transport for London (TfL).

We wholeheartedly support the principle of Barnet Football Club returning closer to its historic roots, and we can see some potential benefits for Chipping Barnet as well as the Club. But we have severe reservations about key aspects of the Club’s case.

Transport is back in the news, with the government’s promises of a ‘bus revolution’ and renationalisation of rail services. As London expands into the Green Belt, it’s timely to review the state of transport in Barnet and neighbouring areas.

The deadline for comments on the planning application to build 114 homes on the field shown above is Tuesday 12 December. Barnet planners have already built them into the draft Local Plan, and we must work on the basis that they are likely to recommend approval of the plans.

Concern is growing that – nearly a month after a major planning application for 114 homes on the Whalebones fields was submitted – neighbours have yet to be formally notified by the Council. Barnet residents have until only until Tuesday 14 November to look at the plans and make their own comments, for or against.

The Victoria Quarter illustrates – barely believably – the extraordinary lengths to which some developers go these days to cram housing onto their sites.

A new planning application is in for the Whalebones site. The plans have been scaled back from 152 to 114 homes, but in most other respects are similar to the one we objected to in 2019.

My web post on 25 September about the crucial importance of minimising carbon emissions from Barnet’s existing housing stock looked at the challenge of upgrading the environmental performance of two houses on the Council’s Local Heritage List. This post shows what can be done to a more typical home in our borough.

In Barnet, the biggest cause of climate change is housing. Homes emit around 50% of the carbon released in our borough. Radically reducing those emissions by upgrading the environmental performance of our homes is the most urgent and useful thing that many of us can do.

The Barnet Vale Festival on Sunday 25th June is a free drop-in community event at the superb but dilapidated art deco pavilion in Tudor Park, Barnet EN5.

The London Festival of Architecture (LFA) is a month-long celebration of architecture and city-making that takes place every June across London. This year, for the first time, Barnet is an official destination in the LFA’s exciting and varied programme of events around the theme ‘In Common’. Several are coming up in the north of our Borough.

The Barnet Society’s Planning & Environment Committee has studied closely the latest design proposals exhibited at The Spires on 12 & 15 April. This is a once-in-a-generation chance to revitalise our town centre, but it risks being wasted. Frankly, we’re disappointed.

Despite the pace of new building in Barnet, most of our existing homes fall well below the environmental standards we need to meet to avoid climate catastrophe.

After years of dereliction, Barnet Homes have published proposals for sites in Moxon Street and Whitings Road for public consultation. The designs are better than previous schemes for the same sites approved several years ago, but never built.