News from The Barnet Society

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.

Barnet Council’s planning department has come down firmly against Barnet Football Club’s application to build a new 7,000-seat stadium on Barnet Playing Fields at Underhill.

In advance of a key meeting which campaigners understand will be held in mid-July, BringBarnetBack have launched a last-minute appeal to Barnet Council to give the go-ahead for a new football 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.

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.

Leaflets promoting Bring Barnet Back are being distributed across the town as the campaign hots up to persuade Barnet Council to approve plans for a new football stadium at Underhill.

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.

Barnet’s shock 1-0 defeat of Sheffield United – to reach the fourth round of the FA Cup – has re-awakened tales of other memorable matches from the years Barnet played at the Underhill stadium before the club moved to Edgware in 2013.

Almost five years since Barnet Football Club played its last game at Underhill, its stadium off Barnet Lane is finally being demolished to make way for a 1,200-place Ark Academy secondary school. Demolition contractors moved onto the site in the second week of January.

Barnet Football Club’s vacant stadium at Underhill has been purchased by the government’s Education Funding Agency as a site for a new free school. Two applications for new schools to serve the Barnet area are currently being considered by the Department for Education.

Barnet Council is being asked to give its support to a bid to re-open Barnet Cricket Club pavilion at Underhill and to convert its disused pitch into a new community playing field for cricket and football.

A campaign to get Barnet Football Club to return to the town in a new purpose-built stadium is to be stepped up, after what local supporters believe could be some promising signs.

Underhill stadium, home ground of Barnet Football Club for over a century, is to be sold.  News that the club’s chairman Tony Kleanthous has put the Bees’ former stadium up for sale will be a disappointment for the campaign Back2Barnet that has been fighting to get professional football restored to the town.

Barnet Football Club’s departure going ahead as planned.  Barnet Football Club’s match against Wycombe Wanderers in the npower League 2 on Saturday 20 April will be the Bees’ last fixture at Barnet’s Underhill stadium.

Barnet Football Club’s match against Wycombe Wanderers in the npower League 2 on Saturday 20 April will be the Bees’ last fixture at Barnet’s Underhill stadium. From the end of August and the start of the 2013-14 season, Barnet FC’s home fixtures will be played at the Hive Football Centre in Camrose Avenue, Edgware.