News from The Barnet Society

Some residents in roads around Queen Elizabeth’s Boys School have registered objections with Barnet Council over an application to construct a new multi-use sports hall. They fear the four-storey building will dominate the area and generate added traffic congestion.

The land in Arkley’s Green Belt illustrated above is a Site of Borough Importance for Nature Conservation and a Tree Preservation Zone, and until unlawfully cleared of trees last February was a pretty place to walk. A planning application has since been submitted for 12 travellers caravan pitches on it. You have until Thursday 29 October to submit your comments on the application.

As Barnet Council starts to consider numerous bids to buy the derelict former Quinta Youth Club in Mays Lane, the residents’ association for the neighbourhood has appealed for the building to be returned to community use rather than go to the highest bidder.

Concern about threats to the green belt and the loss of popular open spaces dominated a question-and-answer session held at the annual meeting of Barnet Residents Association.

Early next year volunteers aim to start planting what is destined to become a community orchard in Underhill situated in a corner of Barnet Playing Fields, between Ark Pioneer Academy and Grasvenor Avenue.

An application to Barnet Council for planning approval for a site for 12 travellers’ caravans in former woodland off Rowley Lane, Arkley, is meeting stiff objections on the grounds it would be a significant breach of the Green Belt.

A packed meeting at Underhill gave enthusiastic support to a community bid to purchase the derelict former Quinta Youth Club in Mays Lane which is being sold off by Barnet Council.

High Barnet’s former Crown Post Office is to be converted into nine self-contained flats if an application is approved by Barnet Council – a change of use which highlights the rapidly changing nature of the High Street.

With a rapidly approaching deadline of mid-October, a fund-raising campaign has taken on new urgency as Mays Lane residents prepare their community bid to take over the derelict former Quinta Youth Club.

New housing developments around High Barnet and New Barnet are likely to lead to an increase of well over 2,000 in the local population but residents’ groups say there is no sign of health authorities delivering on promises to boost capacity at already over-stretched doctors’ surgeries.

Vandalised blocks of flats and maisonettes awaiting demolition are likely to remain an eyesore for months to come following the sudden and unexpected collapse of a deal previously approved by Barnet Council to complete the regeneration of the Dollis Valley Estate.

Barely five years after Mayor Khan’s current London Plan came into force, he’s consulting on a new one. The good news is that it will be a lot slimmer than the present version. The bad news for Barnet is that he’s upping his target for new homes in our borough, and he’s identified places in the Green Belt where some of them could be built.

Fresh proposals are unlikely to emerge until at least the New Year for the completion of the Dollis Valley regeneration following the call-in and collapse of a scheme previously agreed by Barnet Council to build 208 new affordable homes on the estate.

Barnet Council has had to abandon an immediate go ahead for the final stage of the Dollis Valley redevelopment following the sudden withdrawal of a £58.85 million grant from the Greater London Authority for building new affordable homes.

Completion of the redevelopment of the Dollis Valley estate – where blocks of flats and maisonettes have been awaiting demolition for the last three years – is finally to go ahead with access to a £58 million grant from the Greater London Authority.

A new community garden has been established in New Barnet through a partnership between a church and a bowls club. A blessing to celebrate the opening of the garden at the East Barnet Valley Bowls Club was conducted by the Reverend Sharon Ejinkonye, the newly installed vicar at St James Church, New Barnet.

Planning approval has finally been given after four years of negotiations and discussions for a new four-storey building at a prominent site in Barnet town centre at the corner of High Street and Moxon Street.

An Inspector has dismissed an appeal by developer Christchurchgrove Ltd against Barnet Council’s refusal of its planning application to build a 5-bedroom house in a wood in Chipping Barnet. The decision concludes a successful campaign by local residents, with help from the Barnet Society, to save a cherished natural habitat in the Monken Hadley Conservation Area. It also sends a message to developers about the Council’s commitment to protecting green spaces in Barnet.

Residents and conservationists have reacted with alarm at a proposal to include the historic gate at Monken Hadley within an eruv – a symbolic boundary for Orthodox Jews – which would require the installation of two 5.5metre high poles with a crosswire over the road.

Plans are being prepared to seek approval from Barnet Council for the construction of a new sports hall and ten classrooms at Queen Elizabeth’s School. Fund raising will start next year if permission is obtained for what the school says is part of a continuing programme to upgrade facilities within its existing site off Queens Road.