News from The Barnet Society

Steel piling has been used to strengthen the retaining wall along the side of Jack’s Lake in Monken Hadley Common after the bank sprang a leak which was posing a danger to the long-term future of one of Barnet’s most popular beauty spots.

A planning dispute over an unsuccessful bid to build a large new house within the Monken Hadley conservation area has resulted in Barnet Council declaring a woodland tree preservation order on the whole site.

A blue plaque has been installed outside a house in Calvert Road to draw attention to an ongoing dispute between residents and Barnet Council over the painting of double yellow line parking restrictions at the junction with Sebright Road.

A job club is being established at the Hope Corner Community Centre in Mays Lane, Barnet, offering three sessions a week aimed at giving advice on employment and training and a chance to learn new skills.

Two ponds at North Middlesex Golf Club in Friern Barnet Lane are to be cleared of silt and enlarged to improve flood management after heavy rainfall. Water storage capacity along Blacketts Brook, which flows through the golf course and includes the two ponds, is to be increased at a cost of £340,000.

A controversial plan to build up to 230 houses and an 80-bed care home on a former pig farm at Arkley was featured by ITV News London in a report ahead of May’s council elections about the political arguments surrounding the development of green belt land.

This swathe of Green Belt will be mostly built over if current plans are approved. And within Barnet, dozens of so-called ‘Grey Belt’ sites are being targetted for new homes (few of which are likely to be affordable). The Labour Council promises to create a Regional Park, which could prevent that. This should be an issue in our local election in May – but do voters know or care?

A two-year struggle to keep going amid the disruption caused by ending up in the middle of a construction site has finally defeated the landlady of the aptly named Builders Arms in New Barnet.

The tsunami of tall buildings that started 20 years ago in West Hendon and Brent Cross is now breaking on the northern suburbs of Barnet. Above are samples: High Barnet Place and Great North Leisure Park, both refused by the Council but called in by the Mayor of London; and Edgware town centre, approved by the Council. Their transformation of our borough, visually and socially, should surely be a local election issue on 7 May.

Residents of two narrow streets of mainly small cottages and terraced homes claim they have been ignored and abandoned by Barnet Council which has imposed double yellow lines at the junction of Sebright and Calvert Roads without proper consultation.

After several years of uncertainty about its long-term future, Barnet Council has finally found new premises for the Rainbow Centre, a vital community hub for residents of Underhill and especially the Dollis Valley estate.

With the reintroduction of domestic food waste collections from homes across the Borough of Barnet, families will be making their contribution towards generating electricity and producing liquid farmland fertiliser at a renewable energy plant midway between North Mymms and London Colney.

Star Pubs say they hope that the Black Horse – now protected by metal grilles across doors and windows – will reopen by at least mid-June in time for the start of televised football matches in the FIFA World Cup. Several potential tenants are being interviewed by Star’s management team.

An application to build a six-bedroom house in a protected wood between Sunset View and Hadley Green has been rejected by Barnet Council on the grounds it would cause unacceptable harm to a woodland habitat.

Terminally ill householders in the London borough of Barnet will be removed from council tax if they qualify under a new relief scheme which takes effect in April.

Litters pickers from Barnet Residents Association fanned out across the town in one of the association’s regular clean ups – the kind of initiative which the Chipping Barnet MP Dan Tomlinson hopes will be encouraged by his new community action network.

After hearing some vociferous complaints from Underhill residents, Barnet Council has agreed to review two controversial issues – the imposition of the Underhill South controlled parking zone and a decision to abandon the existing split between private and social housing in the regeneration of the Dollis Valley estate.

A determined community effort in Barnet Vale to rescue and renovate an abandoned former cricket pavilion at Tudor Park has achieved a major objective – and to celebrate there are new artist’s impressions of what the renovated building might look like.

Completion of the Brook Valley Gardens estate off Mays Lane – which is a regeneration of the Dollis Valley estate – has moved a step closer. Progress has been stalled since 2023, but a revised deal has been agreed with the developers and approved by Barnet Council.

Since Barnet Council decided in December that it was minded to refuse Barratt London’s planning application, the Mayor of London has called it in for review. A public hearing seems likely directly after the local elections on 7 May 2026. The Barnet Society & Barnet Residents Association are greatly concerned that the Mayor’s decision won’t be impartial, and has sent the letter below to our MP, Barnet Councillors and its Greater London Assembly Member.