News from The Barnet Society

Staff and sales assistants at the Spires shopping centre are keen to publicise the location of a defibrillator that has been installed at the High Street entrance with the help of a £500 donation from the Barnet Residents Association.

Gary Murphy, landlord at one of High Barnet’s highly-rated real ale pubs, the Mitre, is preparing for the next round of an ongoing campaign to force the pub owners to give publicans of tied houses a fairer deal on rents and the price and choice of beers.

Chipping Barnet Residents Forum has been given an assurance that Barnet Council will take action to remove up to three homeless men who bed down each night in alcoves and under bay windows outside Chipping Barnet Library in Stapylton Road.

Noah’s Ark Children’s Hospice is rapidly reaching completion in the grounds of the nature reserve maintained by Barnet Environment Centre in Byng Road, Barnet. Next April, staff and support workers hope to move into what is promised will be a state-of-the-art children’s hospice serving north London and Hertsmere. The official opening is provisionally timed for July.

Hertsmere Council is consulting on the possibility of building up to 2,620 new homes plus new places of work between Wrotham Park and Potters Bar, westwards as far as South Mimms and eastwards beyond M25 junction 24. This would have a huge impact on our Green Belt.

SaveTheHighStreet.org – which is campaigning to help shopping centres that are facing challenging times – is to hold a series of advice sessions in High Barnet on Wednesday 12 December.

Barnet’s annual Christmas fayre broke with tradition this year. Instead of being opened by the Mayor of Barnet, the ceremony was conducted by the “Lord Mayor of London, Councillor Richard Whittington” – star of the Christmas pantomime at the The Bull Theatre.

A highly-controversial plan to convert empty retail premises just off Barnet High Street into a house in multiple occupation with nine self-contained rooms has been withdrawn – at least for the moment.

Premier Inns have submitted a new planning application. The design has been improved since  its first scheme, rejected in July, and the Barnet Society is minded to support it. In August, Premier Inns held a public consultation on their redesign.

Problems caused by uncontrolled street drinking in High Barnet and rough sleeping in shop doorways along the High Street topped the issues raised at an Engage Barnet question time.

Offering High Barnet residents and shoppers a free-to-use cash machine is proving an expensive nightmare for the Paper Shop in the High Street. Barnet Council has just hit the business with a council tax bill for £6,200, back dated to 2015.

A new planning application is in for the Brake Shear House site. The design has good and weak points, so the Barnet Society is minded to be neutral about it. You can comment on it until Friday 7th September. Brake Shear House (No.

High Barnet’s struggling High Street shopping centre is facing fresh challenges: another two national chains are pulling out just as plans are announced to convert empty retail premises on the corner with St Albans Road into a house in multiple occupation.

Barnet might have lost its football club, but another of the town’s sporting traditions is still making history: Barnet Elizabethans Rugby Football Club is about to start a year of commemorative events to celebrate its centenary.

Residents of Chipping Close were out in force to express their continuing opposition to the construction of a 100-bed Premier Inn opposite their homes on the site of Barnet Market.

The stunning success this summer of the first-ever Barnet Medieval Festival – which the organisers are planning to repeat next June – has added fresh momentum to several initiatives to celebrate the 1471 Battle of Barnet.

The controversial proposal to build a Premier Inn on the former Barnet Market site has been rejected by Barnet’s planning committee, against the planning officers’ advice. The three grounds for rejection have just been published, and the planning committee has explained why they believe the proposal would be detrimental to existing Chipping Close residents.

Local residents and nearby businesses are to be consulted over a plan to build a 100-bed care home for the elderly on the site of the former Marie Foster Centre in Wood Street, Barnet.

To help celebrate the school’s 130th anniversary, pupils at Queen Elizabeth’s Girls’ School, Barnet, organised a wide range of events for their summer fair. Martin Russell, the Deputy Lord Lieutenant for Barnet, praised the school for its recent academic successes. He was welcomed by the headteacher, Violet Walker.

A joint display of classic cars and vintage armoured vehicles drew record crowds to the fifth annual Barnet Classic Car show at the Army Reserve Centre in St Albans Road, Barnet.