News from The Barnet Society

Plans are being prepared for a second multi-million-pound data centre to be built north of High Barnet on green belt farmland beside the M25 motorway.

A large expanse of green belt woodland and fields at Arkley – which is being held as a multi-million-pound landbank for possible future housing – is attracting heightened interest from developers. Contractors have painted blue marks on a long line of trees in one 25-acre plot.

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.

A large mural painted by students at Barnet and Southgate College – which features iconic images of the town – will welcome visitors to High Barnet once a site has been agreed.

After four youngsters on e-bikes and e-scooters caused fresh damage to greens at the Shire London golf course, a group of High Banet residents are hoping to discuss with the club’s management ways to prevent further vandalism.

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.

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.

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.

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.