News from The Barnet Society

Potters Bar residents have had their first chance to learn more about a proposed data centre which is to be built on an 85-acre suite alongside the M25 motorway.

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.

An application has been made to Barnet Council by a housing developer seeking permission to start discussions on building up to 300 homes on 17 acres of green belt land off Rowley Lane, Arkley.

Arkley residents who have been campaigning for several years to safeguard woodland in Rowley Lane were shocked to see protected trees being felled across a one-acre plot – and their anger increased still further when Barnet Council apparently failed to take immediate action to stop the clearance.

This is a Badger Boar in Chipping Barnet Woodland at 5:53 am on New Year’s Day 2026. It’s one of several fine photographs in this article by Marianne Nix, a Barnet Society member who lives opposite the spinney by Christchurch Lane and designs leaflets and posters for the Save Chipping Barnet Woodland petition. She writes here in her personal capacity.

An attempt is being made to safeguard the long-term future of a Barnet landmark, the Black Horse public house, which has been closed to the public since mid-September last year.

Barnet Council is facing another challenge to its policy of encouraging developers to keep or offer space for workrooms and offices in new housing developments close to High Barnet town centre.

Above is a visualisation of the new 6-bedroom house proposed by its designers, Alan Cox Architects, in secluded woodland barely 200 metres from Barnet High Street. The site is described by the applicants as ‘unkempt’, and by locals petitioning against development as a ‘wildlife haven’. The site is within the Monken Hadley Conservation Area and close to the Green Belt. Some trees have individual Tree Preservation Orders; however all the trees are protected by the conservation area status. The application is a test of Barnet Council’s commitment to protecting the environment. You can comment on the proposals until Thursday 5 February.

A short list of four or five possible locations for a new stadium for Barnet Football Club is now being considered in depth by supporters of the Bring Barnet Back campaign after lengthy discussions with Barnet councillors and planners.

High Barnet and New Barnet are two of ten districts within the London Borough of Barnet which are on a wish list of potential sites for a new Marks and Spencer food hall. M&S plans to double its number of stores across the country and has named 197 possible locations within Greater London.

Barnet Council has intervened to see if a tenant can be found for vacant community space on the ground floor of a block of flats which were built in Salisbury Road after the demolition of the former Fern Room, once the home of Barnet Old People’s Welfare Committee.

Fine period houses in their own sizeable grounds and gardens are a feature of the tree lined roads and footpaths around Hadley Green – all adding to the character of the Monken Hadley Conservation Area.

Local developer Christchurch Grove Ltd expects to submit a planning application soon to build a house within existing woodland on the east side of Christchurch Lane (see plan above by Helene Landscape and Garden Design). It raises an increasingly urgent question in Barnet: how much, if any, green space should be sacrificed for new homes?

One of New Barnet’s last remaining large Victorian villas – 33 Lyonsdown Road – is being demolished much to the disappointment of community and heritage groups who fear it will be replaced by blocks of flats.

UPDATE 2 DECEMBER 2025 Back in September, the Barnet Society submitted a 64-page critique of the planning application for 283 flats on High Barnet Station car park. This Friday 28 November is your last chance to have your say. The application may be decided by the Planning Committee on Monday 8 December.

Barnet Council has contributed to the upgrading of the rugby pitches at the Byng Road playing fields by paying for the installation of six new floodlights.

Quinta Village Green and the abandoned former Quinta Youth Club are one step closer to being brought under the control of a group of residents living in and around Mays Lane, Barnet, who have been campaigning for years to safeguard their open space and reopen a derelict clubhouse.

After a seven-year campaign New Barnet community activist Ros Howarth finally says farewell to the last remnants of the abandoned public house The Jester which was left wrecked after a fire in 2018.

High Barnet Islamic Centre, which opened last year, extended its outreach programme of community events with volunteers welcoming over 30 asylum seekers and refugees with a full spread of snacks and refreshments.