News from The Barnet Society

Barnet town centre is to lose one of its four remaining banks – and customers feared another might be going as well – as the big banks announced another massive round of branch closures.

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.

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.

Work is about to begin removing charred debris from inside a fire-ravaged Georgian house on Hadley Green after completion of a delicate operation to construct a framework of scaffolding and supports to stabilise the outer walls.

After years of frustration about the state of the derelict and vandalised former Quinta Youth Club, residents in Mays Lane and surrounding roads are applying to have the building and adjoining village green registered as an asset of community value.

A massive crane has been brought in by contractors to help install scaffolding and internal braces to stabilise the walls of a large Georgian house on Hadley Green which was gutted in a disastrous fire over the May bank holiday.

A long-established footpath under the main railway line at New Barnet faces an uncertain future after being deemed unsafe during redevelopment of the former gas works site off Victoria Road.

Barnet Museum’s trustees have had to withdraw their bid to save High Barnet’s historic Tudor Hall for community use because of a lack of financial resources to repair and then maintain the building.

Greater London’s first 3x3 basketball court – with a vibrant blue playing surface -- has been opened at Barnet Playing Fields off Barnet Lane, Underhill. 3x3 basketball – for six players instead of the usual ten – is growing in popularity.

A container garden which won an award at this year’s Chelsea Flower Show has been recreated at the Noah’s Ark Children’s Hospice in Byng Road, Barnet. The aim of the layout is to provide a calming sophisticated space – an ideal amenity for the hospice garden.

After being boarded up for the last 20 years a fresh attempt is about to be made to see whether it might be possible to get the abandoned Quinta Youth Club in Mays Lane, Barnet, refurbished or rebuilt and returned to community use.

Reeds and other wetland grasses and flowers have been planted along the edges of flood relief drainage work in Hadley Woods which has been carried out by Enfield Council with the help of volunteers from Monken Hadley Common Trust.

Being able to downsize to a smaller property – and a chance to stay in the same locality – is an aspiration shared by many of the established residents who have homes in and around High Barnet. Kathryn Finlayson, a long-time resident of East Barnet, has pulled off this feat in style.

Planning applications have been approved for changes to several of the iconic buildings at the historic heart of High Barnet’s conservation area. Work is to start in late April on a “makeover” at the town’s oldest coaching inn, The Mitre.

A massive pile of rubble, beams and planks was all that was left of Barnet’s blot of the landscape – the derelict nurses’ home for the former Victoria Maternity Hospital in Wood Street. Heavy mechanical equipment moved into the Marie Foster Centre site just before Christmas and the demolition was completed within a day.

Internal fixtures and fittings are being added to a 100-seat extension to the Roman Catholic Church in Union Street, ready for its re-consecration by Cardinal Vincent Nichols, Roman Catholic Archbishop of Westminster, on Sunday 3 September. Seating capacity at the Church of Mary Immaculate and St Gregory the Great is being increased from 240 to 340.

Plans to replace a semi-derelict vacant shop that has blighted Union Street for many years will go a long way towards finishing off a make-over for one of High Barnet’s historic thoroughfares.

After years of neglect and decay, Historic England has commissioned a detailed survey of the work required to repair and conserve Barnet’s historic physic well, in Well Approach, just a short walk from Barnet Hospital.

Yet again NHS Property Services appears to be in a state of indecision about the future of the derelict Marie Foster home that continues to blight High Barnet’s Wood Street conservation area.