News from The Barnet Society

The Barnet Society’s Planning & Environment Committee has studied closely the latest design proposals exhibited at The Spires on 12 & 15 April. This is a once-in-a-generation chance to revitalise our town centre, but it risks being wasted. Frankly, we’re disappointed.

Despite the pace of new building in Barnet, most of our existing homes fall well below the environmental standards we need to meet to avoid climate catastrophe.

After years of dereliction, Barnet Homes have published proposals for sites in Moxon Street and Whitings Road for public consultation. The designs are better than previous schemes for the same sites approved several years ago, but never built.

These are critical times for London’s Green Belt. But Barnet still has many open spaces where the illusion of countryside is remarkably unspoiled. Eight of them – all in Totteridge or Mill Hill – are on new videos that you can view on the website of the London Green Belt Council (LGBC).

Local councils in London and the Home Counties are currently planning to allow building on more than 48,000 acres of the Green Belt, according to a major new report by the London Green Belt Council (LGBC).

Last night Barnet Council’s Strategic Planning Committee unanimously approved conversion of the existing building into a 90-place school for pupils with Autistic Spectrum Disorder (ASD), despite concerns on the part of the Barnet Society.

Eighteen months ago, the Barnet Society wrote that flouting of planning laws at 1 Sunset View and 70 High Street would be tests of Barnet Council’s will to enforce its planning decisions. Both owners appealed against Enforcement Orders, and both have lost. The decisions are significant victories over the degradation of Barnet’s Conservation Areas.

Recent years have seen a wave of roof extensions across Barnet, usually providing extra space for existing homes. Richard Court in Alston Road (above) exemplifies a new variant of Permitted Development introduced by the government last year.

Protecting the historic townscape around Barnet parish church, Hadley Green and Monken Hadley requires the constant monitoring of planning applications - a task that is becoming no easier thanks to cuts made by Barnet Council.

A petition has been launched to try to persuade Barnet Council to improve road safety between the Spires shopping centre and Chipping Barnet library by upgrading the pedestrian crossing so that it is controlled by traffic lights.

Barnet parish church of St John the Baptist is to host an evening hustings meeting for the general election on Thursday 5 December for candidates in the Chipping Barnet parliamentary constituency.

Barnet’s annual classic car show has a new venue this year – the vast open top deck of the NCP car park at the Spires shopping centre.

Every Sunday this winter St Mark’s Church, Barnet Vale, becomes a night shelter for the homeless – “our contribution to helping the weakest”, says the Vicar, the Reverend Tristan Chapman.

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.

Efforts are underway to identify and map the many alleyways and footpaths that add so much to the local landscape and help make High Barnet such an attractive place to live.

Barnet’s pioneering role in the development of care for young people suffering from multiple sclerosis has one lasting memento – a plaque commemorating the opening of the Marie Foster Centre by the Duchess of Gloucester in November 1973.

A row of square, flat-roofed houses in Raydean Road are among the buildings in and around Barnet that are highlighted on a website that celebrates modernist and art deco architecture in the London suburbs that became known as Metro-land.

Hands-on experience in a great variety of trades, sports and occupations was all part of a careers day organised at the Pavilion School, in Chandos Avenue,Whetstone, which provides support and education for Barnet children who are outside mainstream education.

High Barnet’s most prominent “ghost advertisement” – high up on a side wall in the High Street – is creating quite a flurry of interest and might well be up for listing as being of historical interest.

Big new housing developments such as Elmbank, opposite the Arkley public house, are changing the face of High Barnet – and plans are likely to be presented during 2018 for several more sizeable schemes.