News from The Barnet Society

NEW – What an amazing and exciting word, full of hope and invigoration, isn’t that exactly just what we all need right now! NEW investment, NEWly recreated, NEW experience. The Council is consulting us on projects to help regenerate the Barnet High Street area here.

The Council is consulting on a Community Plan to help regenerate the High Street area. This is your chance to have a say. The Barnet Society offers some guidance. Last month a public consultation was launched online here. We have until Friday 19 February to respond.

The Plan is out for online public consultation until 19 February. You’re invited to comment on the key principles of the plan, and to choose five project ideas for further development.

In 2020 the Barnet Society celebrated 75 years since its foundation. But our founders would be shocked at how their neighbourhood has altered. Local shops have disappeared and employment has dwindled. Pubs have become an endangered species. Vehicle traffic is as bad as ever.

Birt Acres, a key figure in the invention of British movies, lived and worked in Chipping Barnet. His 1897 short Band Marching down a Street is one of very few to survive from the earliest days of film. Local history investigation has convinced me that it was shot in Stapylton Road.

There is a serious problem for ramblers planning to travel by car to Dancers Hill before doing the following walks: (1)  The 2-miles ‘There and Back’ route in Walk 3 of ‘Rambles Round Barnet’ Part 1.(2)  Both routes in Walk 4 of ‘Rambles Round Barnet’ Part 1.

Barely a year after JC Decaux was refused planning permission for three telecom/advertising hubs in the High Street, they’ve returned with two more. If approved, that would make four within 200 metres.

The Barnet Society’s 75th birthday in May 2020 is a timely moment to celebrate the local Green Belt that was the original reason for our existence. Our founding in 1945 was prompted by the threat to build on the green space that surrounds Chipping Barnet on three sides.

The Barnet Society’s 75th birthday in 2020 was a timely moment to celebrate, in three recent Website articles, the local Green Belt that was the original reason for our existence.

Since 2013 the Barnet Society has submitted responses to the following London Assembly (LA), Mayor of London (MoL) & Transport for London (TfL) public consultations.

Past, present and future work in and around Chipping Barnet - a talk to Barnet U3A on 6 August 2020 by Robin Bishop, Chair of the Society. Click on the link below to view Robin's presentation. 200806_BSoc_ppt.pdf

When my beer supplies dried up during lockdown, I was delighted to discover – by way of The Wilds Café – Urban Alchemy Brewing, a newly formed brewery based in York Road.

Since 2016 the Barnet Society has submitted responses to the following London Borough of Barnet (LBB) public consultations.

Enjoy five short walks in our local countryside recommended by Owen Jones. In May the Barnet Society celebrated its 75th birthday. Since our founding in 1945 was prompted by the threat to build on the green space that surrounds Chipping Barnet on three sides, it also seems appropriate to celebrate that countryside.

Two building projects under construction in Chipping Barnet’s Conservation Areas are flouting planning laws. They are tests of Barnet Council’s will to enforce its planning decisions. They’re merely the most flagrant of numerous planning abuses that are gradually degrading our Conservation Areas.

This article highlights the Barnet Society’s concerns related to the sweeping reforms announced last week by the Government, which are due to come into force from September.

The previous update of 29th June 2019 referred to the progress made by the Darlands Conservation Trust since their inception in September 2017.

The landscape of the Dollis Brook, from its sources near Moat Mount to Whetstone and beyond, is a green lung for residents and visitors to Chipping Barnet, and a vital wildlife corridor. But it’s constantly threatened by human intervention.

This is the Green Belt north of Barnet (top left). Protected from development for two-thirds of a century, it’s now threatened by the expansion of Potters Bar and Borehamwood, ‘garden villages’ at Redwell and Rabley Green and housing at Ganwick Corner. Head north from Barnet, and you’re immediately in countryside.

Just south-west of Arkley is a tract of unspoilt countryside – remarkable for its survival within London’s boundary, and the core of a new regional park being considered by Barnet Council to promote a greener, healthier and wilder Barnet.