News from The Barnet Society

Labour has taken overall control of Barnet Borough Council for the first time since the London boroughs were created in the 1960s -- and High Barnet is one of the former Conservative strongholds that now has two Labour councillors.

Barnet High Street is busily adapting to changes in trading patterns that developed during lockdown, and which seem to be here to stay given the ability of so many employees to work from home.

Transport for London has rejected a plea for out-of-service buses to offer a skeleton 84 service when heading back and forth between Potters Bar bus garage and stops where services start and terminate in High Barnet.

Organ and piano pieces by the celebrated Barnet organist and composer William Ralph Driffill were played for the first time in probably 100 years at a recital commemorating the centenary of his death.

An application to demolish a much-loved heritage landmark in New Barnet has once again been thrown out by the planning system, but the building is now at serious risk from vandals.

Knights on horseback are to feature for the first time in military re-enactments at the fourth annual Barnet Medieval Festival to be held in mid-June at the Byng Road playing fields.  Staging mounted combat will be a spectacular addition to what is rapidly being recognised as the leading medieval festival in London and south-east of England,

Residents were delighted to welcome back to High Barnet the celebrated chewing gum artist Ben Wilson who spent a day refreshing a trail of tiny pavement illustrations that starts outside his parents' former home in Carnarvon Road and continues round the corner into Alston Road.

A two-century old gravestone in Monken Hadley churchyard was the final stop on a guided walk around locations associated with inspirational women from Barnet's past.

Barnet Council has refused planning permission for a 50-megawatt electric battery array in the green heart of the borough. An earlier application for a gas peaking plant nearby was withdrawn last year.

An online election hustings is being organised by local pressure groups in the run-up to the May council elections to promote what they believe should become a shopping list of environmental targets for a newly elected Barnet Council.

Street parties, ceremonial tree plantings and the lighting of the beacon on top of Monken Hadley church tower are just some of the local events being arranged to celebrate the Queen's Platinum Jubilee in June.

Bus passengers mourning the loss of the 84 service from New Barnet to Potters Bar have taken to social media to express their anger. “It’s such a shame…I never thought the day would come when we would be cut off from Potters Bar,” said one Barnet resident.

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.

After missing out on so much during the Covid.19 pandemic, Barnet Choral Society are in final rehearsals for a belated 80th anniversary concert -- a performance of one of the great challenges of choral singing, Edward Elgar's The Dream of Gerontius.

The bridegroom at this fashionable Monken Hadley wedding early in the last century was William Ralph Driffill, who became an admired organist and composer.

Chemotherapy patients receiving treatment at Chase Farm Hospital will benefit from two new cooling cap systems to be purchased with funds raised by Barnet and District CancerLink. A cheque for £22,890 was handed over by members of the cancer care group at a ceremony organised by the Royal Free Charity.

Saving rainwater is becoming ever more important in the face of global warming and our unusually dry summers...so Barnet Environment Centre in Byng Road has installed a giant water butt to capture and store all it can.

A recital is to be held at St Mark's Church, Barnet Vale, in April to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the death of a celebrated organist and composer who lived in Barnet and whose organ and piano scores reflected the musical fashions of the Victorian era.

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.

After the go ahead was given last month for controversial plans to build tower blocks of flats on the two car parks at Cockfosters tube station the government has intervened at the last minute to halt the project.