News from The Barnet Society

Barnet has probably more to thank the politicians and planners of the 1930s and 1940s for than any other town in north London. With protected Green Belt land on three sides, the High Barnet of today is blessed with some unrivalled countryside on our door-step.

A planning inspector has ordered that unauthorised timber cladding must be removed from the frontage of retail premises in the heart of the High Barnet conservation area. An appeal by Mr G. Cramer, owner of 1 Church Passage, has been rejected and Barnet Council has won official backing for an enforcement notice requiring its removal.

Like much of the south-east of England, Chipping Barnet is seeing a rapid rise in home extensions and offices being converted into flats.  An easing of planning restrictions has given home-owners and property developers greater freedom.  But are large home extensions an intrusion for neighbours?

A planning inspector has now been appointed to consider the objections made by the Barnet Society and other local groups to the installation of unauthorised timber cladding above retail premises in Church Passage, in the heart of the High Barnet conservation area.

After a rising chorus of protest from local community and residential groups, Barnet Council has finally issued an enforcement notice requiring the removal of timber cladding to the frontage of a former cafe and shop in Church Passage, just off the High Street.

A donation of £750,000 will enable work to start this summer on the construction of a new eco-friendly environment centre for Barnet and the site clearance needed for the new Noah’s Ark Children’s Hospice. Years of doubt and uncertainty about the future of the much-loved eight-acre nature reserve in Byng Road could finally be over.

A major planning application for the redevelopment of the former Middlesex University campus at Cat Hill in New Barnet was rejected by Enfield Council in March 2012. The redevelopment scheme is for new housing by L&Q, the same Housing Association that will be developing affordable homes at Dollis Valley.

An exhibition was held in mid-January to show plans for the proposed redevelopment of St Martha's Convent Junior School on Union Street prior to a planning application being made. The proposals are for 26 one, two and three bedroomed flats for older women (Older Womens Co-Housing, or OWCH!) and include shared facilities and generous gardens.

Noah’s Ark Childrens’ Hospice has received planning consent for reserved matters for their proposed redevelopment of Barnet Countryside Centre (the former Curriculum Centre) in Byng Road.

The constitution of The Barnet Society requires us to seek to protect the Green Belt around Chipping Barnet. Indeed that was the Society’s founding purpose.

The Barnet Society has been lobbying the Council for some time for a Town Centre Framework for Chipping Barnet, in line with its promise to provide one under adopted Planning Policy.

The Barnet Society has made representations to Barnet Council over the latest stage of the Core Strategy of the Local Development Framework (LDF). The Core Strategy is the principal document produced by the Local Planning Authority and guides the other planning policy documents.