News from The Barnet Society

After years of uncertainty about its future, Barnet Museum is finally being promised security of tenure – a 125-year lease at a peppercorn rent. Barnet Council’s asset, regeneration and growth committee agreed the move at its most recent meeting.

As work continues constructing an extension to the Roman Catholic church in Union Street, Barnet, mass and other services are being held in neighbouring churches and halls. Rapidly rising attendances, often resulting in parishioners having to stand, especially on holy days, have required extensive rebuilding of the church.

There has been another indication of the growing commercial interest in, and rising value of Barnet’s Green Belt land – just as Arkley residents step up their campaign against local farmland being developed as a natural burial site.

Outraged Barnet book lovers staged a mass read-in outside the closed front doors of Chipping Barnet Library to demonstrate their dismay and anger at the downgrading of a much-loved community asset.

Brilliant sunshine and crystal blue skies put some added sparkle into the annual Barnet Christmas Fayre which filled the High Street with a wide variety of stalls and plenty of seasonal cheer.

The Barnet Society is taking full advantage of an opportunity to influence the re-drafting of the London Plan by the Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan – and local residents are being urged to add their voice to the case we are making.

If residents are prepared to back a mass campaign of objection, the Barnet Society believes there might still be a chance to limit, if not prevent, the downgrading of Chipping Barnet Library.

A grant of almost £100,000 has been awarded by the Heritage Lottery Fund towards the cost of promoting and celebrating the 1471 Battle of Barnet.

Barnet Council is being urged by the Barnet Society to postpone the two-month temporary closure of Chipping Barnet Library planned to take effect as from Monday 5 December in order to allow time for further consultation on the building alterations and redundancies that have been proposed.

Completing the majestic row of Norway Maple and London Plane trees that line Barnet Hill – and provide such a magnificent entrance to the town – might become possible following a generous donation to the Barnet Society.

A traffic management experiment at the junction of Wood Street and Barnet High Street is causing a headache for some drivers. There is currently no left turn from Wood Street into High Street, and no corresponding right turn in front of the parish church from High Street into Wood Street.

“Well-behaved dogs welcome” is the message that dog lovers are hoping they will hear from more and more of the cafes, restaurants and public houses along the High Street in High Barnet.

Bats, owls, wrens and hedgehogs are among the species that nearby residents fear might be disturbed or even lost because of the construction of a new, two-storey leisure centre in the Victoria Recreation Ground off Lawton Road, New Barnet.

The Barnet Society has joined other local organisations and groups – together with many nearby residents – in lodging an objection to the plans to build a school for 1,680 pupils on the site of the former Barnet Football Club stadium at Underhill.

When a group of 26 women move into their new homes in Union Street, Barnet, at the end of November they will be making a small, but truly historic contribution towards alleviating the country’s chronic housing shortage.

A unique, almost-forgotten tape recording gives a fascinating eye-witness account of every-day life in Barnet at the turn of the century before last, when horse-drawn coaches, traps and wagons filled the High Street, long before the arrival of the motor car.

Local residents, bird watchers and nature lovers are joining forces to step up their campaign against plans to develop a natural burial ground on farmland at Arkley bounded by Barnet Road, Barnet Gate Lane and Mays Lane.

In a first for schools in the London Borough of Barnet, the Pavilion study centre in Meadway, High Barnet, is offering vulnerable and excluded school children the opportunity to get an entry level qualification in horticulture.

The Barnet Society’s long-running campaign to try to secure a short period of free parking at the 63 parking meter spaces along the High Street featured prominently in Dom on the Spot, BBC television’s latest series about the people whose job it is to hand out on-the-spot fines.

Years of friendly rivalry over which shop in Barnet High Street has the longest record of continuous service seems to have been finally resolved. Documents unearthed by Peter Wanders suggest his shoe shop has been in business for longer than Victoria Bakery.