News from The Barnet Society

 Visitors queued up for opening time at Barnet’s historic well house – not for a drink, but a rare chance to descend the twelve steps to see the tanks of the old physic well.

Chipping Barnet’s popular day centre for the elderly – with a waiting list for places – celebrates its 40th anniversary in June. “For me it’s like home from home, but with lots of friends to talk to,” says Joan Frankling (96) who was one of the first volunteers when the centre was established in the 1970s.

A joint approach is being made by local groups to try to ensure that the new office block to be built as part of the Brake Shear House redevelopment, just off Barnet High Street, includes as much affordable workspace as possible.

Barnet’s historic physic well, visited by Samuel Pepys, will be open to the public on Saturday 19 March offering a rare chance to walk down the brick-built stairway to see the tanks filled by spring water.

A campaign is being launched to persuade English Heritage to award one of its renowned blue plaques to the Hadley Green home of the late Dame Cicely Saunders, the Barnet-born founder of the hospice movement.

 Part 1   Walk 3   Section 2: Trotters Bottom to Saffron Green      31st May 2016 It is almost 4 years since David Ely discovered, researched and then wrote up this account of a delightful 2 1/2 miles ‘There and Back’ walk. The starting point is easily reached by car from High Barnet in about 15 minutes.

Planning approval has finally been given for the demolition of one of High Barnet’s worst eyesores, the derelict blocks of nurses’ homes opposite the Arkley public house. After a protracted planning dispute, Linden Homes has gained permission from Barnet Council to build 114 homes, a mix of flats and houses, on the 3.9-acre site.

A woodland project at Barnet’s centre for vulnerable and excluded school children is hoping to qualify for a £12,000 award from Tesco’s Helping Hands initiative. Shoppers at Tesco stores across the Borough of Barnet have the chance to vote for the woodland area being created at the Pavilion Study Centre in Meadway, High Barnet.

Barnet a hot spot for lost and stolen disabled badges...but a woeful response.  More blue disabled badges were lost or stolen in Barnet last year than in any other London borough, but the latest government statistics show the council’s efforts to enforce the law against misuse are way behind that of some neighbouring local authorities.

Seventy pupils spent six months preparing and rehearsing for a spectacular production of The Sound of Music at Queen Elizabeth’s Girls’ School, Barnet. “It’s a fabulous musical for a girls’ school to present,” said the director Jennifer Ford, head of drama and performing arts.

SODA – Stop the Over Development of Arkley – is a new campaign group established by local residents to campaign against plans to build what they say are too many flats and houses on the Elmbank site, opposite the Arkley public house.

A question mark hanging over the future ownership of Barnet’s many historic almshouses has finally been resolved after the government gave an assurance they would not be included in the extension of the right-to-buy scheme for housing tenants.

Opposition is mounting to the possibility that 14 acres of woods and farmland at Whalebones, between Wood Street and Barnet Hospital, might be zoned for housing and community use.

Farmland to the west of Wrotham Park, alongside Kitts End Lane and the St Albans Road, is emerging as a likely site of the Battle of Barnet.

High Barnet’s dire broadband service was highlighted by Sky News when it featured a campaign by a cross-party group of MPs to try to secure the break-up of British Telecom as the only way to achieve faster internet connections.

The sun sets on the Barnet inspired networking site.  Friends Reunited, the social networking website created in the back bedroom of a semi-detached house in Barnet, has finally closed down after being left with only “a handful” of active members.

One by one, High Barnet is being provided with the additional telephone cabinets that are needed to supply fast broadband connections to around 3,000 homes in and around the town centre.

Junior doctors from Barnet Hospital spent their strike day collecting signatures in support of the British Medical Association’s petition to the Prime Minister urging the government to agree a contract that is “fair for doctors, safe for patients and provides a future for the NHS”.

Maintaining the great musical tradition of Barnet parish church has been the outstanding achievement of Terence Atkins, its organist and choirmaster for the last 40 years.

The future operation of the 107 bus service, which has stops in High Barnet on its route between Edgware and New Barnet, is in doubt because of a decision by Hertfordshire County Council to make further cuts in its funding for subsidised bus routes.