News from The Barnet Society

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?

Ronnie Biggs, who spent the final years of his life at the Carlton Court Care Home in Bells Hill Barnet, has died at the age of 84.

Local residents who are against plans for tree-felling and landfill on the site of Old Fold Manor Golf Club off Hadley Green have been promised the support of the Chipping Barnet MP Theresa Villiers.

After sustained pressure from local traders and community groups, Barnet Council has agreed to provide a sizeable number of free spaces for car parking close to the High Barnet town centre. Moxon Street car park, which has 64 spaces, is now available for up to an hour of free parking.

All the fun of the fair filled the High Street for the annual Barnet Christmas Fair, which many judged was the most ambitious and best supported since the event was first held twenty years ago.

Transport for London say its decision to allow Asda supermarkets to use High Barnet tube station for its click-and-collect collection service will not cause unnecessary congestion in the station approach road and car park.

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.

Rambles Round Barnet 2 went on sale for the first time at the Christmas Fair on Sunday 1st December 2013.

Local shops and businesses are pulling out all the stops to ensure a spectacular line-up of events and attractions for High Barnet’s annual Christmas Fair on Sunday 1st December. A fun fair, a stage for dancing, food stalls and other attractions will fill the High Street, which will be closed to traffic from 8am to 7pm.

Celebrations along the high streets of Britain have been few and far between in the last few years, so the official re-opening of Barnet Market after its recent make-over was just the kind of fillip local traders have been crying out for.

If planning approval can be obtained, Barnet Council will allow landfill to be used to re-contour a golf course at Monken Hadley over what is thought to be part of the Battle of Barnet site.

New recycling service: an eyewitness report from a Barnet Society member. High Barnet householders have been told they should become their own recycling monitors and report back to Barnet Council on the efficiency of the new service for collecting recyclable refuse.

A plan to deposit landfill on the golf course that takes in part of the site of the Battle of Barnet has alarmed the Battlefields Trust. Old Fold Manor Golf Club at Monken Hadley is drawing up proposals to re-landscape the 900 yard stretch of the course which runs parallel to the St Albans Road.

Several thousand properties in and around High Barnet’s conservation area have been left without any clear explanation from British Telecom as to when – if ever – their premises will get a superfast broadband connection.

Old and new photographs of local buildings and views have been brought together in Barnet Then and Now, a new book on the local history and topography of what is now the London Borough of Barnet.

After a lengthy closure the Old Court House recreation ground has a functioning café once again. A new tenant has reopened the business after a major refurbishment and is hoping that High Barnet will embrace the café culture that has proved so popular at Trent Park in Cockfosters and at Oak Hill Park in East Barnet.

An application is to be made to the Heritage Lottery Fund to see if it would agree to pay for an archaeological dig to try to locate the precise site of the 1471 Battle of Barnet.

Whitings Hill is hardly likely to rival New England in the fall, but two plantations planted almost 20 years ago by the Barnet Society are now resplendent with mature trees and are presenting a vibrant display of autumn colours.

After a seven-week absence Barnet Market is about to return to its original site which has now been resurfaced and smartened up after a £100,000 improvement scheme. Traders hope the first Saturday market – on 9 November – on what in years gone by was Barnet’s cattle market is the end of six years’ disruption.

Rarely has the presence of a mechanical digger been welcomed with such enthusiasm as greeted its arrival on the site of Barnet Market, heralding the start of a long-promised and much-delayed resurfacing and improvement.