News from The Barnet Society

Barnet High Street has been bedecked once again with flowering hanging baskets. But please do not be fooled into thinking Barnet Council deserves the credit for adding this splash of colour to the town centre.

Queen Elizabeth I’s charter of 1573 provided for ‘boys and youth’, but it was not until 1888 that Barnet got a school for girls.  Its oldest buildings are not just a gentle monument to a pioneering educational movement, but fine examples of the Arts and Crafts style.

If permission is granted to demolish the empty After Office Hours bar next to the Bull Theatre, the Barnet Society says there must be stringent planning conditions, and time for a proper archaeological investigation.

A campaign to save what has been dubbed the “mighty oak” of Whitings Road has made significant progress.

After endless delays and broken promises by British Telecom, High Barnet residents without high-speed broadband are being encouraged by Theresa Villiers MP to think of signing up for a rival service being that might be offered by Virgin Media.

A Canadian investment fund is the new owner of the Spires shopping centre in High Barnet, having paid £40 million for what the agents say is prime retail space in “one of London’s largest and fastest-growing boroughs, as well as one of the most affluent”.

Two new housing developments are changing still further the appearance of Union Street in High Barnet, which in recent years has lost shops, offices, a school and even its public house.

When work starts in October on a survey and excavation to find the site of the Battle of Barnet of 1471, local residents and schoolchildren will have their chance to play a part in the great upsurge in interest in medieval history that has occurred since the discovery of King Richard III’s remains in a

Barnet Football Club’s vacant stadium at Underhill has been purchased by the government’s Education Funding Agency as a site for a new free school. Two applications for new schools to serve the Barnet area are currently being considered by the Department for Education.

Barnet Football Club’s vacant stadium at Underhill is to be demolished to make way for a proposed new free school – Ark Pioneer Academy – that would eventually accommodate more than 1,800 pupils.

Work could start as early as January next year on High Barnet’s largest housing development since the opening of the Dollis Valley estate. If planning permission is obtained, Linden Homes plan to construct over 100 new homes on the vacant Elmbank site that extends from Barnet Road, Arkley, almost to Barnet Hospital.

After a run of closures over recent months, the High Street now offers several new restaurants and cafes. The proprietors are hoping the custom they attract will encourage increased business for other shops and traders in High Barnet’s shopping centre and perhaps attract other new retail ventures.

A street-by-street survey conducted by local residents has demonstrated overwhelming support for a campaign to persuade British Telecom to provide up to 3,000 High Barnet residents with the fast broadband connection they so desperately need.

All seven primary schools in High Barnet and Underhill have again been oversubscribed, leaving 32 children without an agreed place in September – yet another indication of the strength of local demand for an additional school.

One of High Barnet’s worst eyesores, the derelict former nurses’ home opposite the Arkley public house, is to be demolished to make way for a housing scheme that aims to provide approximately 100 new homes.

Torchlight tour of Barnet’s historic physic well but is another historic building at risk?  Local residents had a rare opportunity to see inside Barnet’s historic physic well when Barnet Museum organised an open day at the well house, a short walk from Barnet Hospital.

Six candidates have been nominated for the Chipping Barnet constituency in the general election on Thursday 7 May – a seat currently held by Theresa Villiers, who has been the Conservative MP for the constituency since 2005.

Barnet Society member Sheila Durchslag has issued an alert over two missing George V plaques from the entrance to the fields off Barnet Lane. Has anyone photographs of the original metal insignia badges?

High Barnet residents without access to a fast broadband connection are canvassing their neighbours in the hope of demonstrating to British Telecom that there is strong local demand that would more than justify investment in the nine additional fibre-enabled cabinets that are needed.

A scheme to re-landscape much of the Old Fold Manor Golf Club at Hadley Common that involves felling mature trees along half a mile of the St Albans Road needs to be explained in much greater detail before being granted planning permission by Barnet Council.