News from The Barnet Society

While work is under way resurfacing Barnet Market its temporary home will be the area around the bandstand outside the Waitrose supermarket at the Spires shopping centre. hoppers visiting the market on Saturday morning (21.9.2013) were handed leaflets announcing that at last the William Pears property group is to start its £100,000 upgrade of the site.

A road realignment, a possible new zebra crossing and extra footpaths are being proposed at the junction of Wellhouse Lane and Wood Street to provide greater safety for both vehicles and pedestrians.

Barnet residents are about to face what looks like becoming a game of musical chairs among the wheelie bins and containers which proliferate in the frontages of houses and flats across the borough. Out go the black and blue recycling boxes . . .

Reorganise chaotic approach to High Barnet tube station to provide space for a bus service direct to the Spires and Barnet Hospital – plea by the Barnet Society.

The council is proposing to change the way that decisions are taken and introduce a Committee System form of governance.   Barnet are currently operating an Executive System of governance.  Under this system, the majority of decisions in the council are taken by the single-party Executive (or Cabinet) either in the Cabinet meeting or by individual Cabinet

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.

After having originally threatened to appeal against a High Court ruling that it had acted unlawfully in doubling charges in controlled parking zones, Barnet Council has now agreed to make refunds and take no further legal action.

A successful petition has helped to stop Barnet Council from appealing against the High Court ruling on controlled parking zones. Hundreds of Barnet residents called on the council to stop wasting even more council taxpayers’ money in trying to appeal against a ruling by Mrs Justice Lang.

High Barnet’s most popular children’s playground in the Old Court House recreation ground could become even more inviting if a new tenant can be found for the vacant park café. Barnet Council’s Commercial Directorate is offering a 15-year lease on the disused café and sitting area in an adjoining garden.

For well over 60 years the Victoria Maternity Hospital served the people of the Barnets, but today there is scant recognition of the vital role it once played in the area.

Footpath closure affecting 'Rambles Round Barnet' Part 1. Update to infomation. This is for walkers following the directions for WALK 1 and who are heading back to Barnet having reached the war memorial at the junction of Totteridge Lane with Barnet Lane.

Barnet Market’s improved site should be open for business by September, ready to attract new stall holders. Tenders are being invited for a £100,000 upgrade of Barnet Market, which the new owners say should be ready to trade in much improved surroundings by September.

The Spires' new owner wants to create a more 'enticing' entrance from the High Street that would attract more shoppers - and that may include the removal of the twin spires.

Resurfacing the site of Barnet market and installing basic facilities for the stallholders is the first test of the William Pears Group, new owners of the Spires shopping centre.

High Barnet residents have been invited to come up with ideas to use the facilities at the Wood Street campus of Barnet and Southgate College, which was rebuilt two years ago at a cost of £48 million.

In the two years since the Barnet Society began protesting about derelict NHS buildings nothing has changed. The abandoned Marie Foster Home in Wood Street is still an eyesore, and so is the fire-ravaged former nurses’ home at Arkley.

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.

North London’s much-troubled plan for handling municipal rubbish and waste is out for consultations once again.

Barnet Society publication ‘Rambles Round Barnet’ is the no 1 local best-seller at Waterstones Barnet! The booklet is the work of Society members, Owen Jones and David Ely, who carried out the research, walked the walks and wrote them up.

A fresh start for retailing in Chipping Barnet: the Spires shopping centre has been purchased by the William Pears Group, one of Britain’s biggest privately-owned property groups which keeps a low profile but has its roots in north London.  Contracts have been exchanged and the sale of the shopping centre by UBS Triton is due