News from The Barnet Society

A mini-roundabout and an additional zebra crossing are being proposed by Barnet Council to improve road safety for motorists and pedestrians at the junction of Wood Street and Wellhouse Lane. A £232,000 road improvement scheme prepared by the Council’s in-house consultancy Capita is now out for consultation.

For the last 50 years Barnet children have needed to go no further than Wood Street to catch a glimpse of a scene that brings to life that much-loved nursery rhyme “Old MacDonald Had a Farm”.

Barnet church has its clock back at last! For almost a month High Barnet residents looked in vain when needing to check the time, but the tower of the town’s famous landmark is resplendent once more.

Green Belt surrounds Chipping Barnet on three sides, and the Barnet Society was founded in 1945 to protect it.  As London grows, we believe it – and the natural landscape adjoining it – is likely to be even more appreciated.  But while the Society’s default setting is to oppose any development on or next to

Love Barnet’s pop-up shop at 89 High Street promoting locally produced crafts and goods had what the staff said was a “fantastic” first week’s trading. Ten stockists are selling a range of products including hand-made home furnishings, jewellery, cards, soaps and oils and glass and ceramics.

Chants of “Our NHS, your NHS” echoed around the Wellhouse Lane entrance to Barnet Hospital as the People’s March for the NHS passed through Barnet on its way to Edmonton.

Guns & Smoke, a new American-style bar and grill at the heart of the High Barnet conservation area, is announcing that it will be opening soon – possibly by mid-September – although planning permission has yet to be obtained from Barnet Council.

Barnet Museum is drawing up plans for a possible extension to its Wood Street premises and a programme of community activities if the go-ahead is given for an archaeological excavation on the site of the 1471 Battle of Barnet.

Facelift for the Spires to be finished by the spring ready for Carluccio’s restaurant to open next summer.

Even before the completion of its fitting out, an application has been made for planning permission to almost double the size of a new private hospital which is to open in Moxon Street, High Barnet. Hadley Wood Hospital is due to open shortly and will be owned and managed by a team of local specialist consultants.

Parents of children due to start school from 2016 onwards are being urged to sign a petition to support a campaign to establish a new Church of England free school for High Barnet.

Just imagine the bustle and activity of 1898 when such was the competition in the High Street of Barnet that shoppers had the choice of eleven butchers, including one pork butcher and two poultry dealers! Today only one shop remains, the Butcher’s Hook.

British Telecom has been forced to admit that there will be another lengthy delay in providing a fast broadband service to up to 3,000 High Barnet households.

Feasibility study begins on future use of abandoned Marie Foster Home: could it become the site of a new GP surgery for High Barnet?

Barnet Council has promised that a heritage officer will carry out an inspection in Church Passage in the “very near future” in an attempt to resolve continuing disagreement over cladding on the frontage of retail premises in the heart of the High Barnet conservation area.

The Barnet Society pinpoints the sites of missing telecoms cabinets needed to deliver a fast broadband service.  The Barnet Society has identified eight sites where it believes British Telecom needs to install additional kerbside telecoms cabinets if several thousand High Barnet households are ever going to have the chance to obtain a fast broadband connection.

A long-awaited meeting between Theresa Villiers MP and senior executives of British Telecom has still left unanswered many of the questions about when – or if ever – many High Barnet residents will be offered a superfast broadband connection.

Barnet has probably more to thank the politicians and planners of the 1930s and 1940s for than any other town in north London. With protected Green Belt land on three sides, the High Barnet of today is blessed with some unrivalled countryside on our door-step.

A planning inspector has ordered that unauthorised timber cladding must be removed from the frontage of retail premises in the heart of the High Barnet conservation area. An appeal by Mr G. Cramer, owner of 1 Church Passage, has been rejected and Barnet Council has won official backing for an enforcement notice requiring its removal.

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?