Efforts are underway to identify and map the many alleyways and footpaths that add so much to the local landscape and help make High Barnet such an attractive place to live.
Ensuring historic footpaths are preserved
Tag: Barnet Council
Transforming playing field into multi-sports attraction
A major redevelopment of Barnet playing fields in Dollis Valley could include the provision of a skate board park, children’s play areas, an outdoor gym as well as a series of new football pitches and a new community centre with indoor sports facilities.
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Premier Inn approved: will it help town centre?
Plans for a 100-bed Premier Inn on the site of Barnet Market were approved by a clear majority at a meeting of Barnet Council’s planning committee despite the continued, forthright opposition of residents in the adjoining Chipping Close.
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Accolade for High Street campaigner
Gail Laser, founder of Love Barnet, has won national recognition for the decade she has spent working tirelessly to improve trading conditions in Barnet High Street.
Care home to replace Barnet’s blot on the landscape
A planning application has now been submitted to Barnet Council for a large-scale private care home for the elderly on the Marie Foster site in the heart of the Wood Street conservation area.
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Shopkeeper’s victory in council tax row
Barnet Council has backed down from its decision to charge a High Street newsagent an extra £1,800 a year in council tax for having a free-to-use cash machine installed in the shop window.
Town centre “rabbit hutch” rooms plan withdrawn
A highly-controversial plan to convert empty retail premises just off Barnet High Street into a house in multiple occupation with nine self-contained rooms has been withdrawn – at least for the moment.
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Premier Inn – Take Two
Premier Inns have submitted a new planning application. The design has been improved since its first scheme, rejected in July, and the Barnet Society is minded to support it.
Hefty council tax bill for High Street cash machine
Offering High Barnet residents and shoppers a free-to-use cash machine is proving an expensive nightmare for the Paper Shop in the High Street.
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Shop closures and conversions changing town centre
High Barnet’s struggling High Street shopping centre is facing fresh challenges: another two national chains are pulling out just as plans are announced to convert empty retail premises on the corner with St Albans Road into a house in multiple occupation.
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Premier Inn – market place confrontation
Residents of Chipping Close were out in force to express their continuing opposition to the construction of a 100-bed Premier Inn opposite their homes on the site of Barnet Market.
Medieval Festival treated “appallingly” by Barnet Council
Charging £3,000 to hang heraldic banners from 26 lamp standards in Barnet High Street was condemned as the latest example of the dysfunctional relationship between Barnet Council and its web of private contractors providing out-sourced services.
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Barnet Market & Premier Inn – An opportunity slipping away
The Barnet Society supports the current planning applications for both a Premier Inn and relocation of the market to The Spires bandstand site – but only subject to several strict conditions. And we do so in the belief that a big opportunity could be lost.
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Wars of the Roses banners for Barnet High Street
If Barnet Council gives approval, 26 hand-painted heraldic banners are to be hung along Barnet High Street to promote the Barnet Medieval Festival – a weekend of medieval displays and re-enactments of scenes from the battles of St Albans (1461) and Barnet (1471) to be held at the Byng Road playing fields on Saturday and Sunday, June 9 and 10.
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Barnet’s royal wedding street parties
Old Fold View was one of several roads in and around High Barnet that was closed off to traffic so that residents could hold a street party to celebrate the Windsor wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle.
Conservatives sweep back to power in Barnet
Barnet Borough Council is back firmly under Conservative control after the Labour Party failed to make its much-anticipated breakthrough and ended up losing five seats in the council elections.
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A Premier Inn with a difference?
A computer-generated image shows the proposed Premier Inn hotel and restaurant to be built on the site of Barnet Market, at the junction of St Albans Road and Chipping Close.
A hotel worthy of historic site
Nearby residents have been given an assurance that the design of the new Premier Inn planned for the historic site of Barnet Market will respect the local conservation area and will be in keeping with terraced houses across the road in Chipping Close.
Market exits for hotel
If planning approval is given, a Premier Inn hotel and restaurant is to be built on the historic St Albans Road site of Barnet’s much reduced stalls market.
Multi-storey car park planned
A new masterplan for the future redevelopment of the Barnet Hospital site is in preparation and it does include proposals for a new multi-storey car park.
Why no upper deck for Barnet Hospital car park?
Forcing Barnet Hospital to build an upper deck over its car park is one option that should be considered by Barnet Council in an attempt to relieve excessive parking in nearby roads.
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Council election candidates go head to head
A deep, sometimes noisy divide opened up at the Barnet Society’s election hustings over a wide range of contentious local issues including the need for affordable housing, concern over an increasing number of empty homes, the outsourcing of services to Capita and the demand for free town centre parking.
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Final farewell to Barnet FC
Almost five years since Barnet Football Club played its last game at Underhill, its stadium off Barnet Lane is finally being demolished to make way for a 1,200-place Ark Academy secondary school.
Mothers and babies fight back
Young mums and their babies were out in force at a protest meeting to try to force Barnet Council to abandon its decision to close the Barnet Breastfeeding Support Service – at an annual saving to the council of £75,000.
Whalebones. Is this the future?
A group of residents campaigning to stop housing development on the Whalebones farmland are investigating several options for safeguarding one of High Barnet’s much-loved green spaces.
Why no bus from tube to hospital?
A long-running campaign by the Barnet Society to persuade Transport for London to run a bus service from High Barnet tube station to Barnet Hospital and the Spires shopping centre has won the support of Councillor Richard Cornelius, leader of Barnet Council.
Three cheers for mighty oak
Local residents raised a glass to celebrate – and wish good health — to the 250-year-old oak tree at the junction of The Meadway and Potters Road in support of the Woodland Trust’s “We Love Street Trees” campaign.
Mighty oak sparks almighty row
After protests from local tree lovers, Barnet Council finally called a temporary halt to trench digging and cable laying directly under a 250-year-old oak that commands the brow of the hill at the junction of The Meadway and Potters Road, New Barnet.
Underhill school to go ahead
After being refused permission in January, Barnet Council’s planning committee has now approved plans for the proposed Ark Academy school on the site of the vacant Underhill stadium, former home of Barnet Football Club.
Council excavate roots of historic oak
Unthinking council planners and contractors are being blamed by local tree lovers for hacking through the roots of 250-year-old oak by excavating a trench and building two concrete bases for broadband telephone boxes.
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