A woodland walkway, a healing garden and children’s play area are among the latest proposals for inclusion in the fields and woods that make up the Whalebones estate in Wood Street, Barnet, where developers are proposing to build around 150 new homes.
Continue reading Plans for houses and public parkland in Whalebones
Earthworks remodelling Barnet golf course For some weeks past a constant stream of tipper lorries has been unloading top-soil and sub-soil at the northern end of the Old Fold Manor Golf Club, Hadley Green, where extensive landscaping of the golf course is about to start.
Hertsmere Council is consulting on the possibility of building up to 2,620 new homes plus new places of work between Wrotham Park and Potters Bar, westwards as far as South Mimms and eastwards beyond M25 junction 24. This would have a huge impact on our Green Belt.
Continue reading Building Threat on Potters Bar & South Mimms Green Belt
The Barnet Society welcomes the Council’s intention to restore Barnet & King George V Playing Fields, and to widen public access by providing a café with toilet facilities and play areas for children and their parents or carers. However, we currently consider that the development suggested in the master plan would be too intrusive and requires a re-think.
Continue reading New sports and community hubs in the green belt?
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.
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.
Continue reading Transforming playing field into multi-sports attraction
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.
Continue reading Premier Inn approved: will it help town centre?
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.
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.
Continue reading Care home to replace Barnet’s blot on the landscape
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.
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.
Continue reading Town centre “rabbit hutch” rooms plan withdrawn
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.
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.
Continue reading Hefty council tax bill for High Street cash machine
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.
Continue reading Shop closures and conversions changing town centre
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.
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.
Continue reading Medieval Festival treated “appallingly” by Barnet Council
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.
Continue reading Barnet Market & Premier Inn – An opportunity slipping away
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.
Continue reading Wars of the Roses banners for Barnet High Street
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.
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.
Continue reading Conservatives sweep back to power in Barnet
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Continue reading Why no upper deck for Barnet Hospital car park?
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.
Continue reading Council election candidates go head to head
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.
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.
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.
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.
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RT @BarnetCouncil: Free child car seat safety checks this Friday 6 March 🚗 🦺
No booking needed, drop in 10am–3pm at Brent Cross Hendon W…
✨ Plenty of memorable moments on home soil this campaign!
We host the Exiles and the U's in the capital this month! 🏟️
Back the Bees in the business end of the season! 🎟️
#BarnetFC🐝
NEW: Mayor’s team to decide on its own planning application
NEW: Redevelopment of Dollis Valley estate set to re-start
NEW: Data centre plans for Potters Bar green belt
Teresa Fitzgerald posted a comment on Angry residents, community groups and primary school headteacher demand a rethink on Barnet Council’s new CPZ in Underhill
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