The depth of local anger, frustration and even despair at the damage being inflicted on Barnet’s shopping centre is highlighted yet again in comments in support of the Barnet Society’s petition calling on Barnet Council to allow an hour’s free parking.
After a rising number of complaints about blue disabled badges being used unlawfully by motorists, High Barnet Police say they are stepping up uniformed patrols and will take action against drivers breaking the law.
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”.
The Barnet Society is launching a Save Our High Street appeal: our town centre desperately needs more shoppers and we hope local businesses and other organisations, as well as local residents will join our campaign.
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 it, we won’t carry weight if we blindly oppose any change; and if a proposal meets the highest design and sustainability standards, we welcome it.
A Battle of Barnet heritage trail starting at Hadley Highstone is just one of the ambitious plans for providing a lasting legacy if funding can be obtained from the Heritage Lottery Fund for an archaeological excavation of the battlefield site.
Continue reading Plans for a heritage trail for the Battle of Barnet
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.
Continue reading Battle of Barnet dig could enhance the role of Barnet Museum
Barnet’s bee population – and the borough’s beekeepers – are in very good shape thanks to the enthusiasm and good husbandry of the Barnet District Beekeepers Association.
Two local history projects connecting Barnet’s past to the present day have been officially unveiled at Barnet Museum as part of its annual Tea in the Park celebration in Courthouse Gardens.
Continue reading Barnet Museum’s garden party brings history to life
Facelift for the Spires to be finished by the spring ready for Carluccio’s restaurant to open next summer. Building work is due to start in August constructing a new entrance to the Spires shopping centre, together with premises for a new branch of the Italian restaurant chain Carluccio’s that will have its frontage opening on to Barnet High Street.
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.
Continue reading Petition for new primary school in High Barnet
Feasibility study begins on future use of abandoned Marie Foster Home: could it become the site of a new GP surgery for High Barnet?
Having been High Barnet’s most notorious blot on the landscape for the last decade, a future use for the long-derelict Marie Foster Home and surrounding land is at last being considered by NHS Property Services.
Continue reading Abandoned Marie Foster home could become GP surgery
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.
Barnet Council has almost £150,000 available which could be spent immediately on improving the road junction at the top of Barnet Hill, if only an agreement could be reached on how best to ease traffic congestion and make it safer for pedestrians.
Continue reading Loads of cash to improve Barnet’s traffic bottleneck
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.
An imaginative array of ideas for reviving Barnet’s shopping centre was outlined at the Barnet Society’s annual question and answer session with the Chipping Barnet MP Mrs Theresa Villiers.
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.
Continue reading MP tackles BT but is High Barnet any the wiser?
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.
Local residents who are against plans for tree-felling and landfill on the site of Old Fold Manor Golf Club off Hadley Green have been promised the support of the Chipping Barnet MP Theresa Villiers.
Continue reading Theresa Villiers opposes golf course landfill
All the fun of the fair filled the High Street for the annual Barnet Christmas Fair, which many judged was the most ambitious and best supported since the event was first held twenty years ago.
A planning inspector has now been appointed to consider the objections made by the Barnet Society and other local groups to the installation of unauthorised timber cladding above retail premises in Church Passage, in the heart of the High Barnet conservation area.
Continue reading Church Passage cladding: An inspector decides
New recycling service: an eyewitness report from a Barnet Society member.
High Barnet householders have been told they should become their own recycling monitors and report back to Barnet Council on the efficiency of the new service for collecting recyclable refuse.
Whitings Hill is hardly likely to rival New England in the fall, but two plantations planted almost 20 years ago by the Barnet Society are now resplendent with mature trees and are presenting a vibrant display of autumn colours.
Tucked away between Quinta Drive and Mays Lane, the Whitings Hill open space might be unfamiliar to many High Barnet residents, but it is a tranquil setting and a walk to the top of the hill is highly recommended.
As part of the preparations to deliver Barnet’s new waste and recycling service, Barnet Council will be training all waste service collection staff in the week beginning the 7 October. A Press Release from Barnet Council stated today.
This means that residents will not have their recycling collected during this week while staff members get prepared for the new recycling service which starts on the 14 October.
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 . . . to be replaced as from October 14 by a blue wheelie bin for all recyclable material.
Continue reading Barnet’s multiplying wheelie bins…black, green and now blue
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 Members.
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.
Continue reading Council enforcement notice on ‘Swiss Chalet’
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.
Continue reading Barnet Council finally backs down after High Court defeat
A successful petition has helped to stop Barnet Council from appealing against the High Court ruling on controlled parking zones.
Continue reading Clamped! how petition spurred council to give up fight
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Lucy Bridgers posted a comment on Pub of the year award regained by The Mitre as Barnet’s real ale enthusiasts voice concern over closures in neighbouring Enfield
Dougie posted a comment on With a decision likely within weeks, BringBarnetBack step up their campaign for Barnet Football Club to return to Underhill
Michael Griffin posted a comment on Pub of the year award regained by The Mitre as Barnet’s real ale enthusiasts voice concern over closures in neighbouring Enfield
Anne Stern posted a comment on Plain clothes police proving more effective in tackling Barnet’s shoplifting and drug users than uniform patrols in High Street