Thames Water are warning that it will probably be the end of July before there is a final end to the roadworks that have led to road closures and restrictions on traffic passing through the historic village of Monken Hadley.
Continue reading Months more traffic disruption at Monken Hadley
An alcove in front of Chipping Barnet library has been chosen as the potential site of a large granite sculpture, depicting a family of four, by Finchley sculptor Drew Edwards.
A business plan for opening a combined space for a children’s play area and community activities in Barnet High Street has won this year’s Entrepreneurial Barnet Competition.
Plans for a spring clean-up of litter has attracted hundreds of promises of support after mother-of-three Nanna Blomquist launched a Green Beings High Barnet community organisation to campaign for greater environmental awareness.
Barnet Council’s latest cost-cutting proposal is to end the long-standing practice of locking up gates to parks, gardens and car parks at nightfall.
Continue reading Security to be withdrawn from some parks & gardens
Ark Pioneer Academy, High Barnet’s new secondary school opening in September, has started holding drop in sessions for potential parents and pupils – heightening the debate about its impact on other nearby schools.
For our spring public forum, the Barnet Society has arranged for an expert panel to answer questions of local interest on key issues such as the future of education and training, prospects for local employment, plans for new housing and future safeguards for the Green Belt.
Every Sunday this winter St Mark’s Church, Barnet Vale, becomes a night shelter for the homeless – “our contribution to helping the weakest”, says the Vicar, the Reverend Tristan Chapman.
Continue reading Full house at Barnet homeless night shelter
Chipping Barnet Residents Forum has been given an assurance that Barnet Council will take action to remove up to three homeless men who bed down each night in alcoves and under bay windows outside Chipping Barnet Library in Stapylton Road.
Continue reading Barnet Councillors’ pledge to tackle rough sleepers and street drinkers
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.
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Justin Chin posted a comment on Small stretch of Barnet Playing Fields at Underhill set aside for new Dollis Valley community orchard
Jim posted a comment on Small stretch of Barnet Playing Fields at Underhill set aside for new Dollis Valley community orchard
Local resident posted a comment on Landmark moment for recently opened Barnet secondary school which is celebrating pupils’ success in gaining places at leading universities
Peter Lyons posted a comment on Small stretch of Barnet Playing Fields at Underhill set aside for new Dollis Valley community orchard