Staff and sales assistants at the Spires shopping centre are keen to publicise the location of a defibrillator that has been installed at the High Street entrance with the help of a £500 donation from the Barnet Residents Association.
Gary Murphy, landlord at one of High Barnet’s highly-rated real ale pubs, the Mitre, is preparing for the next round of an ongoing campaign to force the pub owners to give publicans of tied houses a fairer deal on rents and the price and choice of beers.
Continue reading Campaigning to save traditional public houses
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
Noah’s Ark Children’s Hospice is rapidly reaching completion in the grounds of the nature reserve maintained by Barnet Environment Centre in Byng Road, Barnet.
Continue reading State-of-the-art care promised at children’s hospice
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
SaveTheHighStreet.org – which is campaigning to help shopping centres that are facing challenging times – is to hold a series of advice sessions in High Barnet on Wednesday 12 December.
Barnet’s annual Christmas fayre broke with tradition this year. Instead of being opened by the Mayor of Barnet, the ceremony was conducted by the “Lord Mayor of London, Councillor Richard Whittington” – star of the Christmas pantomime at the The Bull Theatre.
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retail premises just off Barnet High Street into a house in multiple occupation with nine self-contained rooms has been withdrawn – at least for the moment.
Continue reading Town centre “rabbit hutch” rooms plan withdrawn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.
Problems caused by uncontrolled street drinking in High Barnet and rough sleeping in shop doorways along the High Street topped the issues raised at an Engage Barnet question time.
Continue reading Unruly street drinkers troubling High Street shoppers
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
A new planning application is in for the Brake Shear House site. The design has good and weak points, so the Barnet Society is minded to be neutral about it. You can comment on it until Friday 7th September.
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
Barnet might have lost its football club, but another of the town’s sporting traditions is still making history: Barnet Elizabethans Rugby Football Club is about to start a year of commemorative events to celebrate its centenary.
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.
The stunning success this summer of the first-ever Barnet Medieval Festival – which the organisers are planning to repeat next June – has added fresh momentum to several initiatives to celebrate the 1471 Battle of Barnet.
Continue reading Sketch for new Battle of Barnet oil painting
The controversial proposal to build a Premier Inn on the former Barnet Market site has been rejected by Barnet’s planning committee, against the planning officers’ advice.
Local residents and nearby businesses are to be consulted over a plan to build a 100-bed care home for the elderly on the site of the former Marie Foster Centre in Wood Street, Barnet.
Continue reading £22 million care home for Marie Foster site
To help celebrate the school’s 130th anniversary, pupils at Queen Elizabeth’s Girls’ School, Barnet, organised a wide range of events for their summer fair.
Continue reading Queen’s representative at QE Girls’ summer fair
A joint display of classic cars and vintage armoured vehicles drew record crowds to the fifth annual Barnet Classic Car show at the Army Reserve Centre in St Albans Road, Barnet.
Barnet’s annual Classic Car Show on Saturday (30 June) is to be a joint display alongside vintage armoured vehicles to mark National Armed Forces Day.
Continue reading Barnet’s classic cars joined by vintage armoured vehicles
A three-week public consultation has opened on a new scheme of improvements to the High Street – and it’s vital that residents support this chance-in-a-generation to rejuvenate it.
Two historic cottages at the corner of Wood Street and Manor Road have revealed a secret that has been hidden for 150 years or more – and it gives a glimpse of the fashionable interior of the fine houses that once graced High Barnet.
A damp Sunday afternoon did little to dampen the excitement for countless children who enjoyed the traditional fun fair that has become such a popular attraction at Barnet’s annual Christmas Fayre.
A van producing and selling authentic Roman pizzas is helping to kick start the development of what is fast becoming a popular food court outside the Stapylton Road entrance to the Spires shopping centre.
Shanly Homes, which purchased the semi-derelict Brake Shear House workshops off Barnet High Street earlier this year, has appointed new architects to review the plans for redeveloping the site.
High Barnet’s police station will close to the public by the end of the year along with 36 other police stations across London where the Metropolitan Police is withdrawing a front counter service.
Reaching out to local schools to explain and promote Barnet’s role in the Wars of the Roses is one of the key objectives of the lottery-funded Battle of Barnet project.
On his first visit to Barnet, Prince Richard, Duke of Gloucester, was on the warpath at the 1471 Battle of Barnet – five centuries later his namesake was back in the town joining the fight to preserve Barnet’s historic legacy.
Another of Barnet’s historic public houses, the White Lion in St Albans Road, has closed, and local residents fear that it might be converted into flats or even demolished to make way for a new housing development.
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