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Parking claims another casualty

High Barnet’s “impossible” parking controls are forcing another independent trader out of the High Street.

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No to free parking say Council and MP

Theresa Villiers MP, Gordon Massey (Chair of BRA) and Councillor David Longstaff all oppose the petition

Councillor David Longstaff has joined Mrs Theresa Villiers MP and Gordon Massey, chairman of Barnet Residents Association, in opposing the Barnet Society’s petition calling for an hour’s free parking to help win back shoppers to the High Street.

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Two more shops forced out of High Street

Another two independent traders are being forced out of the High Street by a combination of high rents and the chronic difficulties faced by shoppers confronted by High Barnet’s expensive and inordinately complicated parking regime.

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Barnet is nearly a ghost town

Barnet High Street 2014

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.

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Packed programme for Barnet Fair

A packed programme has been arranged for this year’s Barnet Christmas Fair on Sunday 7 December when, instead of traffic, there will be music and dancing in the High Street and a vast array of stalls and attractions in nearby venues.

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Police baffled by High Barnet’s parking

Theresa Villiers, MP for Chipping Barnet, who is Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, admits that that even her police protection officers cannot work out where it is possible to park in High Barnet town centre.

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SOS our town centre is dying

Photo: Martin Standley
Photo: Martin Standley

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.

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Another independent trader closes

Saturday shoppers queued up in disbelief to read a bailiff’s notice posted on the front door of the Oasis coffee shop in the Spires shopping centre – the seventh business to have closed within the complex in recent months.

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Telling the time once again

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.

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Where have all the butchers gone?

Just imagine the bustle and activity of 1898 when such was the competition in the High Street of Barnet that shoppers had the choice of eleven butchers, including one pork butcher and two poultry dealers! Today only one shop remains, the Butcher’s Hook.

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Swiss chalet cladding off but saga goes on

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.

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Loads of cash to improve Barnet’s traffic bottleneck

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.

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Backing for Battle of Barnet dig

A final decision is expected by the end of January on the extent of financial support from the Heritage Lottery Fund towards the cost of an archaeological excavation to determine the precise site of the Battle of Barnet of 1471.

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The changing face of Chipping Barnet

Like much of the south-east of England, Chipping Barnet is seeing a rapid rise in home extensions and offices being converted into flats.  An easing of planning restrictions has given home-owners and property developers greater freedom.  But are large home extensions an intrusion for neighbours? Will more flats instead of offices change the character of the town centre?  

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Theresa Villiers opposes golf course landfill

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.

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The new Battle of Barnet?

A plan to deposit landfill on the golf course that takes in part of the site of the Battle of Barnet has alarmed the Battlefields Trust.

Old Fold Manor Golf Club at Monken Hadley is drawing up proposals to re-landscape the 900 yard stretch of the course which runs parallel to the St Albans Road.

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