

High Barnet’s “impossible” parking controls are forcing another independent trader out of the High Street.
High Barnet’s “impossible” parking controls are forcing another independent trader out of the High Street.
Guns & Smoke, the new American-style bar and grill opposite Barnet parish church, faces what looks like being a decisive shoot-out at Hendon Town Hall early in the new year.
The Mayor of Barnet, Councillor Hugh Rayner, has signed up to be kept informed of progress in the Barnet Society’s campaign for an hour’s free parking.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Work is well underway preparing the ground for planting a wild-flower meadow which will become a major new attraction at Barnet Countryside Centre in Byng Road.
Love Barnet’s pop-up shop at 89 High Street promoting locally produced crafts and goods had what the staff said was a “fantastic” first week’s trading.
Guns & Smoke, a new American-style bar and grill at the heart of the High Barnet conservation area, is announcing that it will be opening soon – possibly by mid-September – although planning permission has yet to be obtained from Barnet Council.
Even before the completion of its fitting out, an application has been made for planning permission to almost double the size of a new private hospital which is to open in Moxon Street, High Barnet.
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.
British Telecom has been forced to admit that there will be another lengthy delay in providing a fast broadband service to up to 3,000 High Barnet households.
One of the many vacant frontages along Barnet High Street is about to get a new lease of life as a pop-up shop where aspiring independent traders, artists and voluntary groups can display samples of their work, goods and crafts.
New look for Spires shopping centre: a continental cafe-style culture for Barnet High Street?
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
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 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.
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.
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?
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
After sustained pressure from local traders and community groups, Barnet Council has agreed to provide a sizeable number of free spaces for car parking close to the High Barnet town centre.
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.
Local shops and businesses are pulling out all the stops to ensure a spectacular line-up of events and attractions for High Barnet’s annual Christmas Fair on Sunday 1st December.
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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