Tag: regeneration

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Fairview & One Housing back for more (again) at Victoria Quarter

The Victoria Quarter illustrates – barely believably – the extraordinary lengths to which some developers go these days to cram housing onto their sites. After a decade campaigning for a development of the former gasworks site in the best interests of present neighbours and future residents, and seeing off several schemes that weren’t, locals might be excused for accepting a compromise solution. Instead, residents group Save New Barnet (SNB) are determined not to settle for a scheme that, as climate changes, could become a slum of the future.

The Victoria Quarter illustrates – barely believably – the extraordinary lengths to which some developers go these days to cram housing onto their sites. After a decade campaigning for a development of the former gasworks site in the best interests of present neighbours and future residents, and seeing off several schemes that weren’t, locals might be excused for accepting a compromise solution. Instead, residents group Save New Barnet (SNB) are determined not to settle for a scheme that, as climate changes, could become a slum of the future.

The battle over the 7.5 acres former gasworks site in New Barnet has been epic:

  • In 2017, after 4 years of negotiation, a scheme for 371 homes was given planning permission. Council and community agreed it to be a good blend of flats and family houses with gardens, most with views of Victoria Recreation Ground.
  • In 2020 One Housing with Fairview New Homes applied for permission for 652 units in blocks up to 10 storeys high. Following a local outcry, it was refused.
  • Undeterred, they returned in 2021 with a reduced scheme for 539 units in 13 blocks ranging from 4 to 7 storeys high. 800 members of the public objected. Last year the Council rejected that proposal too by 9 votes to 1 (with 1 abstention).
  • The developer appealed against the decision, but lost after a public planning inquiry.
  • They sought a judicial review of the appeal decision, but were refused.
  • In a final throw of the dice, the developer appealed in the High Court against that refusal. Last January that appeal was refused too.

At that point, you might think Fairview & One Housing would revert to the 2017 (approved) scheme – but you’d be wrong. Last month they came back with yet another planning application, this time for 486 units, 35% of them affordable.

 

They claim to be generally following the 2017 plan with its ‘finger’ blocks, but replacing the terraced houses and gardens with taller blocks to provide 76 more social and affordable homes. Their ambition is ‘to see Victoria Quarter become the most sustainable development that Fairview has delivered to date’.

In the Barnet Society’s opinion the scheme is architecturally nothing special, but an improvement on the others offered since 2017. The design is generally less fussy and overbearing. The landscaping works better. Most flats would have a view of the Recreation Ground. But we regret the complete absence of traditional private gardens, and that only 8 of the homes would be for larger families.

At a public meeting on 11 October an over-riding theme emerged: the poor environmental design of many of the homes. For example, around:

  • 20% of the flats would be single-aspect, so cross-ventilation in hot weather would be impossible.
  • 25% wouldn’t meet adequate daylighting standards, affecting mental health.
  • 45% would require active cooling to meet the minimum guidelines on overheating, the running cost of which would not be included in their rent.
  • And most homes would depend on mechanical ventilation and heat recovery (MVHR). If MVHR is switched off, condensation, mould and poor air quality would result, causing damage to the building fabric and potentially serious health consequences for occupants.

SNB have now publicised five design improvements that must be made before they could accept the scheme:

  1. Overheating – add brise soleil (sun louvres), and examine design/orientation of flats.
  2. Railway noise – add noise barriers at track level.
  3. Daylight/sunlight – reduce the 4 finger blocks to 5-storey instead of 6.
  4. High proportion of small flats – replace some of the single-aspect studio flats in the finger blocks with larger dual-aspect flats.
  5. Out of character with the area – address the comments raised by Barnet’s Urban Designers.

You can read SNB’s full objection here.

The Barnet Society supports SNB and is objecting to the planning application – despite our ardent wish to see new housing on this site. We’re YIMBYs: we’d love well designed new housing in Chipping Barnet. But it must be genuinely sustainable. Fairview & One Housing’s latest effort wouldn’t be.

Half a century ago, the construction and management defects of numerous postwar housing estates became apparent. Just because we have a housing shortage, we must not build another generation of sub-standard homes.

We urge you to object personally. You can do so on the planning portal. The deadline is Friday 3 November.

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The Spires developers must up their design game – and drop their building heights

The Barnet Society’s Planning & Environment Committee has studied closely the latest design proposals exhibited at The Spires on 12 & 15 April. This is a once-in-a-generation chance to revitalise our town centre, but it risks being wasted.

Frankly, we’re disappointed. Back in December last year, we responded to the initial proposals for The Spires with numerous constructive suggestions and cautionary comments. Over three months later, few of them seem to have been regarded.

The Society’s fundamental position is that we could accept around 250 flats if the result would be a real improvement on the present Spires. That would include a wider range of retail and other uses, a more attractive place to shop and hang out, and better bus/car drop-off and pick-up arrangements (amongst other things).

Unfortunately, the current scheme doesn’t seem to offer such improvements. Benefits to the public realm are at best vague or limited, and in some cases the proposals would be detrimental. Basic information on the new homes, transport, sustainability and the visual impact on neighbours and conservation areas is lacking, but is essential if the developers are to get community support.

We’ve told them our reasons for disappointment – and if you care for the future of our town, please submit your own comments. There’s no deadline, but the sooner you do so the better. You can view the exhibition boards here. Then

The Society has four particular concerns:

Building height

The proposed 5 & 6-storey blocks along the south side of Spires Walk would overshadow the precinct to a completely unacceptable degree. We are also very concerned about the visual impact of the 4, 5 & 6 storeys proposed north of the Spires Walk, on the multi-storey car park and behind Chipping Close, and would have to see verified visualisations from key view-points before commenting further.

Transport

No attempt has been made to improve the present unsatisfactory – and sometimes hazardous – arrangements for buses, car drop-off or pick-up and pedestrian crossing. The scheme also depends on highly optimistic assumptions about car parking demand. Credible transport studies must be made available.

Housing

The almost complete absence of plans, sections and other information about this major component of the scheme is astonishing, and prevents us adding to the numerous comments we made on the subject in our submission last year. We should point out that compliance with the London Mayoral and Barnet Council housing design standards will be essential, not simply the Nationally Described Space Standards referenced on the exhibition boards.

Trading continuity

The lack of information about phasing of building works and temporary decanting of existing businesses, most of which are essential for the regeneration of the town centre, is worrying.

We also have comments on other points:

Permeability

New public pedestrian connections between the development and Bruce Road, and High Street (via the alley between Nos.131 & 133) are desirable.

Mix of uses

We like the idea of a ‘varied offer of retail, F&B, leisure and cultural’ and ‘active community & retail space fronting onto the High Street’ (or is that meant to mean St Albans Road?), but need more detail. ‘Changing places’ and able-bodied public conveniences should also be provided.

Market

We welcome the extra space proposed for the market if demand increases.

Spires Walk

The width between the proposed 5 & 6-storey slabs appears little wider than the smaller of the existing courtyards, and much less than the 21 metres recommended for residential visual and aural privacy. As well as its almost continuous overshadowing (mentioned above), we regret the removal of most of the existing protection from rain.

A further observation: this design would remove the variety and element of surprise that gives the present precinct much of its character. That would be replaced by a long, straight vista focusing the westward gaze on…the anticlimax of the car park entrance. A more inspired townscape gesture is called for.

Green space

The plans indicate plenty of greenery, which would be welcome, but according to the exhibition panels only 80 sq.m. is additional, which seems meagre for a site of this size. Does it include the ‘communal garden’ and its adjacent new greenery? Who would be able to access it, and how would it be kept secure?

Play space

Provision for children’s play is equally ambiguous. We are promised improvement to the green to create a ‘playable’ space. But which green is meant: the new ‘communal garden’ or the Stapylton Road pocket park (which is outside the development site)? And would it be a purpose-designed play area?

Sustainability

The environmental measures offered are heading in right direction, but are ad hoc and unambitious. A project of this size is an opportunity for a more holistic and integrated scheme. Robust assurances on air quality will also be needed, during and after construction.

Unless the development team up their design game – and drop their building heights – the impression that they are prioritising residential units and private profit over public benefit will be unavoidable.

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Typical – wait ages for a decent modern housing scheme, and two come along at once!

After years of dereliction, Barnet Homes have published proposals for sites in Moxon Street and Whitings Road for public consultation. The designs are better than previous schemes for the same sites approved several years ago, but never built. They’re also more imaginative and sensitive than almost any the Barnet Society has seen for a long time. We support them, and hope you will too.

Barnet Homes got the latest plans off to a good start by arranging early public consultations, well before the planning applications are due to be submitted in spring, and by appointing good and experienced design consultants.

Both design teams are led by Peter Barber Architects, who have an excellent record of inserting attractive housing on awkward urban sites. In Barnet they’ve designed the modest Brent Place off Mays Lane; Edgewood Mews, Barnet’s answer to the Byker wall, alongside the North Circular; and the dramatic Pegasus Court in Colindale. The landscape designers for both projects are Staton Cohen, a practice based in Barnet Vale.

Together, the two schemes will offer 50% market and 50% affordable housing, but the mix will on each will be different, as will be the size of units and the balance of flats and houses with gardens.

The Whitings Road site (above) is relatively straightforward, the main planning requirement being to avoid overlooking of adjoining neighbours and Whitings Hill Primary School. The plan does this by clustering 35 homes, mainly 3 & 4-bed houses up to three storeys high with gardens, around a communal green.

The Moxon Street site (above) is more complicated. Half of it is within the Wood Street Conservation Area and it adjoins a Grade II Listed Georgian house. On Moxon Street, the former Checkalows building will be retained and extended, and a new building in similar style will fill the gap next to the listed house. The ground floors will provide small commercial premises with three flats above. Behind Moxon Street, 18 more 1 & 2-bed units will form an L-shaped mews, no higher than two storeys, linking to Tapster Street.

As usual with Peter Barber, the buildings are cleverly designed to maximise accommodation but minimise intrusion into their neighbourhoods. The predominant material is traditional brick, but the facades have a variety of windows and rooflines to provide individuality.

We made encouraging comments on the initial proposals in December. In the light of public comments, modifications have been made and a second round of public consultation is currently being held on both schemes. Only slight amendments have been made at Whitings Road, but at Moxon Street the plans have been developed to meet some criticisms.

We have only minor concerns at this stage. At Moxon Street, using three types of brick will look too ‘busy’; and while the widely differing window sizes and shapes are fun, they might quickly seem dated. At both sites, the flat roofs and varied rooflines are visually interesting but tricky to keep weatherproof. The units are mostly quite small with some strange room layouts. Achieving adequate privacy, daylight and private amenity space will be challenging. The net-zero ambition is admirable, but provision of photovoltaics, air-source heat pumps and a renewable energy strategy is unclear. But these can be sorted out by designers of this calibre.

The deadline for public comments on Moxon Street is Wednesday 15 February, and for Whitings Road Wednesday 22 February. Details can be found here.

If you’re excited by housing schemes like these – or if you dislike them – come and say so at the Barnet Society’s public meeting on Tuesday evening 21 February. Our debate on Better housing for Barnet will be at The Bull theatre, 68 High Street.

Come and ask questions – and suggest solutions – to our panel of speakers which includes

  • Ross Houston, housing lead for Barnet Council
  • Dave McCormick, Friends of the Earth
  • Simon Kaufman & Russell Curtis, local architects with housing expertise

Doors will open for refreshments at 7:00pm and the meeting will be from 7:30 to 9:15pm. Admission: members – free; non-members – £5 donation (or why not join instead?).

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New housing in Barnet – a better way forward

Residents in the north of Barnet have recently felt besieged by new housing developments. We want more – and decent – homes for elderly as well as first-time buyers, but much of what is offered is unimaginative, out of scale and character with our neighbourhood, and mostly unaffordable. Surely we can do better? Brook Valley Gardens – nearing completion – shows one promising way forward.

The Barnet Society is hosting a public meeting on how to improve new and existing housing in Barnet. The debate on What in our back yard? WIMBYS, not NIMBYs! will be on Tuesday evening 21 February at The Bull theatre, 68 High Street.

Come and ask questions – and suggest solutions – to our panel of speakers which includes

  • Ross Houston, housing lead for Barnet Council
  • Dave McCormick, Friends of the Earth
  • Simon Kaufman & Russell Curtis, local architects with housing expertise

Doors will open for refreshments at 7:00pm and the meeting will be from 7:30 to 9:15pm. Admission: members – free; non-members – £5 donation (or why not join instead?)

Brook Valley Gardens is a huge site – over 10 hectares (26 acres) of the former Dollis Valley Estate – and planning approval was granted nearly 10 years ago. But because construction won’t be complete before 2025, and because most of it is hidden from Mays Lane, it’s escaped public attention. That’s a pity: it’s an important and exceptional piece of planning and design.

The project, led by Countryside Properties, replaces a late-1960s prefabricated council estate that suffered a range of building and social problems. Wholesale redevelopment contentiously involved displacement of some 177 council tenants but secured a net gain of 192 homes. Of its 631 new homes, 60% were for private sale and 40% were affordable housing (managed by housing association L&Q). The community was to benefit from a replacement nursery and community centre including the Hope Corner café. The Society supported the planning application.

We particularly supported the design approach of the architects. The master-planners of the whole scheme, and architects of early phases, are Alison Brooks Architects, and of later phases HTA Design. Both are housing specialists with fine track records including numerous awards.

A key feature of the scheme is the restoration of traditional streets, which makes navigation easy and knits the new housing into the existing neighbourhood. Each street is lined with trees and has a different combination of flats and houses with gardens.

Most of the houses are in two or three-storey terraces, but the twelve different house-types and their arrangement, sometimes in line and sometimes staggered, avoids uniformity. The flats are blockier and up to four storeys high, and often mark the street corners. This provides an interesting variety of massing and roofline, but the development retains a sense of identity through use of the same cream textured brick and a high quality of landscaping.

Although the scale of the buildings is fairly traditional, they’re often quirky in shape and detail. Not everyone will like that, but it’s a refreshing change from either of the dominant styles in planning applications, neither trad pastiche nor blunt modernism.

The result is a surprisingly high density of housing – over 60 homes per hectare, which is twice the density of postwar suburban housing but never feels claustrophobic or overbearing. Building at this density on brownfield land would not be enough to solve London’s housing shortage, but Brook Valley Gardens does demonstrate that high density does not necessitate tall buildings or inhumane environments.

Another strong feature of the scheme’s design is that all the dwellings are being built to Code for Sustainable Homes Level 4, a standard that was unusually high ten years ago. It includes a wide range of measures such as solar photovoltaic panels, rainwater harvesting, biodiversity and electric car charging points, all accommodated unobtrusively.

In short, Brook Valley Gardens displays a quite unusual quality of both design and construction. It sets a standard that other developers in Barnet would do well to follow – and thereby avoid the acrimonious planning battles that have raged from High Barnet Station to Barnet House in Whetstone, and from the Victoria Quarter to Cockfosters, and that now threaten The Spires.

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Victory for New Barnet residents over Victoria Quarter development

After a nine-day Public Inquiry last month in Hendon Town Hall, a Planning Inspector has dismissed Citystyle Fairview’s appeal against Barnet Council’s refusal of 539 flats on the former gasworks site. It’s a major victory for New Barnet Community Association and its supporters, including the Barnet Society, with important implications for other big developments in our neighbourhood.

John Dix of NBCA commented, “We are pleased with the Planning Inspector’s sensible and considered decision and hope that the developers will now actively engage with the community to develop a scheme which in more in keeping with the area and exemplifies good design. It should not be forgotten that if the developer had progressed the scheme approved in 2017, 371 homes would now be providing good quality accommodation for local families. The community has to be at the heart of any new development and an aspiration for quality is something that should be embraced.”

In 2020 Fairview decided that the site could accommodate many more flats, and applied for permission for 652 units in blocks up to 10 storeys high. Following local outcry and planning refusal, they returned with a reduced scheme for 554 units in 13 blocks ranging from four to seven storeys high. 800 members of the public objected.

In March, the Council rejected that proposal by 9 votes to 1 (with 1 abstention), chiefly on the grounds that it would be harmful to the character and appearance of the area including the adjoining Victoria Recreation Ground.

The Barnet Society objected to both applications. Although we’ve long supported housing on the site, we argued (amongst other points) that the mix should include more family homes, preferably with gardens. Our most recent web posts on the subject can be read here and here.

The two weeks of the Public Inquiry were intense and demanding for NBCA, who had opted to be a ‘Rule 6 party’. That required John Dix & Fiona Henderson (far R in top photo) and Karen Miller (R in photo below) not only to do a huge amount of preparation, but on almost every day of the Inquiry they had to make detailed statements about social and technical aspects of the proposals, grill Fairview’s expert consultants and endure hours of torrid cross-examination by Fairview’s QC.

Goodness knows how much time – and cost – the whole process must have involved.

On Day 3, the Inspector invited comments from other interested parties. Powerful statements were made by Councillor Phillip Cohen, Cllr Edith David, Cllr Simon Radford and Colin Bull of Cockfosters Local Area Residents Association (CLARA) – which has successfully resisted high-rise development of their tube station car park. And on Day 6, Theresa Villiers MP also spoke passionately against the proposal.

The Barnet Society had already submitted a detailed representation, but I took the opportunity to emphasize a couple of key points.

Firstly, back in 2010 we’d been impressed by the Council’s exemplary New Barnet Town Centre Framework, which was based on local consultation and set out a clear direction for development of the former gasworks site. Out of that had grown the mixed housing proposal that was granted planning approval in 2017, in which NBCA had been proactive.

I also made the point that, as a former architect and RIBA Client Design Adviser, I acknowledged that what was acceptable in 2017 might need updating in the light of technical and other developments. However, the latest scheme was a generic international modernist solution that had nothing in common with New Barnet’s character. It was a design approach that had been discredited when I was an architectural student over half a century ago, and New Barnet deserved better.

The Inspector’s verdict was clear: “Overall, I consider that the sheer scale of the proposed development would cause a dislocation within the area, inserting an alien typology of larger mass and scale and disrupting any sense of continuity between the areas to the west and east of the site. To my mind the existence of the taller buildings in the town centre cannot be seen as a compelling precedent for such an intrusion. These latter buildings are only on one side of the road and there is a considerably greater distance between them and the four storey buildings opposite.”

He also considered aspects of living conditions such as sunlight, daylight, noise, overheating, playspace, parking and refuse, and concluded, “Whilst none of the above issues are necessarily fatal to the scheme in isolation, taken together they do not indicate to me that the scheme can be considered to be of good design.”

East Barnet ward Councillor Simon Radford stated, “I am delighted that the Fairview appeal has been rejected. This is vindication for our campaign against tower block blight and overdevelopment. The Save New Barnet campaign have been steadfast in pointing out the various flaws of the scheme, and I was delighted to join them, along with my colleagues Cllr Cohen and Cllr David, in sharing our thoughts with the Planning Inspector about the potential for flats to overheat, the poor design of the development more generally, and concerns about how affordable these flats would really be.

“I am really proud that this new Labour administration will be bringing planning back in house, rather than continuing with the Tories’ outsourcing of planning to profit-seeking companies like Capita. This way we can have a genuinely democratic process to oversee developments and create developments that deliver genuinely affordable housing while being in keeping with the character of local communities. Today is a good day for East Barnet!”

The decision also has considerable significance for other sites across suburban Barnet and neighbouring boroughs, especially those close to transport hubs.

Nick Saul, a member of the Society’s Planning & Environment Sub-Committee, observed that the Inspector’s grounds included impact on the suburban nature of the Victoria Quarter’s surroundings. “That should indicate that TfL’s proposal for tower blocks at Cockfosters was a catastrophic breach of the policies and principles applied by the Inspector. That also applies to High Barnet Station.”

“The decision also has implications for the probable redevelopment of The Spires. It could also count against the plans exhibited for public consultation last week for a 7-storey redevelopment at 49 Moxon Street, as well as for the nearby commercial buildings that would likely face copy-cat proposals if No.49 were to gain planning permission.”

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Help us save the grand old lady of Lyonsdown Road

Urgent action is needed to save 33 Lyonsdown Road following Barnet Council’s recent decision to allow its demolition. Together with local residents, the Barnet Society has been campaigning since 2017 to save this beautiful Victorian villa but the owners have used the permitted development route to apply to knock down the locally listed building.

Local residents are horrified that the council has allowed demolition of one of the finest buildings in New Barnet. One resident wrote that the proposed demolition was ‘very very sad … devalues [the] area and our cultural history means nothing.’ She added: ‘nothing seems to matter but building more soulless flats.’

We need your help to persuade the owners, Abbeytown Ltd, to change their plans to bulldoze this much-loved building, which they want to replace with a block of flats. The Barnet Society has written an open letter to Abbeytown to ask them to reconsider, which you can view here. We asked them to meet us and local residents last year to talk about the scope for a conversion scheme, but we heard nothing. Today we renew that call and invite you to write to the company at their head office:

Abbeytown Ltd

Martyn Gerrard House

197 Ballards Lane

London N3 1LP

Our last report on the case was in April, when the owners’ latest plans for redevelopment were thrown out by the government’s Planning Inspector. That good news was then undermined by break-ins at the property. It was later boarded up.

In June, permission to demolish was granted under the permitted development (PD) procedure, allowing small-scale changes to buildings without the need for the full process. But PD has been expanded by the government in all sorts of ways. The shocking decision to allow the demolition of 33 Lyonsdown Road was made, Barnet Council admitted, ‘by default’. It was not taken on the merits of the case on planning grounds; nor was it referred to the Planning Committee. The officer handling the case told the Society that, while we were welcome to submit comments, the Council was ‘not able to make our own assessments or consider comments from any parties in this determination’.

We highlighted the risk to the building early last year, saying the permitted development procedure means that the Council cannot consider keeping a locally listed building if a proposal to replace it is submitted. That process is enshrined in the National Planning Policy Framework. We told the Council that they could make sure that the decision couldn’t be taken away from them like this by imposing a block on demolition via an Article 4 direction. Councils – Barnet included – use these all the time to protect conservation areas and other historic assets. Barnet refused. We asked Councillors to intervene and they said there was nothing they could do. Their inaction runs counter to the Council’s recent declaration of a climate emergency, given the needless release of embodied carbon as a result of demolition and rebuilding.

The building is the last remaining of the large architect-designed houses of the 1860s which set the character of the Lyonsdown area. The house has featured in multiple Barnet Society webposts over the last few years and was picked up by the Victorian Society, SAVE Britain’s Heritage and the Nooks and Corners column in Private Eye.

Local historian Dr Susan Skedd researched the fascinating history of the house, discovering who designed it – Arthur Rowland Barker, an architect with a national-level practice, who settled in Southgate and was a prominent figure in the area – and the later history of the house when it was a refuge home run by the Foundling

Below: The Renaissance-style plaque of the Madonna and Child over the main door to the house

Today, the house is boarded up and down at heel. What a contrast with how it looked less than a decade ago, when the window frames were smartly painted, the lawns mown and the hedges clipped. It was then in the ownership of the Roman Catholic Society of African Missions, who in 2015 sold it to Abbeytown Ltd, a Finchley-based property development firm, whose directors include Simon Gerrard, Managing Director of Martyn Gerrard estate agents.

The Barnet Society is convinced that such a well-built house could be repaired. Local residents agree, as did the property guardians who lived there until last year. They loved the place and had made it a haven for ‘boho creatives’. When Abbeytown gave the guardians notice to quit, they told them that it was no longer safe to live there because of the condition of the building. Now the company says the building has two tenants living there.

Abbeytown have not said what they intend to build in its place after demolition. They will need planning permission for that. Their last two applications to put up a block of flats were turned down by the Council. On both occasions, Abbeytown appealed but Barnet’s decisions were then endorsed by Planning Inspectors. It is deeply saddening that Barnet’s officials should roll over so easily this time.

The Barnet Society has argued all along that this striking landmark building with its elegant interiors should not be demolished but repaired and converted to flats. There is scope for a sympathetic extension or a newbuild element in the garden among the splendid trees. Local people have clearly voiced their view that another block of flats is not what they want to see.

Our campaign to save the building has attracted the support of national heritage bodies. The Victorian Society has written: ‘The Victorian Society is fully supportive of the Barnet Society and enthusiastically echoes its continued calls to see this handsome, locally significant building preserved and sympathetically adapted for future use. Although the demolition of the building is now permitted, while it still stands, it is not too late for a change of approach to the redevelopment of the site’.

SAVE Britain’s Heritage commented: ‘SAVE is disappointed by Barnet’s Council’s decision not to resist the demolition of this attractive villa, a building the Council only recently added to its list of locally listed buildings.  The case exemplifies the misuse of permitted development rights to demolish structurally sound historic buildings, regardless of their potential for re-use and conversion. This villa could be converted to provide much needed and characterful housing, making use of the remarkable interior features that survive.  Instead these will now be condemned to the rubbish tip.’

Please copy us into any correspondence with Abbeytown at info@barnetsociety.org.uk.

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Is there an assured future for High Barnet’s historic cattle trough and marble drinking fountain

Barnet Council’s highways department is preparing a new set of policies for the future safeguarding and maintenance of historic structures such as horse troughs and street signs.

Continue reading Is there an assured future for High Barnet’s historic cattle trough and marble drinking fountain

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Tower block heights reduced after complaints about New Barnet’s “high-rise monstrosity”

Developers seeking to build 554 homes on the former gas works site in New Barnet have released new images to show how the height and density of the proposed tower blocks has been reduced in a fresh attempt to gain planning approval.

Continue reading Tower block heights reduced after complaints about New Barnet’s “high-rise monstrosity”

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A never ending challenge: guarding the historic heart and landmarks of Chipping Barnet

Protecting the historic townscape around Barnet parish church, Hadley Green and Monken Hadley requires the constant monitoring of planning applications – a task that is becoming no easier thanks to cuts made by Barnet Council.

Continue reading A never ending challenge: guarding the historic heart and landmarks of Chipping Barnet

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Spires sold to property investor specialising in converting commercial buildings into housing

A property development company specialising in office-to-residential conversions has bought the Spires shopping centre and its five-acre site between Barnet High Street and Stapylton Road for £28 million.

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New sports and community hubs in the 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.

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Opportunities for Barnet’s challenged youngsters

Hands-on experience in a great variety of trades, sports and occupations was all part of a careers day organised at the Pavilion School, in Chandos Avenue,Whetstone, which provides support and education for Barnet children who are outside mainstream education.

Continue reading Opportunities for Barnet’s challenged youngsters

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Changing face of High Barnet

Big new housing developments such as Elmbank, opposite the Arkley public house, are changing the face of High Barnet – and plans are likely to be presented during 2018 for several more sizeable schemes.

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Artists launch Nightingales Emporium

After remaining empty and abandoned for over a year, High Barnet’s historic Brake Shear House, just off the High Street, has been brought back to life as Nightingales Emporium, a collaborative selling point for a group of artists and entrepreneurs.  

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Graffiti artists’ head for heights

Graffiti daubed on walls and the sides of buildings in and around High Barnet has become an increasing eyesore in the opinion of residents who ask the Barnet Society why there has been no attempt in recent months to mount a clean-up.

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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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Barnet’s Old MacDonald’s Farm

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”.

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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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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.

Continue reading Theresa Villiers opposes golf course landfill