Eight-storey blocks of flats will look out on to Barnet Hill if Barnet Council approves tube station plan for 300 homes

If Transport for London gets the go ahead to build four high-rise blocks of flats alongside Barnet Hill, they will transform the approach to the town from Underhill.

Plans for redeveloping the land around High Barnet tube station to provide 300 homes have now been updated.

A fresh round of public consultation is planned for late February and early March with drop-in sessions at the Tudor Hall, Wood Street, and an online webinar – for details see below.

TfL’s property subsidiary Places for London and Barratt Homes will outline their latest proposals.

When a public exhibition was held last November, Places for London said they were undecided about the height of the blocks of flats, but the latest image indicates they will be of eight storeys.

They will be built over the station car park and the site of the self-storage container yard between the tube track and Barnet Hill.

All 160 car park spaces at the station will be lost in the redevelopment and the only spaces left remaining will be for disabled drivers and blue badge holders.

When residents had their say in November the loss of the car park was high on their lists of objections, but Places for London said the current policy of the Mayor of London is that car parking spaces will not be replaced in housing developments at tube stations or nearby brownfield sites.

Another issue of concern was the stability of Barnet Hill and whether there was sufficient space for four eight-storey blocks of flats on the narrow strip of land between the tube line and Barnet Hill.

Equally troubling for many of those at the last round of consultations was the developers’ reliance on the existing station approach road to provide the main access route to the flats.

Over the years TfL has been asked repeatedly to work with Barnet Council to improve the approach to the tube station which gets crowded – and often blocked – with cars dropping off passengers and other vehicles waiting for people to arrive.

Disabled access in and around the station has been approved: at great cost space was created for a level footpath around the tracks to provide wheelchair access to all three platforms.

But the lack of a designated dropping-off point and TfL’s refusal to offer a shuttle bus service to Barnet town centre highlight what residents say is a catalogue of broken promises.

2025 is the 85^th anniversary year of the electrified service reaching High Barnet.  The first tube train arrived on 6 April 1940.

Because of cost-savings imposed by the Second World War there was insufficient money to provide an escalator to the top of Meadway or an entry tunnel under Barnet Hill.

London Transport’s failure to live up to its earlier promises perhaps pales into insignificance compared with the outcry in 1868 when the Great Northern Railway failed to honour its undertaking to extend the line from Finchley all the way to High Barnet town centre – a tunnel was supposed to take the line to the final station to be sited near Ravenscroft Park.

Have your say: Drop-in public exhibitions at Tudor Hall, Wood Street, on Monday 24 February 15.00 to 19.00 and Saturday 1 March 11.00 to 15.00.

An online webinar will be held on Tuesday 4 March from 18.30 to 19.30. To join email HighBarnet@fieldconsulting.co.uk