News from The Barnet Society

After a lengthy closure the Old Court House recreation ground has a functioning café once again. A new tenant has reopened the business after a major refurbishment and is hoping that High Barnet will embrace the café culture that has proved so popular at Trent Park in Cockfosters and at Oak Hill Park in East Barnet.

High Barnet’s most popular children’s playground in the Old Court House recreation ground could become even more inviting if a new tenant can be found for the vacant park café. Barnet Council’s Commercial Directorate is offering a 15-year lease on the disused café and sitting area in an adjoining garden.

In the two years since the Barnet Society began protesting about derelict NHS buildings nothing has changed. The abandoned Marie Foster Home in Wood Street is still an eyesore, and so is the fire-ravaged former nurses’ home at Arkley.

Restoring and putting to good use Barnet’s rich heritage of historic buildings has become an increasingly challenging task which makes the story behind the project to preserve and re-open the former Red Cross building in St Albans’ Road all the more remarkable.  Ten years ago the Red Cross indicated that it intended to vacate what

Barnet’s former town hall, opposite St John’s Church, provides a positive reminder of the imaginative uses which can be found for redundant municipal property. This iconic building has now completed three years as the home of the North London Coroner’s Court and its future seems assured.

In 2011 an application to demolish the Barnet Court House and replace it with a modern block of flats was refused by the Council and that decision was subsequently upheld at appeal.