News from The Barnet Society

Theresa Villiers blames government house building targets for putting pressure on local councils to accept "entirely inappropriate" high-rise developments in suburban neighbourhoods like Barnet.

Squatters who have taken over a former restaurant in Barnet High Street might soon be having to contend with a new owner of the property. The three-storey building is in the process of being sold with a guide price of £875,000.

A fourteen-year dispute about redeveloping the former gas works site in New Barnet is about to kick off again in the High Court when housebuilders Citystyle Fairview will try to overturn the decision of a planning inspector.

There has been widespread support from within the film and television industry for a planning application to almost double the size of the Sky Studios Elstree complex which is currently nearing completion at Borehamwood. Thirteen new sound stages are due to be fully operational by February next year at a cost of £230 million.

A bingo premises licence has been approved for a former bank building in Barnet -- but the key decision has yet to be taken on whether Barnet Council will give planning permission for an adult gaming centre in the High Street.

Clearing years of accumulated rubbish and litter from derelict farmland off Mays Lane, Barnet, is another step towards establishing a new equine therapy centre for troubled youngsters.

Britannia Parking has taken over from NCP as the operator of the multi-storey car park at The Spires shopping centre in High Barnet. The switch in operator follows long-standing complaints going back months about the state of parking bays in the four-floor building and a failure to maintain pay machines in working order.

After violent incidents on two successive Saturday afternoons -- an imitation firearm was brandished in the High Street and a stabbing in the nearby recreation ground -- there could hardly have been a more opportune moment for some reassuring words from High Barnet's Safer Neighbourhood Team.

A crowdfunding campaign has been started to help meet extra expenditure involved in plans to restore Hadley Green's pink marble drinking fountain which has been out of order for the last 50 years.

Barnet's former town hall, which is now the North London Coroner's Court, has been a backdrop for television news reports and press photographs that have gone round the world.

Julian Stewart, the longest serving independent trader in Barnet High Street, is about to retire after 43 years in business. He opened his hardware shop, Bargain Buys – as it was originally known – in 1979.

Barnet Environment Centre is celebrating the official opening of its newly installed fully accessible paths around the perimeter of its seven-and-a-half-acre nature reserve off Byng Road. A soft rubberised surface is designed to be mobility friendly providing easy access for wheelchairs and push chairs.

After lying empty and unused for the last four years, the former site of Barnet Market has been purchased by BYM Capital, the property investment company which owns The Spires, the adjoining shopping centre.

Honey bees in the Barnet locality are among the many beneficiaries of the numerous parks, open spaces and the fields and woods in the Green Belt land that encircles much of the town.

Volunteers picking fruit for foodbanks were delighted on a return visit to the gardens of three houses in Sebright Road, Barnet, to find an extra fine crop of apples -- all thanks to the way the trees had been pruned earlier in the year.

A book of condolence for the death of Queen Elizabeth II has been opened at Barnet Parish Church and will be available for signing until the state funeral on Monday 19 September.

Having a wash down after a rugby match in Barnet can be quite a spectacle to behold. Mud-splattered players are still having to jump into one of two huge communal baths inside their dilapidated clubhouse at the Byng Road playing fields.

There could hardly have been a more poignant moment at Queen Elizabeth's Girls' School, Barnet. Within less than half an hour of the official announcement of the Queen's death, headteacher Violet Walker had to preside at the annual prize giving at a school which had an especially close association with her reign.

Ponies and traps with their owners and admirers assembled on Hadley Green in an attempt to maintain the spirit of the historic Barnet Horse Fair which by tradition is held early in September but which is without a regular site. Photographs of the impromptu Sunday gathering were posted on the Romany Heritage website.

Alan Parish, assistant organist at St John the Baptist Church, Barnet, for over half a century, was at the console as an accompanist for a valedictory choral evensong to celebrate what was described as his remarkable contribution and exemplary dedication.