News from The Barnet Society

After a run of closures over recent months, the High Street now offers several new restaurants and cafes. The proprietors are hoping the custom they attract will encourage increased business for other shops and traders in High Barnet’s shopping centre and perhaps attract other new retail ventures.

A street-by-street survey conducted by local residents has demonstrated overwhelming support for a campaign to persuade British Telecom to provide up to 3,000 High Barnet residents with the fast broadband connection they so desperately need.

All seven primary schools in High Barnet and Underhill have again been oversubscribed, leaving 32 children without an agreed place in September – yet another indication of the strength of local demand for an additional school.

One of High Barnet’s worst eyesores, the derelict former nurses’ home opposite the Arkley public house, is to be demolished to make way for a housing scheme that aims to provide approximately 100 new homes.

Torchlight tour of Barnet’s historic physic well but is another historic building at risk?  Local residents had a rare opportunity to see inside Barnet’s historic physic well when Barnet Museum organised an open day at the well house, a short walk from Barnet Hospital.

Six candidates have been nominated for the Chipping Barnet constituency in the general election on Thursday 7 May – a seat currently held by Theresa Villiers, who has been the Conservative MP for the constituency since 2005.

Barnet Society member Sheila Durchslag has issued an alert over two missing George V plaques from the entrance to the fields off Barnet Lane. Has anyone photographs of the original metal insignia badges?

High Barnet residents without access to a fast broadband connection are canvassing their neighbours in the hope of demonstrating to British Telecom that there is strong local demand that would more than justify investment in the nine additional fibre-enabled cabinets that are needed.

A scheme to re-landscape much of the Old Fold Manor Golf Club at Hadley Common that involves felling mature trees along half a mile of the St Albans Road needs to be explained in much greater detail before being granted planning permission by Barnet Council.

Military archaeologists from Huddersfield University hope to start work in May surveying the possible site of the Battle of Barnet of 1471, in preparation for a full-scale investigation.

Barnet Council is being urged by the Campaign for Real Ale to prevent the demolition of the Old Red Lion public house, at the bottom of Barnet Hill, by declaring it a community asset for the use of local residents.

A joint attempt by the Barnet Society and the Barnet Times to persuade Barnet Council to introduce a period of free car parking to boost trade in the borough’s high streets was rejected by the environment committee.

A group of feisty women, happy to be renowned for their stubbornness, gathered in Union Street, Barnet, for a ceremony marking the start of construction on a unique project – the first purpose-built co-housing scheme of its kind in the country.

British Telecom has promised to send an executive to High Barnet in mid- March to meet the Chipping Barnet MP, Theresa Villiers, and local residents to discuss the lack of high-speed broadband in many of the roads in and around the town centre.

Sunday mornings are quite a rush for the bell ringers of High Barnet. At 9 a.m. they meet up at the Parish Church of St John the Baptist and the bells ring out for half an hour before the start of the main morning service at 9.30.

Roger Aitken signing the petition at the Christmas Fair with Robin Bishop, Mary Carroll and Teresa Kelly Almost 2,000 people visiting shops and other premises in the High Street have signed the Barnet Society’s petition calling on Barnet Council to consider offering an hour’s free parking to help the town’s retailers.

Catering and tourism students from Barnet and Southgate College are gaining work experience at High Barnet’s newest pop-up shop, a family-friendly tea shop that has opened in the Spires shopping centre.

Planning vote goes against Guns & Smoke.  Guns & Smoke, a new American-style bar and grill opposite Barnet parish church, has failed to obtain planning permission for its illuminated frontage in Church Passage.

Rehearsals have begun at the Barnet parish church of St John the Baptist for the first of this year’s concerts by the Da Capo Concert Band which was established in 1997 for amateur adult musicians in north London and Hertfordshire.

High Barnet’s much-coveted green belt is to be featured in a seven-minute television documentary being filmed by students from City University’s department of journalism. Their assignment is to explore the pressure to develop green belt land around London, given the growing demand for new housing.