News from The Barnet Society

SODA – Stop the Over Development of Arkley – is a new campaign group established by local residents to campaign against plans to build what they say are too many flats and houses on the Elmbank site, opposite the Arkley public house.

A question mark hanging over the future ownership of Barnet’s many historic almshouses has finally been resolved after the government gave an assurance they would not be included in the extension of the right-to-buy scheme for housing tenants.

Opposition is mounting to the possibility that 14 acres of woods and farmland at Whalebones, between Wood Street and Barnet Hospital, might be zoned for housing and community use.

Farmland to the west of Wrotham Park, alongside Kitts End Lane and the St Albans Road, is emerging as a likely site of the Battle of Barnet.

High Barnet’s dire broadband service was highlighted by Sky News when it featured a campaign by a cross-party group of MPs to try to secure the break-up of British Telecom as the only way to achieve faster internet connections.

The sun sets on the Barnet inspired networking site.  Friends Reunited, the social networking website created in the back bedroom of a semi-detached house in Barnet, has finally closed down after being left with only “a handful” of active members.

One by one, High Barnet is being provided with the additional telephone cabinets that are needed to supply fast broadband connections to around 3,000 homes in and around the town centre.

Junior doctors from Barnet Hospital spent their strike day collecting signatures in support of the British Medical Association’s petition to the Prime Minister urging the government to agree a contract that is “fair for doctors, safe for patients and provides a future for the NHS”.

Maintaining the great musical tradition of Barnet parish church has been the outstanding achievement of Terence Atkins, its organist and choirmaster for the last 40 years.

The future operation of the 107 bus service, which has stops in High Barnet on its route between Edgware and New Barnet, is in doubt because of a decision by Hertfordshire County Council to make further cuts in its funding for subsidised bus routes.

Finishing touches are being added to the newly built, eco-friendly Barnet Environment Centre in Byng Road, ready for its official opening in the spring.

A guarded welcome has been given by the Barnet Society to plans for a £7 million upgrade for the Spires shopping centre. Barnet Council is to be asked to give planning permission for a two-storey fashion store and three new restaurants.

A seasonal concert that drew on the great range of musical talents at Queen Elizabeth’s Girls’ School, Barnet, rounded off the year, and also the first term of the new headteacher Mrs Violet Walker.

A two-storey, 24,000-square-foot new fashion store – replacing four existing shop units – will become the centrepiece of a new-look Spires shopping centre if planning permission is obtained from Barnet Council.

Responding to fears about the possible zoning for housing of the woods and fields around Whalebones Park, the Chipping Barnet MP Mrs Theresa Villiers says she is ready to “lie down in front of the bulldozers” in any fight to preserve a cherished open space.

Barnet Museum – and its role in leading the Battle of Barnet project – was singled out for praise by the Mayor of Barnet Councillor, Mark Shooter, when he opened the annual Barnet Christmas Fayre.

Volunteers at Barnet Museum say they are shocked and dismayed that after months of discussion Barnet Council’s planning committee has refused to approve proposals for a rear extension and disabled access.

Trustees for the Gwyneth Cowing estate have given an assurance to the Barnet Society that any development of Whalebones Park for residential and community use would be of “high quality” and would retain as “much natural habitat as possible”.  In the two weeks since the Society first reported that an application has been made for outline

Twenty years ago this December, the first of two tree plantations was inaugurated at Whitings Hill to commemorate the Barnet Society’s 50th anniversary; the second followed in January 1996.   To celebrate the woods' 20th – and the Society's 70th – birthdays our Vice Presidents, Jenny Remfrey and David Lee, relate how the project came about.

Whalebones Park, a 14-acre stretch of fields and woods between Barnet Hospital and Wood Street, is about to be considered by Barnet Council as a possible area to be developed for future housing and community use.