News from The Barnet Society

The deadline for comments on the planning application to build 114 homes on the field shown above is Tuesday 12 December. Barnet planners have already built them into the draft Local Plan, and we must work on the basis that they are likely to recommend approval of the plans.

Concern is growing that – nearly a month after a major planning application for 114 homes on the Whalebones fields was submitted – neighbours have yet to be formally notified by the Council. Barnet residents have until only until Tuesday 14 November to look at the plans and make their own comments, for or against.

A new planning application is in for the Whalebones site. The plans have been scaled back from 152 to 114 homes, but in most other respects are similar to the one we objected to in 2019.

In Barnet, the biggest cause of climate change is housing. Homes emit around 50% of the carbon released in our borough. Radically reducing those emissions by upgrading the environmental performance of our homes is the most urgent and useful thing that many of us can do.

The Barnet Society’s Planning & Environment Committee has studied closely the latest design proposals exhibited at The Spires on 12 & 15 April. This is a once-in-a-generation chance to revitalise our town centre, but it risks being wasted. Frankly, we’re disappointed.

Despite the pace of new building in Barnet, most of our existing homes fall well below the environmental standards we need to meet to avoid climate catastrophe.

After years of dereliction, Barnet Homes have published proposals for sites in Moxon Street and Whitings Road for public consultation. The designs are better than previous schemes for the same sites approved several years ago, but never built.

These are critical times for London’s Green Belt. But Barnet still has many open spaces where the illusion of countryside is remarkably unspoiled. Eight of them – all in Totteridge or Mill Hill – are on new videos that you can view on the website of the London Green Belt Council (LGBC).

Local councils in London and the Home Counties are currently planning to allow building on more than 48,000 acres of the Green Belt, according to a major new report by the London Green Belt Council (LGBC).

Last night Barnet Council’s Strategic Planning Committee unanimously approved conversion of the existing building into a 90-place school for pupils with Autistic Spectrum Disorder (ASD), despite concerns on the part of the Barnet Society.

Eighteen months ago, the Barnet Society wrote that flouting of planning laws at 1 Sunset View and 70 High Street would be tests of Barnet Council’s will to enforce its planning decisions. Both owners appealed against Enforcement Orders, and both have lost. The decisions are significant victories over the degradation of Barnet’s Conservation Areas.

Recent years have seen a wave of roof extensions across Barnet, usually providing extra space for existing homes. Richard Court in Alston Road (above) exemplifies a new variant of Permitted Development introduced by the government last year.

Protecting the historic townscape around Barnet parish church, Hadley Green and Monken Hadley requires the constant monitoring of planning applications - a task that is becoming no easier thanks to cuts made by Barnet Council.

A petition has been launched to try to persuade Barnet Council to improve road safety between the Spires shopping centre and Chipping Barnet library by upgrading the pedestrian crossing so that it is controlled by traffic lights.

Barnet parish church of St John the Baptist is to host an evening hustings meeting for the general election on Thursday 5 December for candidates in the Chipping Barnet parliamentary constituency.

Barnet’s annual classic car show has a new venue this year – the vast open top deck of the NCP car park at the Spires shopping centre.

Every Sunday this winter St Mark’s Church, Barnet Vale, becomes a night shelter for the homeless – “our contribution to helping the weakest”, says the Vicar, the Reverend Tristan Chapman.

Hertsmere Council is consulting on the possibility of building up to 2,620 new homes plus new places of work between Wrotham Park and Potters Bar, westwards as far as South Mimms and eastwards beyond M25 junction 24. This would have a huge impact on our Green Belt.

Efforts are underway to identify and map the many alleyways and footpaths that add so much to the local landscape and help make High Barnet such an attractive place to live.

Barnet’s pioneering role in the development of care for young people suffering from multiple sclerosis has one lasting memento – a plaque commemorating the opening of the Marie Foster Centre by the Duchess of Gloucester in November 1973.