News from The Barnet Society

Residents in the north of Barnet have recently felt besieged by new housing developments. We want more – and decent – homes for elderly as well as first-time buyers, but much of what is offered is unimaginative, out of scale and character with our neighbourhood, and mostly unaffordable. Surely we can do better?

The Barnet Society’s AGM on 1st July gave me the opportunity to highlight the range of work we have done in the past, and continue to do, to enhance Barnet’s green environment.

Evidence of a fresh sewage spill in Dollis Brook was an unexpected - and unpleasant - find when the DollisBrookers carried out their first litter pick along Barnet's Dollis Valley Greenwalk.

Dollis Valley Greenwalk, one of Barnet's precious green open spaces, is about to get some extra care and attention from volunteers anxious to enhance its biodiversity and ensure its future wellbeing.

The Barnet Society welcomes the Council’s intention to restore Barnet & King George V Playing Fields, and to widen public access by providing a café with toilet facilities and play areas for children and their parents or carers.

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.

A major redevelopment of Barnet playing fields in Dollis Valley could include the provision of a skate board park, children’s play areas, an outdoor gym as well as a series of new football pitches and a new community centre with indoor sports facilities.

After remaining empty and abandoned for over a year, High Barnet’s historic Brake Shear House, just off the High Street, has been brought back to life as Nightingales Emporium, a collaborative selling point for a group of artists and entrepreneurs.

Work could start as early as January next year on High Barnet’s largest housing development since the opening of the Dollis Valley estate. If planning permission is obtained, Linden Homes plan to construct over 100 new homes on the vacant Elmbank site that extends from Barnet Road, Arkley, almost to Barnet Hospital.

Valley Pre-School, a community-run nursery for children on the Dollis Valley estate, is appealing to Barnet Council for a three-month stay of execution of a notice to quit its temporary premises.

A children’s skating rink was one of the many attractions at the two-day Christmas in the Park at the Old Courthouse recreation ground in High Barnet. A series of events have been held this year since the reopening of the Old Courthouse cafe, but this was by far the most ambitious to date.

A packed programme has been arranged for this year’s Barnet Christmas Fair on Sunday 7 December when, instead of traffic, there will be music and dancing in the High Street and a vast array of stalls and attractions in nearby venues.

Saturday shoppers queued up in disbelief to read a bailiff’s notice posted on the front door of the Oasis coffee shop in the Spires shopping centre – the seventh business to have closed within the complex in recent months.