News from The Barnet Society

Our teenagers and young adults could be among the greatest casualties of Covid-19. The Plan must offer them something, whether work experience or youth-focused leisure attractions. The Council is consulting us on projects to help regenerate the Barnet High Street area.

 PVC plastic advertising signs hung from lampposts -- including possibly along the full length of Barnet High Street -- might become a new way of generating income for Barnet Council.

Barnet has precious green open spaces, mature woodlands, streams and wetlands. Last year brought home what we stand to lose with climate change and bad building development. Surely this is the moment to invest in green initiatives. The Council is consulting us on projects to help regenerate the Barnet High Street area.

Barnet’s identity is founded on its distinctive history and building heritage. We must do something to draw the attention of more residents and potential visitors and investors to our existing assets. The Council is consulting us on projects to help regenerate the Barnet High Street area here.

The Council is consulting on a Community Plan to help regenerate the High Street area. This is your chance to have a say. The Barnet Society offers some guidance. Last month a public consultation was launched online here. We have until Friday 19 February to respond.

The Plan is out for online public consultation until 19 February. You’re invited to comment on the key principles of the plan, and to choose five project ideas for further development.

In 2020 the Barnet Society celebrated 75 years since its foundation. But our founders would be shocked at how their neighbourhood has altered. Local shops have disappeared and employment has dwindled. Pubs have become an endangered species. Vehicle traffic is as bad as ever.

The Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, has backed Barnet Council's decision to reject planning permission for the construction of blocks of flats of up to ten storeys high on the former gas works site at New Barnet.

An application has been made for planning permission to build three flats on the site of the former Victoria Bakery in Barnet High Street -- the shop doorway that was said to have been the location where Charles Dickens imagined Oliver Twist meeting the Artful Dodger.

A planning application that had been expected several months ago to build blocks of flats around High Barnet tube station has been delayed further amid speculation about the future of several other similar developments proposed by Transport for London.

Years of campaigning to preserve the Whalebones woodland and farmland in Wood Street paid off when Barnet Council's planning committee rejected an application to build 152 new houses and flats.  Strong local opposition to the loss of one of High Barnet’s precious green spaces was cited by the committee chairman, Councillor Shimon Ryde, when he used

A renewed attempt to replace a much-loathed eyesore in Union Street, High Barnet, with new housing is finally holding out the prospect of succeeding.

Plans to build a line of tower blocks on the former gas works site at New Barnet were roundly condemned when Barnet Council's planning committee unanimously rejected an application for almost twice as many flats as previously agreed.

Two building projects under construction in Chipping Barnet’s Conservation Areas are flouting planning laws. They are tests of Barnet Council’s will to enforce its planning decisions. They’re merely the most flagrant of numerous planning abuses that are gradually degrading our Conservation Areas.

This article highlights the Barnet Society’s concerns related to the sweeping reforms announced last week by the Government, which are due to come into force from September.

Barnet Cycling Campaign is joining other groups in urging improvements in highways safety and traffic management if Barnet Council decides to give the go ahead for a massive housing scheme at the former gas works site in New Barnet.

 Scores of small businesses and traders who store goods, tools and equipment in a container yard claim their future has been totally overlooked and ignored by Transport for London in the plan to build 292 flats on land around High Barnet tube station.

The Barnet Society has seen the latest proposals for the High Barnet Station site. Designs won’t be finalised for several weeks, but not a lot has changed since the public consultation last November. This is the biggest planning issue for High Barnet since The Spires 30 years ago.

After feedback from a public exhibition in January, the Victoria Quarter housing development on the former gas works site in New Barnet has been scaled back slightly by lowering the height of the proposed blocks of flats and by making a small reduction in the number of new homes.

Plans for the station land have been scaled back, as Nick Jones reported on 7 November. But unless more radical improvements are made, the Barnet Society will oppose them. Last August, we sent the Society’s 20-point criteria for development* to Transport for London and its developer partner Taylor Wimpey (TfL/TW).