News from The Barnet Society

After 18 years of hard graft building up custom for her Barnet High Street gift shop, former actress Louise Rolfe has won a top accolade for highly rated independent retailers.

Yet another change of owner of a Barnet High Street shop with a distinctly checkered history, has evoked memories of the day the premises were destroyed in what become known as the “Great Fire of Barnet” of August 1908.

A business plan for opening a combined space for a children’s play area and community activities in Barnet High Street has won this year’s Entrepreneurial Barnet Competition. Joanne Merchant, a High Barnet mother of two, scooped up the top prize of £3,500 in financial backing plus business mentoring advice.

Injecting fresh life into High Barnet’s distressed High Street is a challenge for retailers, but two women entrepreneurs believe that their offer of a frequently-changing range of craft goods and products is proving popular.

From its new call centre at Bowes Park, volunteers from the North London Samaritans are stepping up their efforts to reach out to help anyone troubled by personal or emotional problems and to advise those most at risk of suicide.

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.

Gary Murphy, landlord at one of High Barnet’s highly-rated real ale pubs, the Mitre, is preparing for the next round of an ongoing campaign to force the pub owners to give publicans of tied houses a fairer deal on rents and the price and choice of beers.

Many of the Royal Mail post boxes around Barnet, Potters Bar and Brookmans Park have been decorated for Christmas with a seasonal display of knitted animals in order to raise money for the RSCPA rescue centre at Southridge.

SaveTheHighStreet.org – which is campaigning to help shopping centres that are facing challenging times – is to hold a series of advice sessions in High Barnet on Wednesday 12 December.

Barnet’s annual Christmas fayre broke with tradition this year. Instead of being opened by the Mayor of Barnet, the ceremony was conducted by the “Lord Mayor of London, Councillor Richard Whittington” – star of the Christmas pantomime at the The Bull Theatre.

Volunteers hoping to organise a repeat of this summer’s Barnet Medieval Festival are rallying support for pledges of a minimum of £2 per person in this year’s Mayor of London crowdfunding appeal. Organisers have set a target of £35,000 for a festival next year over the weekend of June 8-9, 2019.

Creating a play area for children combined with space for community activities in the centre of High Barnet is the aim of local resident Joanne Merchant, mother of two small boys.

Barnet Council has backed down from its decision to charge a High Street newsagent an extra £1,800 a year in council tax for having a free-to-use cash machine installed in the shop window.

A highly-controversial plan to convert empty retail premises just off Barnet High Street into a house in multiple occupation with nine self-contained rooms has been withdrawn – at least for the moment.

Problems caused by uncontrolled street drinking in High Barnet and rough sleeping in shop doorways along the High Street topped the issues raised at an Engage Barnet question time.

Offering High Barnet residents and shoppers a free-to-use cash machine is proving an expensive nightmare for the Paper Shop in the High Street. Barnet Council has just hit the business with a council tax bill for £6,200, back dated to 2015.

High Barnet’s struggling High Street shopping centre is facing fresh challenges: another two national chains are pulling out just as plans are announced to convert empty retail premises on the corner with St Albans Road into a house in multiple occupation.

A joint display of classic cars and vintage armoured vehicles drew record crowds to the fifth annual Barnet Classic Car show at the Army Reserve Centre in St Albans Road, Barnet.

Barnet’s annual Classic Car Show on Saturday (30 June) is to be a joint display alongside vintage armoured vehicles to mark National Armed Forces Day. More classic cars and motorbikes will be taking part because of the extra space available in the parade ground at the Army Reserve Centre, in St Albans Road, Barnet.

Barnet High Street is flying heraldic banners from the Wars of the Roses to promote the town’s first-ever medieval festival which is being held this weekend (Saturday and Sunday, 9 and 10 June) to commemorate the 1471 Battle of Barnet.