News from The Barnet Society

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.

A newly formed team of volunteers has started picking and collecting surplus fruit across the Borough of Barnet so that unwanted produce can be diverted to food banks and distributed by other organisations helping the needy. Barnet Community Harvesters has been established by Daniella Levene.

Kenneth Grahame's classic children's story The Wind in the Willows is to be performed live in the open air at East Barnet - a rare chance for a family outing for theatre lovers who have missed out on so much during the many months of lockdown.

Passers-by and property owners within High Barnet's conservation areas are being urged to be on the lookout for thieves stripping lead from old and historic buildings. The Old Court House Surgery in Wood Street is the latest to be targeted.Lead flashing and gutters have been stripped from a rear roof of the surgery.

Brake Shear House, one of the last of the many small factories and workshops that were once dotted around High Barnet, is currently being demolished to make way for a new development of flats and houses on a site just off the High Street.

Residents are being asked in an online survey whether more roads should be included within the Barnet Hospital controlled parking zone and whether pay and display parking should be allowed in those streets where parking is currently restricted to residents only.

An online directory of shops in Barnet High Street -- together with listings for other traders and businesses in and around the town centre -- has been launched on the Love Barnet website.

Separate cycle lanes up and down Barnet Hill - an ambition ridiculed for so long by Barnet councillors - may have become a step closer as a result of the government's decision to pump £2 billion into schemes to encourage cycling and walking as a way of fighting the coronavirus pandemic.

In a dramatic U-turn, Barnet Council has dropped its plan to temporarily close Barnet High Street to through traffic as a way of ensuring safe social distancing for pedestrians and shoppers.

Barnet High Street is to be closed temporarily to all through traffic from the last week of August to ensure there is safe social distancing on the narrow pavement beside the parish church of St John the Baptist.

Ambitious plans are being drawn up to celebrate the 550th anniversary next year of the Battle of Barnet.

By installing two male mannequins dressed in white in the Old Courthouse Recreation Ground, Barnet Lawns Bowls Club has managed to frighten off crows that have been digging holes in the fine turf of their two bowling greens.

Work has started clearing the site off Rowley Lane, Boreham Wood, for the construction of the new Sky Studios Elstree, which were granted planning approval by Hertsmere Borough Council earlier this month.

By shortening its route through New Barnet and High Barnet, Transport for London is hoping to give "a new lease of life" to the 384 bus service, by ensuring faster travelling times and by providing a new direct connection to Edgware.

Swift awareness week has been judged a success by admirers of High Barnet's rare, elusive summer visitors who have again take up residence under the eaves of houses or in nest boxes.

Barnet Council is appealing for volunteers to give advice and support to shoppers and the public on safe social distancing as lockdown is eased in High Barnet and other town centres across the borough. Online training is being offered.

Fred Jarvis, Barnet's most celebrated trade union leader - and a New Barnet resident for well over 60 years - has died at the age of 95.

Customers were welcomed back in Barnet High Street and the Spires shopping centre on the first day of the easing of lockdown restrictions on shopping. Most of the leading chains were open for business.

For the first time since the start of the coronavirus lockdown at the end of March, High Barnet's stalls market is back in business, leading the way for the re-opening of shops in the Spires shopping centre on Monday 15 June.

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.