News from The Barnet Society

Resurfacing the site of Barnet market and installing basic facilities for the stallholders is the first test of the William Pears Group, new owners of the Spires shopping centre.

High Barnet residents have been invited to come up with ideas to use the facilities at the Wood Street campus of Barnet and Southgate College, which was rebuilt two years ago at a cost of £48 million.

In the two years since the Barnet Society began protesting about derelict NHS buildings nothing has changed. The abandoned Marie Foster Home in Wood Street is still an eyesore, and so is the fire-ravaged former nurses’ home at Arkley.

A donation of £750,000 will enable work to start this summer on the construction of a new eco-friendly environment centre for Barnet and the site clearance needed for the new Noah’s Ark Children’s Hospice. Years of doubt and uncertainty about the future of the much-loved eight-acre nature reserve in Byng Road could finally be over.

North London’s much-troubled plan for handling municipal rubbish and waste is out for consultations once again.

Barnet Society publication ‘Rambles Round Barnet’ is the no 1 local best-seller at Waterstones Barnet! The booklet is the work of Society members, Owen Jones and David Ely, who carried out the research, walked the walks and wrote them up.

A fresh start for retailing in Chipping Barnet: the Spires shopping centre has been purchased by the William Pears Group, one of Britain’s biggest privately-owned property groups which keeps a low profile but has its roots in north London.  Contracts have been exchanged and the sale of the shopping centre by UBS Triton is due

Barnet Football Club’s departure going ahead as planned.  Barnet Football Club’s match against Wycombe Wanderers in the npower League 2 on Saturday 20 April will be the Bees’ last fixture at Barnet’s Underhill stadium.

Barnet Football Club’s match against Wycombe Wanderers in the npower League 2 on Saturday 20 April will be the Bees’ last fixture at Barnet’s Underhill stadium. From the end of August and the start of the 2013-14 season, Barnet FC’s home fixtures will be played at the Hive Football Centre in Camrose Avenue, Edgware.

Restoring and putting to good use Barnet’s rich heritage of historic buildings has become an increasingly challenging task which makes the story behind the project to preserve and re-open the former Red Cross building in St Albans’ Road all the more remarkable.  Ten years ago the Red Cross indicated that it intended to vacate what

Barnet Museum has been fighting for its life since December 2010 when the Council announced that it would be withdrawing its funding. The Museum is managed by Barnet & District Local History Society and run entirely by volunteers.

Barnet’s former town hall, opposite St John’s Church, provides a positive reminder of the imaginative uses which can be found for redundant municipal property. This iconic building has now completed three years as the home of the North London Coroner’s Court and its future seems assured.

Like so much of the rest of the country High Barnet is losing its historic public houses at an alarming rate.

Some long-awaited summer sunshine in late July provided the final seal of approval for Barnet’s town centre uplift and the newly-created meeting and seating area beside St John’s Church.  Instead of a line of forbidding holly bushes there are now new walkways and benches, sweet smelling lavender in freshly formed flower beds, and an attractive

A major planning application for the redevelopment of the former Middlesex University campus at Cat Hill in New Barnet was rejected by Enfield Council in March 2012. The redevelopment scheme is for new housing by L&Q, the same Housing Association that will be developing affordable homes at Dollis Valley.

An exhibition was held in mid-January to show plans for the proposed redevelopment of St Martha's Convent Junior School on Union Street prior to a planning application being made. The proposals are for 26 one, two and three bedroomed flats for older women (Older Womens Co-Housing, or OWCH!) and include shared facilities and generous gardens.

Noah’s Ark Childrens’ Hospice has received planning consent for reserved matters for their proposed redevelopment of Barnet Countryside Centre (the former Curriculum Centre) in Byng Road.

In 2011 an application to demolish the Barnet Court House and replace it with a modern block of flats was refused by the Council and that decision was subsequently upheld at appeal.

People have again been enjoying the view from the top the tower of our parish church, St John the Baptist. The tower is reputedly the highest point between here and York.  Details of the tower openings and Saturday morning concerts are here.

The constitution of The Barnet Society requires us to seek to protect the Green Belt around Chipping Barnet. Indeed that was the Society’s founding purpose.