News

This newsletter is going to be published in two stages, with a second (Spires) issue being brought to you in coming weeks once we have received the second round of proposals from the Spires leaseholder.

We make no apologies for devoting this issue largely to the planned Spires redevelopment, where the construction of 5- and 6-storey blocks of predominantly small flats threatens to destroy the historic character of High Barnet.

In this issue: New 20 MPH zones, Gaming centre awaits decision, The Spires commits to High Barnet, Local policing, Litter pick on 22nd October, Cleaner air, What the politicians had to say.

Our High St is on something of a roll at the moment, with a falling vacancy rate and some interesting independent shops having arrived or imminent

As we went to press there was still uncertainty whether the remaining restrictions imposed as a consequence of Covid will be lifted. 

With Covid 19 still disrupting our daily lives, it has been difficult for your committee to pursue our usual activities to the full, such as keeping a close eye on the High Street for changes to the shops, watching out for breaches of the conservation area controls and visiting planning application locations

The Government is consulting on proposals that would require Barnet, in common with all other London Boroughs, to substantially increase the target for the number of new homes to be built

As we were finalising this newsletter many of the shops in our High St were preparing to re-open, something we anticipate with trepidation as it seems likely that some will have closed for good

The new decade brings with it the revised Local Plan for Barnet which is now out for consultation

We do hope our members have a keen interest in planning because there is a lot of it about. So planning does dominate this issue and we do apologise if this makes the read a little more hard going than usual.

Welcome to our first twelve page newsletter. On some occasions we have struggled to pack everything into eight pages and the resulting product has sometimes looked unappealingly dense, so we hope you like the new layout

Planning matters continue to dominate our agenda with several major schemes to report on along with a foretaste of major changes to planning policy coming later this year

We have heard a lot of concern expressed over recent shop closures though not all is doom and gloom. Anti-social behaviour by a small group of adults has become a source of public anxiety as we discuss below.

There has been a great deal of publicity about the difficulties High Street chains have been experiencing of late, with household names such as Mothercare and M&S embarking on major closure programmes

In this issue we have a lot to report, so apologies if members find some of the text somewhat heavy going. We discuss anticipated changes in the High St, the market and the Spires car park that open up some exciting possibilities