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A cross-party civic delegation from the London Borough of Barnet visited the Nepalese city of Pokhara recently to strengthen cultural ties and understanding between the two areas. The six-strong delegation – who all paid for themselves – were invited for a week-long visit by the Mayor of Pokhara, Dhana Raj Acharya. It is the first official delegation from Barnet to visit its ‘twin’.

The election process has got underway in traditional fashion in Barnet as the Mayor received the official writs from the Lord Chancellor. With the country set to go to the polls on 4 July to choose their Members of Parliament, the receipt of the writs is a key part of the General Election timetable. The official documents are issued after the dissolution of Parliament to each constituency calling for an election to take place.

The London Festival of Architecture has returned to Barnet for the 20th anniversary of the festival with an exciting programme of activities and events taking place across the borough, throughout June. One of the first community events will be at the Copthall pavilion where there will be free workshops with the DJ Academy, football mentoring, food and wellness classes – you can even cycle your way to a free smoothie! A Barnet Council spokesperson said:

A former fish and chip shop owner has pleaded guilty to nine counts of fraud after falsely obtaining Covid business grants worth more than £19,000 during the pandemic. Huseyin Bozkina, of Blanchard Grove, Enfield, made eight applications to Barnet Council for the grants, which were intended to help struggling businesses stay open.

Barnet Council’s NET ZERO challenge winners were announced at a special event to mark the end of Barnet Climate Action Month held at the RAF Museum in Hendon last night, Monday 15 July. The collaborative initiative held by Middlesex University and the council, and sponsored by Hammersons, Microsoft and Natwest, invited those who, live, work or study in the Borough to design and then vote for the best carbon-reducing sustainability project, with the top three projects winning a share of £10,000 in prize money.

Barnet Council is to recycle illegal vapes with an estimated worth of more than £35,000 that have been seized from stores across the borough. Trading standards officers will send more than 3,500 of the products for recycling because they have more nicotine-containing e-liquid than is legally permitted, making them potentially harmful – particularly to young people.

Proposals have been released this week to create a 17-mile walking and cycling loop around most of the borough of Barnet, to help encourage more sustainable travel and improve connectivity across the borough. The Barnet Loop will enable residents to have better access to parks, green spaces, schools and a range of other amenities – and when completed will form part of TfL’s cycleways network.

The London Borough of Barnet has successfully prosecuted Amy Knight for illegally subletting her one-bedroom social housing property at no.7 Abingdon Road, Finchley. The Council’s Corporate Anti-Fraud Team (CAFT) launched an investigation in September 2018 following a referral from a subtenant seeking the return of her deposit after unknowingly renting a social housing property.

An Ofsted inspection has rated Barnet’s children’s services as ‘good’ overall, with an ‘outstanding’ rating for the services and support provided to children in care. Following an on-site visit, the inspectors found children receive “strong and effective services” from a “stable and committed leadership team [which] has continued to strengthen and enhance social work practice since the previous inspection in 2019”.

A new wetland area in the relandscaped Halliwick Recreation Ground, Muswell Hill, has today been unveiled by the Worshipful Mayor of Barnet, Tony Vourou. The first of its kind in Barnet, the £1.3m Sustainable Urban Drainage Scheme (SuDS) – as it is known technically – will divert rainwater runoff from Halliwick Recreation Ground and nearby roads towards the newly built water storage basin, reducing the extent of downstream property and road junction flooding from surface water.