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The result of yesterday’s by-election in Golders Green ward has been declared at Barnet Council Headquarters, in Colindale. The seat was won by Conservative Party Candidate, Peter John Louis Zinkin and the turnout was 27.2 per cent. This means the political composition of the Council is now 40 Labour, 22 Conservative and one independent.

A total of 3,071* households in Barnet made use of the council’s free Community Skips service through the first three months since it was launched in November 2022. The service, which is managed by Barnet Council’s Street Scene team, allows households in the borough to dispose of up to three large items at no charge, and is available to each household in the borough once every three months.

Barnet councillors unanimously passed a motion to work towards becoming an accredited Borough of Sanctuary at the last full council meeting (January 24). In recent years, the council has helped support the resettlement of 50 individuals through the Syrian Vulnerable Persons Resettlement Scheme and hosted almost 1,000 Ukrainian refugees through Barnet’s Homes for Ukraine scheme.

Barnet-based community groups have been awarded grants from the £240,000 Community Innovation Fund (CIF), to help support and fund projects that tackle the cost-of-living crisis and its impact on residents’ health. Following the success of the first two rounds, the Fund’s third round opened for innovative local projects that would particularly benefit communities with poorer health outcomes.

Councillors voted to pass the council’s 'Our Plan for Barnet' 2023-2026 and vision for the future at the full council meeting at Hendon Town Hall last night (28 Feb). The council now has the mandate to transform how it will tackle issues that affect residents and community groups by giving them a say and more power to get involved. This will include fighting inequality and poverty, through to establishing Barnet as a ‘borough of fun’.

Every Barnet parent who applied on time for a secondary school place for their child has received an offer of a place. This is the fourth year in a row that this has been achieved.This year, the council received 7,864 on time applications. 4,406 were from Barnet residents, and 3,458 were from residents in other boroughs.

Barnet Council has launched a new awards scheme to celebrate the borough’s inspirational women and girls of the past, present and future on International Women’s Day (IWD) yesterday (Wednesday 8 March). The ‘InspirationAll awards’ which were launched at a special event at StoneX stadium will annually recognise the inspiring work and accomplishments of women and girls in Barnet.

The London Borough of Barnet has welcomed over 1,000 Ukrainian refugees since the Homes for Ukraine scheme was launched exactly one year ago on 14 March 2022. Around 710 Barnet households have opened their doors to those fleeing the war in Ukraine in what is one of the fastest and largest visa programmes in UK history, and over 1,000 households in the borough have registered an interest in becoming sponsors.

Barnet Councillors voted to approve the Tree Planting policy, which includes a commitment to plant 5,000 trees by 2028 at yesterday’s (14 March) Environment and Climate Change Committee. The policy is part of the council's ambitious plan to become one of London's most sustainable boroughs, and to achieve its target of being a net zero borough by 2042.

Barnet Council has launched a new mental health campaign aimed at helping the borough’s children and young people. The campaign has been created with a panel of 14 to 21 year-olds, who drew on their own experiences to provide unique insight into the realities of the mental health issues affecting increasing numbers of Barnet’s young people.