Schools and businesses across Barnet are being urged to prepare for the introduction of separate food waste collections next year.

Under a national sustainability drive, all schools and commercial businesses with the equivalent of ten or more full-time employees in England will be required to separate their food waste for recycling, as well as recycling glass, paper, cardboard, cans, and plastic pots, tubs and trays, from March 2025.

Barnet Council has unveiled a new playground in East Finchley transforming it into a green, modern park for the whole community to enjoy, as well as contributing to Barnet’s NetZero aspirations.

It’s been a four-year journey from the original imaginative vision, through extensive community consultation and the design, fundraising and build phases to deliver the transformation of this historic bit of East Finchley.

Illegal tobacco products with an estimated street value of £61,000 have been seized as part of a major crackdown in Barnet.

Trading standards officers from Barnet Council confiscated thousands of illicit goods on Wednesday 16 October, using sniffer dogs to find products that had been concealed in hideaways within shops.

Barnet will mark Hate Crime Awareness Week (12 to 19 October) with a series of events and engagement opportunities designed to promote the message that ‘hate has no place in Barnet’.

Barnet Council has successfully prosecuted a shopkeeper for selling vapes to an underage teenager, resulting in a penalty of nearly £2,000.

Dr Rizwan Manzoor Hussain, of The Lindens, Friern Park, was caught selling a vape to an underage teenager at Vape City London in Finchley during a routine inspection by council officers.

Barnet Council has appointed Naisha Polaine as Executive Director of Growth to lead some of London’s most ambitious regeneration programmes.

The council has one of London’s most ambitious growth strategies, with major development and regeneration schemes taking place in neighbourhoods across the borough, including the new £8bn net zero Brent Cross Town.

To mark World Mental Health Day, Thursday 10 October, Barnet Council has launched a new mental health and wellbeing strategy designed to promote the mental wellbeing of children and young people.

The strategy was created following consultation and engagement with residents, youth and parent groups and using insights from national and local data.