Weekend roundup for 18 February
Featuring skip protests, punch ups and street pizza
In this week’s roundup we run the gamut from conspiracy theories and dead pigeons, to self-serve soup and the world’s smallest department store.
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News bits
🏎️ New data from TfL has shown that lowering the speed limit to 20 mph in central London reduced the number of crashes by 25%, while “collisions that seriously injured or killed people” also dropped by a quarter. More impressively, crashes involving pedestrians are down 63%. Armed with those numbers TfL is “working to lower speeds on 220km of its roads by 2024 in inner and outer London and plans to introduce a new 20mph speed limit on over 28km of roads in Camden, Islington, Hackney, Tower Hamlets and Haringey in March.”
🚫 In related news: Chancery Lane is going to be closed off to cars for the next 18 months. From Monday, only residents, business owners and black cabs will be able to use the road, in a move that’s “aimed at providing more space for pedestrians so they can feel safe and comfortable as they walk around the City”.
🚙 This is all good news, because this week London was awarded the dubious title of the ‘world’s slowest city’, and came runner up in the ‘most expensive city to drive in’ competition. According to TomTom, it took an average of 36 minutes to drive 10km in the centre of London last year, putting us way ahead of second place city, Bengaluru in India, where it takes just over 29 minutes. We’re also only second to Hong Kong when it comes to the “price of petrol, diesel and charging an electric vehicle”.
🧐 Sticking with this theme: A few months ago, we wrote an issue headlined Why are so many people against making London a nicer place to live?, which tried to find out why “the idea of a 15-minute city is so triggering to right wing reactionary commentators”. Things have not improved since then, and this week Jonn Elledge was forced to ask in the New Stateman ‘How have 15-minute cities become a conspiracy theory?’, while Oliver Wainwright was writing about ‘The mundane planning theory terrifying conspiracists’ in the pages of The Guardian.
🪧 A campaign has been launched to raise money for a statue of the protestor Brian Haw to be erected outside the Imperial War Museum in London. Mark Rylance is leading the campaign and you can hear him talk very movingly about what his friendship with Brian meant to him here.
🗑️ Talking of protests… 28-year-old artist Harrison Marshall has moved into a converted metal skip in Bermondsey “to make a statement” about the crazy cost of living in London.” (see our ‘Long Read of the Week’ for more on that subject).
🏙️ The mayor has introduced a new planning law, which means that, with immediate effect, all new residential buildings in London over 30m tall will now need two staircases.
🎱 In other building news, the future of the MSG Sphere (or, as we like to call it, ‘The Magic Hate Ball’) just got a little shakier after Michael Gove “indicated he is preparing to call in the planning decision”. This means that, instead of the application moving to Sadiq’s office for the next stage of planning approval, it will instead get redirected to Gove’s desk for a final decision.
🇨🇳 Also coming Mr Gove’s way is the application to build that massive Chinese Embassy on the former site of the Royal Mint. The plans already got rejected by Tower Hamlets Council, and last week the Mayor said he wasn’t about to overturn that decision. Now, with “Beijing preparing to appeal” (an appeal they are “likely to win” apparently) it looks like it might be down to the Housing Secretary to put the final kibosh on the project.
♻️ The Green Party has announced its candidate for Mayor. Zoë Garbett currently represents Dalston and has said her main priorities will be around drug reform, free public transport for young people in London, enhanced rights for renters and holding the police to account.
🏠 The estate agent Hamptons has published some research that shows renters are “leaving London at the highest rate in a decade”. The utterly unsurprising news is that, “last year, 40% of tenants who were moving home chose to leave the capital, up from 28% 10 years ago”. Hamptons says that the people who are leaving “tend to be in their mid to late 30s, seeking more space for a family or looking for a quieter life.”
🏟️ Crystal Palace National Sports Centre has been getting a lot of press this week. First, The Times ran a big (paywalled) article on how SE19’s ‘Stadium of Dreams’ went from “home to some of the country’s finest track and field athletes” to home of “a single, dead pigeon” and then The Guardian ran a piece on how the £219m plan to “upgrade and consolidate” the main sports centre and pools probably won’t include the outdoor athletics stadium as it has been “neglected for so many years”. If you don’t have a Times subscription, Inside Croydon has a good break down of the article and what the future of the sports centre might look like.
🚇 The BBC has profiled Ben Spencer, a 49-year-old who “suffers from ataxia, a progressive and degenerative muscle disease” and who has “spent months visiting all of London’s Tube stations in a bid to make the most of his mobility and to raise awareness about his medical condition.”
😂 It’s that time of year when we get all excited about awards season. And when we say ‘awards’ we mean ‘the business with the funniest name’ competition. Last year, if you remember (and why wouldn’t you?), the title went to London’s Perky Blenders coffee roasters. Incredibly they’re in the shortlist for this year too, along with two other contenders from London: women’s life coaching service Goal Digger Coaching; and (strong favourites) Wam Bam Campervan Ltd. However, they face tough competition from the likes of Haverhill tilers, Grout of This World, and Chelmsford’s specialist bakery: Donutkillmyvibe Ltd.
🗞️ A couple of weeks ago, New York magazine ran an article listing 140 new ‘etiquette rules’ for living in modern society. The article covered everything from dating to eating out and office etiquette; and featured contributions from prominent New Yorkers. It was funny, smart, a bit controversial in places, and it was widely shared and discussed in all the usual places… So, of course, a few days later the Standard decided they could rip it off and produced How to survive in London now — 30 new rules to follow. This was neither funny nor smart. It was just lazy and a bit weird. The Standard’s rules range from the completely unoriginal and in no way ‘new’ (Hey everyone, don’t stand on the left of the escalator!), to the slightly fascistic (no dancing if you’re male and over the age of 24), via the downright bizarre (is not knowing who Supergrass are really the same as not knowing who Hitler is? And what the hell does that have to do with ‘surviving London’?).
Food and drink bits
😢 Another sad closure this week, but it’s not a restaurant or a pub, it’s Eater London (the title has been shuttered by American owners, Vox Media). We probably link to Eater at least once per Weekend Roundup and there really is nothing else like it in London right now. As editor, Adam Loghlan, says in his farewell post, “by giving a platform to a new generation of writers, we refigured the way a lot of people think about restaurants in London”. Or, as (Eater alumni) Jonathan Nunn said on Twitter:
🍽️ Restaurants and pubs are still closing of course. A study by Uswitch which came out this week claims that “a third of London restaurants are concerned they may be unable to pay their bills if energy prices keep rising”. In their report, City AM says that London restaurants “are currently operating at an average capacity of 54% - 6% lower than the UK average”.
🍜 We’re not sure whether to be intrigued or horrified by the fact that a completely ‘staffless’ self-serve instant ramen pop-up is opening in Shoreditch next week, but the fact that EZ 24 Ramen is offering free ramen for a week might help make our minds up. According to Soft launch London, they will also be “running a series of giveaways during the pop-up, with prizes awarded to a few lucky customers”.
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