Weekend roundup for 22 October
Featuring fungi, the Stasi and Longboys
As we write this Grant Shapps is Home Secretary. This is not great news for London as it means the person who spent the last two years ‘at war’ with Sadiq Khan over the funding of TfL now has the job of working alongside the mayor to hold the Met to account. The only good news is, by the time you read this, someone else might be Home Secretary.1
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News bits
🚇 The RMT union has voted to hold a 24-hour Tube strike on Thursday November 3. The walk out coincides with strikes on Network Rail which will happen on November 3, 5 and 7.
✈️ Sadiq Khan defended his recent 7,000-mile flight to a climate change conference in Argentina this week by telling ITV News that “his commercial flight to Buenos Aires, via São Paulo, was powered by sustainable aviation fuel”.
🚗 Figures from TfL and analysed by the RAC show that between November 2021 and June 2022 a total of £93.6 million was made from the new ULEZ expansion.
💩 We learned a new word this week. ‘Effluvia’ is “an unpleasant or harmful odour or discharge”. We know this because, according to the BBC, “homes across London remain at risk of being flooded by effluvia as a result of the capital's Victorian sewage system and heavy rainfall.” Yay.
🏠 London’s rental crisis continues to deepen. Average rental prices hit £553 per week in September (according to Foxtons) and there were “an average of 29 rents for each property”. In central London the average weekly rent is £636, “an increase of 30% on prices reported in 2021.” Meanwhile, the credit ratings agency Moody’s has reported that “half of the nation’s worst-performing investment properties are in the capital…These are buy-to-lets that are likely to become loss-making and unmortgageable as interest rates rise.”
🏘️ It also looks like the mayor isn’t going to hit his affordable homes target. City Hall admitted this week that the “pledge of 116,000 homes to be started by March 2023 looks ‘increasingly challenging” (the good news is that 91,000 of those 116,000 homes have been built).
🏗️ In related news, Westminster council has announced a commitment to “increase delivery of the number of truly affordable homes in the pipeline by 160 to at least 1,362 council homes for social rent.”
🏢 According to some new analysis of ONS figures by the Lib Dems, 53,880 small business have disappeared from London’s streets this year. To give it some context, in 2017 that number was 37,350.
🌉 Hammersmith & Fulham Council has approved funding for a temporary ‘double-decker’ crossing inside the existing Hammersmith Bridge. The structure would have an upper deck for vehicles and a lower deck for pedestrians and cyclists. The next step is to get planning permission.
👵 While we’re looking at depressing statistics, figures released by Age UK this week show that “25% of older Londoners live in poverty, compared to 18% in the rest of England”.
👻 Dubious ‘study’ of the week comes from Barratt Homes, who set out to discover “which London borough is the ghostliest” by counting the number of cemeteries, famous ghosts, ghost sightings and ‘spooky tours’. Westminster takes the title, with “45 ghost sightings [and] reports of 16 supernatural beings”.
🍄 Forget blocking roads and deflating car tyres, it seems that the real villains in the environment war are the mushroom pickers of Epping Forest. According to Air Quality News those (illegally) foraging for wild fungi have been told they are “negatively impacting the green lungs of London” as the forest’s one million trees, “rely on fungus for vital water and minerals”.
💂♂️ Dave Hill (from OnLondon) and The London Society are “hosting a unique evening of discussion and debate” on 6 December to address the question “What if London Became an Independent City State?” Tickets are a weirdly specific £11.37.
Art and culture bits
😼 The Royal Shakespeare Company’s production of My Neighbour, Totoro is currently playing at the Barbican, and the critics are loving it. Arifa Akbar gives it the full five stars in The Guardian (“as high-powered in its special effects as a Disney adaptation but just as dazzling in its magic realism”); and it’s another five stars from Sarah Hemming in the (paywalled) FT (“a tender, remarkably beautiful family show that extols kindness”), and again in London Theatre (“theatre at its most magical”). The only slightly dissenting voice is Nick Curtis in the Standard who awards three stars and says the “the story could use more jeopardy, more darkness and more of the monster” and that “the show isn’t quirky or adult-friendly enough”.
🪩 fabric has become the nightclub-in-residence at the Museum Of London. The partnership kicks off next week with a one-night-only performance by artist Tai Shan. Then, in 2024 (when the Museum is closed for its move to Smithfield) it will help fabric host an “exhibition celebrating the club’s impact on London’s nightlife and music scene.”. In 2026, “fabric will formally begin its residence as the museum officially reopens in its new location in West Smithfield.”
🙅♂️ While we’re talking about clubs… this week we spoke to Jim Ottewill about his book Out of Space - How UK Cities Shaped Rave Culture. You’ll be able to read that interview in a couple of weeks, but in the meantime there’s a launch party for the book happening in a ‘secret location’ in Peckham on November 10 where Jim will be talking about “the past, present and future of rave culture in London” with a panel that includes Tom Unlikely from Peckham Audio and Grace Sands of Adonis. It’s free but you have to register for tickets in advance.
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