Weekend roundup for 28 January
Featuring baby blimps, ghostbusting and chicken burgers
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News bits
🚂 It feels like the transport network became sentient and decided to have a pop at us stupid humans this week. First, there was the nightmare at London Bridge station on Wednesday evening (caused by a ‘“trespasser” but also by changes to the timetable at the end of last year). According to reports there were “fights breaking out and panic attacks,” all of which has resulted in Network Rail and Southeastern launching a safety review to “look into how we can better undertake crowd control and customer care”.
🚄 Also on Wednesday, the Elizabeth Line honeymoon period officially ended, with BBC London’s Tom Edwards collecting reports from commuters in West Ealing who are not happy with “delays and cancellations and above all the overcrowding” caused mainly by the “volume of Heathrow passengers who use the service”.
🚇 If that wasn’t enough, a 61-year-old man was arrested this week for harassing and assaulting Matt Hancock at Westminster station; and it emerged that a man who fainted and fell in front of a train at Oxford Circus back in 2019, is suing Transport for London for £220,000, as they “failed to identify... all the risks to the safety of customers caused by overcrowded and congested platforms”.
🏢 Even the ‘transport adjacent’ came under fire this week. The plans for the overhaul of Liverpool Street station were universally condemned by campaign groups, including Historic England, which called them “oversized and insensitive” and “fundamentally misconceived”.
🚽 And to cap it all off, at the end of the week, the London Assembly Labour Group rejected an amendment tabled by the Green party that would have diverted £20m of funding into building new toilets across TfL stations.
🫥 Meanwhile, TfL published data that only confirmed what we already knew: No one is commuting into work on Mondays or Fridays.
👮 The other big story of the week, was the Met Commissioner’s appearance at the London Assembly, where he effectively said “You ain’t seen nothing yet”. You can see the full thing in the video below, but the headlines are that we can expect to see “two to three” officers a week facing trial “most weeks” for crimes such as “violence against women and girls – domestic abuse and sexual offences.”
🚔 On Thursday, the mayor announced a £14.2m proposal to “raise standards, improve performance and rebuild trust” in the Met, with the majority of that money going towards human resources and a “leadership academy,” which everyone is desperately trying to avoid calling a Police Academy.
👨⚖️ The king is suing Elon Musk… kind of. The Crown Estate property management company is an independent commercial business that gives all its profits to the Treasury. But it does also “belong to the reigning monarch,” which means that if you don’t pay rent on one of its offices then, not only have you got the British Government to contend with, you’re also in Charles’ bad books. This week The Crown Estate began court proceedings against Twitter, which is allegedly in rental arrears on the office at 20 Air Street (thanks to Musk’s ‘global cost-cutting’ efforts).
🚫 Coming back to transport for a second: It looks like the LTNs are winning. Hackney council has signed off on plans to ban through-traffic (not “ban vehicles” as the BBC first reported) from 75% of its streets over the next three years. 50% of the roads in the borough are already LTNs, but by 2025-26 the restrictions could also cover Dalston, Hoxton, Chatsworth Road, Craven Walk, Cazenove Road and Stamford Hill.
🚗 Meanwhile, the anti-ULEZ propaganda is picking up steam. This week The Telegraph claimed that Sadiq Khan’s extension of the ULEZ would somehow “wipe out pay rises for teachers and nurses”.
🌳 Talking of reclaiming the roads, Lambeth council have launched their ‘kerbside strategy’ this month, which promises to “reinstate the kerbside as a public space”. 94% of the borough’s kerbside is used for parking right now, but as the majority of people living there don’t own a car, the council want to ‘reclaim’ it for planting trees, installing pedestrian crossings, public spaces and cycle lanes.
🚒 The 175-year-old, Grade-II listed St Mark’s Church in St John’s Wood has been “destroyed” after catching fire on Thursday night. No one was injured but there are fears for the “significant artefacts” that were in the church, including mosaics by the Salviati family, “highly decorative marble flooring” including a foundation stone laid by Prince Leopold in 1877, and a stained-glass window rumoured to be from the Great Exhibition.
⚔️ Meanwhile, an art historian has digitally recreated the mosaic pavement design that would have decorated the floor of the medieval London palace, before it burned down 500 years ago (the only part that’s left today is now Westminster Hall). Turns out they were into graphically violent floor decor back then.
👾 Most unexpected news of the week: Sadiq Khan, has joined forces with Minecraft (as part of the Design Future London Schools Challenge) to invite students to “reimagine Croydon town centre to make it a greener, safer, and a more prosperous place for everyone.”
👑 On Thursday morning, members of the campaign group Republic attached a large ‘polling station’ sign to the railings outside Buckingham Palace (they want to see a vote on the future of the monarchy). Apparently, this is the first of a series of “stunts and protests” that will culminate in a “large demonstration at the coronation in May.”
🕵 Mysteries we haven’t solved yet: Who is putting up these signs around Notting Hill and who keeps leaving snacks on the benches at Kennington Tube station:
Food and drink bits
🍔 This week, Soft Launch London said some nice things about us in their newsletter, so we’re returning the favour by pointing you to their story on 20ft Fried Chicken (the bird-based spinoff from Black Bear Burger) who are offering half price burgers all next weekend at their Oxford Street store. If you want more updates on deals like this then you can sign up to Soft Launch’s newsletter here.
🍗 We didn’t know we needed a “Parisian-inspired rotisserie style restaurant” in our lives, but now we’ve heard the phrase, we’re kind of intrigued. Story Cellar, which is due to open on the corner of Shorts Gardens and Neals Yard sometime in March, is the new project from Tom Sellers, the chef behind the Michelin-starred Story at Tower Bridge, so expect more than your average barbecued bird.
🍇 Talking of cellars… The team behind Peckham Cellars are opening a new wine bar and shop. Little Cellars will open in the spring, just down the road from Peckham Cellars on Camberwell Church Street. As well as a bar and shop, the site will also have a tasting room in the basement.
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