Sadiq Khan gets green light to increase council tax and business rates to tackle violent crime February 25, 2019 The London Assembly has backed Sadiq Khan's budget which includes plans to give an extra £234m to policing and tackling violent crime through council tax and business rate hikes. Around £95m has already been announced for the Metropolitan police, which has to make £263m worth of cuts by 2022-23. The £95m announced last December will be funded mostly from [...]
Crossrail bosses hope to give estimate for new opening date ‘by April’ February 25, 2019 London mayor Sadiq Khan has said there is no date that Crossrail chief executive Mark Wild can give "with confidence" for when the delayed railway will open, but that he hopes to give an estimate by the end of this financial quarter. The £17.6bn Elizabeth Line, which will stretch from Shenfield in the east to Reading in the [...]
U-Lez Miserable? London’s small businesses need support on new emissions rules February 25, 2019 A week is a long time in politics, or so goes the famous adage by former Prime Minister Harold Wilson. And it is apparent that a week and a half will be a very long time indeed in the world of small businesses, between 29 March and 8 April. With our departure from the European [...]
Critics hit out at Sadiq Khan’s ‘blunt’ junk food advertising ban to tackle child obesity February 24, 2019 Sadiq Khan's advertising ban on junk food across London's transport networks has come into force today, as part of the mayor's bid to tackle child obesity in the capital. Junk food advertising will be banned on the London Underground and at bus stops across London following a public consultation in May which received 1,500 responses, with 82 [...]
Focus On Roehampton: Thinking of living in Wandsworth? Consider this leafy spot instead and you could save £100,000 February 22, 2019 The thing about university towns is they’re always full of students. This doesn’t just make them a great property investment for Revolution bars and Wetherspoons, but also for landlords who fear void periods, even if it means occasionally having to get Pot Noodle stains out of the carpet. The University of Roehampton – incidentally, the [...]
Revealed: These are London’s most stressful Tube stations February 21, 2019 There’s nothing that Londoners love more than hating the Tube – and their local Tube station, in particular. But thanks to new research by web conferencing firm Powwownow we can officially name and shame the very worst of the worst. Read more: Citymapper launches contactless London travelcard for commuters Powwownow crossed Transport for London (TfL) 2017-18 data [...]
Citymapper launches contactless London travelcard that is cheaper than TfL’s Tube and bus travel fares February 20, 2019 London commuter app Citymapper has launched a new subscription service that will allow people to pay for weekly travel across all modes of transport, built into a contactless card. From launch, Citymapper Pass will cover travel on the Tube, buses, trains, Santander bikes and its own Citymapper Ride shared taxi service in zones one and two. Read more: TfL told [...]
Focus On Wanstead: Families flock to ‘the Twickenham of East London’, where houses near green spaces have sold for seven digits February 15, 2019 There was a time when Wanstead, an unusually leafy spot of east London, was most famous for its Member of Parliament. They don’t come much more recognisable than Sir Winston Churchill, who served Wanstead from 1924 up to 1964 with a patch of absence in the middle for his Wilderness Years. But there’s one other [...]
Parliament Square brought to standstill in climate change protest February 15, 2019 Nearly 50 school strikes took place across the country today as a coalition of youth climate change organisations led walkouts, leaving London's Parliament Square in gridlock. Thousands of young people gathered in Parliament Square between 11am and 2pm, holding signs and chanting messages that called attention to climate change and the environment. The protest brought traffic to a [...]
Revealed: Final cost of ‘botched’ Garden Bridge project comes to £53.5m February 13, 2019 Backers of the failed Garden Bridge project are under fire after the "galling" costs of the scheme were revealed to have spiralled north of £50m. The Garden Bridge Trust, which managed the project since November 2015, was accused of “squandering public money” on the ill-fated venture, after Transport for London admitted that the project racked [...]