UPCOMING | EVENTS October 27, 2011 First Birthday Celebrations • The West End says happy birthday to One New Change, with two exclusive performances in one week. What: The Wonderful West end will perform hits from Chicago to Mamma Mia to Jersey Boys plus many, many, many more. Where: One New Change, EC4M 9AF (lower ground floor atrium) When: Two exclusive [...]
When black bowler hats gave way to red braces October 26, 2011 THE BIG Bang set the City on a course of profound expansion, not just of wealth, but of people and culture and even location. Twenty-five years after deregulation, London’s financial and legal districts are full of the sort of people that would have made the bowler-hatted old boys of the post-war period shudder. Women, foreigners, [...]
Time to shake up transport policies October 16, 2011 BRITAIN’S transport policy needs fixing; last week’s appointment of Justine Greening as the new transport secretary is an opportunity for change in a difficult area. Her first move ought to be to scrap the high-speed rail (HS2) project. The crippling costs of the proposal, which would see a £32bn ultra-fast railway line built from London [...]
Mayor’s plea to Cameron over airport October 16, 2011 BORIS Johnson has risked a fresh row with David Cameron by warning that Britain will become a “bit part player” in the global economy unless a new hub airport is built in the south-east. The Mayor of London said Britain risks becoming an “aviation backwater” and losing out in the battle for emerging markets contracts [...]
WHO’S WHO: CABINET RESHUFFLE October 16, 2011 JUSTINE GREENING TRANSPORT SECRETARY PHILIP HAMMOND DEFENCE SECRETARY CHLOE SMITH ECONOMIC SECRETARY SAJID JAVID GEORGE OSBORNE’S PPS Promoted to the cabinet from the junior economic secretary role, Greening faces several challenges. She has to continue the high-speed rail argument, tackle London’s airport problems – having opposed a new Heathrow runway – and establish her place [...]
Train journeys set to return to peacetime high October 16, 2011 RAIL PASSENGER numbers grew by more than five per cent over the summer, helped by more travellers switching to public transport as high petrol prices force drivers to leave their cars at home. Figures from the Association of Train Operating Companies (ATOC) show that the number of journeys taken in the third quarter of this [...]
Businesses need to plan for the Olympics if they want the summer to run smoothly October 16, 2011 London 2012 TIME TO GET READY THERE’S no general piece of advice.” I’m with Transport for London’s no-nonsense commissioner, Peter Hendy, and if he has one message he wants people to grasp about public transport during next year’s Olympic and Paralympic Games, it is that every day and every part of town will be different. [...]
Next hotspots for price growth October 13, 2011 EVERYONE has read the headlines about the soaring prices of core prime central London properties – that’s homes in Chelsea, Mayfair and Belgravia. Foreign investment in the market has brought a price boom that the average well-to-do Brit just can’t keep pace with. Understandable, when the “square footage” – the price per square foot – [...]
RAPID RESPONSES October 6, 2011 Inflexible traders As your Q&A on Monday said, the London transport system is going to struggle to cope during the Olympics and most businesses are going to look at ways for employees to work remotely. But City traders are one of those increasingly rare professional groups whose remote working practices are restricted. One of the [...]
More investment for London October 4, 2011 Boris Johnson, the London Mayor, yesterday called on the government to continue investing in the capital, which he said was the “locomotive” for the recovery in the UK. During his speech to the Tory conference, Johnson argued that other parts of the country – such as Manchester, where the Conservatives are meeting – relied on [...]