The London Minute ⏰ Tuesday 17 September 2024
Oxford Street pedestrianisation plan returns, Rihanna in town, vinyl cutting workshop + homeless photographers' gallery
🌞 Good morning London. Here’s Tuesday’s London Minute.
🔥 London Overground: No service between New Cross Gate and Crystal Palace and West Croydon due to fire alert at Brockley. - TfL updates.
🌳 Plans to pedestrianise part of Oxford Street have been announced by the capital's mayor Sadiq Khan.
⮑ A 0.7 mile (1.1km) stretch would be pedestrianised between Oxford Circus and Marble Arch, with the potential for further changes towards Tottenham Court Road. - A statutory period of consultation and consideration by the London Assembly will be required, report Gwyn Topham and Sarah Butler in The Guardian today.
“Oxford Street was once the jewel in the crown of Britain’s retail sector, but there’s no doubt that it has suffered hugely over the last decade." - Sadiq Khan
⮑ It’s not the first time this proposal has been made. It was blocked by the previous Conservative-controlled Westminster City Council. But has now received backing from new Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner. - André Rhoden-Paul, BBC London News.
⮑ Responding to the proposal last night, Westminster City Council published a press release saying it already had its own ‘shovel ready’ plans for the area, adding: “The latest pedestrianisation proposal from the Mayor of London was only shared with us last Thursday”.
⮑ ‘This will put the mayor on a collision course with Westminster council,’ reports Ross Lydall in The Standard this morning.
💄 Singer Rihanna was on Oxford Street last night, launching her new Fenty Hair brand at Selfridges. - Bethan Edwards, Daily Mail.
⮑ The store also launched its Christmas Shop this week. (apologies for using the c-word in September).
📆 Coming up this week at City Hall:
On Wednesday the London Assembly Housing Committee will publish its annual Affordable Housing Monitor, which tracks the progress the Mayor is making against the capital’s targets. Under the Affordable Homes Programme, the GLA must start between 23,900 and 27,100 homes by March 2026 and most completions must take place by March 2030. Up to the end of March 2024, 1,777 homes had been started.
On Thursday the London Assembly’s Environment Committee will hold the first of a two-part investigation examining the steps the Mayor is taking to build action to achieve his goal of reducing emissions in London to net zero by 2030. - More details here.
✏️ Primary school numbers in London are predicted to fall by another 52,000 pupils by 2028, double the national average. - Laura Hendry, BBC Radio 4.
🩸 The NHS will use drones to fly blood samples across London to avoid the traffic. - Sky News.
🏠 A homeless family will receive £4,550 in compensation from Haringey Council after it prevented them from bidding on social housing. - Grace Howarth, Local Democracy Reporter, Haringey Community Press.
🌍 Peckham actor Kola Bokinni, best known for appearing in Ted Lasso and Celebrity Race Across the World, has spoken up about the importance of good social housing. - Nick Levine, The Big Issue.
💰 People can once again invest in Southwark Council’s green projects after last year’s £1 million fundraiser ‘exceeded all expectations’. - Herbie Russell, Southwark News.
🚎 The 414 bus could soon disappear from the streets of Fulham, if plans proposed by Transport for London go ahead. - Fulham SW6 Online.
🏨 Greenwich’s historic Borough Hall could become a hotel after the building was sold for £2.5m. - Darryl Chamberlain, The Greenwich Wire.
🐴 Horses are being used to help create wildflower meadows in Wandsworth Park and King George’s Park. - Jess Warren, BBC London News.
🎶 William Morris Gallery and Pearl Home Records have teamed up to create a vinyl cutting workshop and open mic night this Thursday called Spoken Vinyl. It’s free and part of this year’s London Design Festival, writes Holly Kintuk in the Waltham Forest Echo.
⚓️ Tower Bridge will open on Monday next week for a full-sized replica of a 17th-century Spanish warship. - BBC London News.
🦖 The Natural History Museum is planning a vast £550 million revamp in an eight-year transformation. - India Lawrence, Time Out.
📸 Every July, 100 single-use cameras are given out over seven days to people experiencing homelessness to take photos of the parts of London they love. - Liam Geraghty looks at the results in The Big Issue.
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Very good news re Oxford Street. Sadly an incredibly out of touch response from the Conservatives on it. (Some good replies to my post here) https://www.threads.net/@josiah.mortimer/post/DAA8mFZMLrq?xmt=AQGzCC4zKkHof7fAe7sZ4AGDuKQx66pjeczMC1kEE1i3Mg