The London Minute ⏰ Friday 11 July 2025
Knightsbridge murder hunt, 30 schools face closure, £500k payout for Bankside 'right to light' couple + tree of the year
🌤️ Good morning London.
🙏 I need some family time so am pausing the newsletter for a week. The Minute will return on Monday 21 July. (There might be some bonus editions while I’m off, we’ll see…)
Here’s Friday’s London Minute.
🚊 Trains between London and Brighton will be disrupted this weekend. - Patrick Barlow, BBC News, has details.
🚔 A 24-year-old man was stabbed to death outside the five-star hotel Park Tower Hotel in Knightsbridge. - Police are appealing for help to find the killer.
“We are aware of reports that this incident was a robbery. Although this is an active line of enquiry, we are keeping an open mind about all possible motives and the exact circumstances are still to be determined. We understand the impact this incident will have on the local community and you will see extra officers in the area to help answer any questions or concerns.” - Superintendent Owen Renowden, who leads policing in Kensington and Chelsea.
🚇 Belfast rap trio Kneecap say they are ‘banned’ from advertising one of their posters on the London Underground. TfL said the poster (which you can see here) ‘would likely cause widespread or serious offence to reasonable members of the public’. - Solomon Pace-McCarrick, Dazed.
💰 A retired couple have been awarded £500,000 after complaining that a 17-storey £35m office tower next to their Bankside home blocked their light. - Sami Quadri, The Standard.
⮑ But a court refused the couple’s request for the offending building to be partially demolished, writes Nat Barker in Dezeen.
🏥 Camden Council says record number of people sought social care support last year, with 5,800 residents seeking help - a 10% increase on the previous year. - Josef Steen, Local Democracy Reporter, The Fitzrovia News.
🏫 More than 30 primary schools could shut or merge before September. ‘That’s just the tip of the iceberg’, reports Jacob Phillips in The Standard.
🚔 A Caledonian Road off-licence has been banned from selling alcohol after a tip-off about counterfeit cigarettes and a sniffer-dog operation led to the discovery of a suspected cannabis farm. - Josef Steen, Local Democracy Reporter, EC1 Echo.
🏠 Tower Hamlets’ Teviot Estate will be demolished and replaced with a new development, which could create almost 2,000 homes. - Nick Clark, Local Democracy Reporter, Poplar London.
🌳 An increase in ‘sudden branch drop syndrome’ has led Harrow Council to warn people not to sit under trees during the heatwave. - Victoria Cook, BBC London News.
🚎 London bus drivers should refuse to drive their bus during the summer heatwave if the vehicle’s air conditioning is faulty, the capital’s transport chief has said. - Ross Lydall, The Standard.
⮑ There are some poignant comments and memories being shared below Jim Waterson’s London Centric piece about the local bus drivers who defiantly kept London moving after the 7/7 bombings.
✌️ Better news
This section aims to include better news from all over London. It’s a wide range of things, and as always you’re welcome to submit yours here. My hope is that it inspires more civic pride and community spirit, new plans in your calendar and a few smiles or laughs along the way.
🌳 A 300-year-old cedar tree in Chiswick that appeared in a Beatles video has been nominated for the Woodland Trust’s annual tree of the year competition. - The Guardian has photos of the nominees.
🚴♀️ The biggest new park since the 2012 Olympics has officially opened in Tooting. Springfield Park is part of the creation of a new village. - Charlotte Lillywhite, Local Democracy Reporter, Southwark News.
🚂 An old railway carriage near Stratford station has opened as a cafe staffed by deaf and hard of hearing employees. - IanVisits has the details.
📌 The London Minute Community Noticeboard:
⮑ Please get in touch using this form. < It’s the only way to get something featured in the newsletter.
🍽️ Brixton Kitchen has launched a competition celebrating South London’s homegrown talent, with the winner getting a six-month residency in a prime unit on Brixton Village’s Market Row.
📌 “There’s a zine making workshop with local artists at this weekend’s Open Art Spaces event at Coal Drops Yard in King’s Cross.” - Thanks to ‘Ally Bally Bee’ for sharing this.
📌 “How to keep your London house a bit cooler this weekend, with some DIY affordable hacks. I live in a Victorian terrace house in Wood Green and over the last 2 heatwaves have been testing out some of the homemade heatwave techniques in the brilliant Heatwave Toolkit. I've painted natural yoghurt on the outside of some of my windows as the Toolkit suggests and yes it really works, although external window shading with blankets, towels or old bits of cardboard is even better.” - Thanks to Karen Triggs for sharing this.
⮑ The man behind the toolkit, engineer Tom Greenhill, admits painting the outside of windows with yoghurt is a ‘totally eccentric idea’, but with results. - He spoke to Dezeen.
📌 Minute subscriber Andy Beth has written ‘A Love Letter to London’, which is resonating with a lot of people:
📈 The most-viewed links from the last newsletter:
⏰ The Minute is written between 5am and 7am every day. Thank you for reading daily edition number 243. This newsletter remains independent, ad-free and free to 6,050+ subscribers, sending 100,000+ visits to other local news sources since launch last year. Word-of-mouth is how it’s growing. The Minute is free but it takes more work than it looks so please consider supporting it.
🙏 I need some family time so am pausing the newsletter for a week. The Minute will return on Monday 21 July. Thanks for your time.
Enjoy family time!
Thank you Michael, hope you have a good week off!