The London Minute ⏰ Tuesday 1 July 2025
Wimbledon Palestine protest, £1.4 billion unpaid council tax, Susan Sarandon at the West End, Eze visits mural + learn from a local school bike bus experts
🌤️ Good morning London. It’s a relatively quiet start. If I’ve missed anything please sure your news here. Nothing’s too local. Here’s Tuesday’s London Minute.
🚔 A manhunt is under way after a young woman was raped in Walthamstow town square at 6am on Sunday, the Metropolitan Police said. - Anthony France, The Standard.
⮑ Locals are ‘horrified’. - Waltham Forest Echo.
🎾 Pro-Palestine campaigners demonstrated outside Wimbledon to protest Barclays’ sponsorship of the tennis championships yesterday. - Charlotte Ambrose & Megan Howe, The Standard.
⮑ Meanwhile Wimbledon’s controversial plan to expand the All England Club will condemn local children to a decade of ‘crazy’ construction traffic and pollution, school leaders and concerned parents have claimed. A judicial review at the High Court is scheduled for next week on 8 and 9 July. - Tristan Kirk, The Standard.
🛏️ The number of people counted as sleeping rough on the streets of London has hit a record high - 13,231 - as charities warn disability benefits cuts risk driving even more people into homelessness. - Liam Geraghty, Big Issue.
💉 A pop-up drug consumption site near Brick Lane may be the first facility of its kind in England, reports Agatha Scaggiante in Whitechapel London.
🥫 Hammersmith and Fulham Foodbank needs over £19,000 to fix up a new warehouse for the vast amounts of items it hands out to those in need, having been told to vacate its current premises by the end of June. - Ben Lynch. Local Democracy Reporter, Hammersmith Today.
💰 Londoners owe £1.4 billion in unpaid council tax – up 11% in a year. There’s a borough-by-borough breakdown on The Standard’s website here.
🚗 Greenwich Council has collected £2.5 million from penalty notices issued in its low-traffic neighbourhood, councillors have been told. - Darryl Chamberlain, The Greenwich Wire.
🗳️ Councillor James McAsh was last night put forward as the next leader of Southwark Council after a closed-door meeting of the local Labour group. Their choice will be put to Southwark’s Council Assembly on 9 July for a formal vote. - Issy Clarke, Southwark News.
🔥 All but four London boroughs have seen an increase in arson incidents over the past three years, with the London Assembly Fire Committee warning of the consequences. - They published this press release.
📚 Strike action by Lambeth library staff on Wednesday has been suspended, reports the Brixton Blog.
🏥 King’s College Hospital is set to feature in a brand new Netflix documentary showing what it is like to work for the major trauma team. - Issy Clarke, Southwark News.
✌️ 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.
🎭 Susan Sarandon will make her London stage debut opposite Andrea Riseborough in the UK premiere of Tracy Letts’s ‘Mary Page Marlowe’ at the Old Vic in September. - Andrzej Lukowski, Time Out.
⚽️ Footballer Eberechi Eze, who grew up in Greenwich and currently plays for Crystal Palace, ‘posed for photos with absolutely everyone’ at the unveiling of a new mural at the Kirby Estate. - Issy Clarke, Southwark News.
🏊♀️ The 96-year-old Park Road Lido open air pool in Crouch End has reopened just in time for this week’s heatwave. - Haringey Community Press.
🗞️ The Camden New Journal team are now on Substack. Among the features is the weekly ‘North London Bubble’ column of politics analysis and gossip from editor Richard Osley and reporter Isabel Loubser. It’s for New Journal+ paid subscribers.
📌 The London Minute Community Noticeboard:
⮑ Please get in touch using this form. < It’s the only way to get something featured in the newsletter.
📌 “Inspired by Bike Bus Camden, three Brent residents launched their own bike bus, the Northwest Pedal Express, last January. Bike buses enable children to cycle to school once a week with the help of adults. They are simple to set up and bring joy to everyone involved. Join Northwest Pedal Express's co-founder Amandine on Thursday 3rd July (8pm British Summer Time) if you want to launch your own bike bus.” - Thanks to Amandine Alexandre for sharing this.
📈 The most-viewed links from the last newsletter:
‘London's mudlarks at war: feuds, fights and slurs on the shoreline.’
Billingsgate and Smithfield markets move confirmed, regeneration plan unveiled.
Hedgehog home and wildlife haven ‘destroyed’ for private school sports ground.
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Thank you for sharing the notice about the bike bus webinar that I am hosting on Thursday evening