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Sadiq Khan warns of spring ‘cliff edge’ for London businesses unless government help enhanced

The Mayor's terse response to today's outline of support for energy bills suggests relationships between City Hall and Number 10 have not improved with the arrival of Liz Truss as Prime Minister
Dave Hill

Sadiq Khan has slammed the government’s newly-announced measures for helping businesses and other organisations cope with escalating energy bills through to the spring, claiming they are insufficient and too short-term.

In a terse response to the energy relief scheme, which follows the energy price guarantee for assisting households with bills unveiled by the government earlier this month, the Mayor criticised what he called “a lack of clarity about ongoing support beyond six months” and said “most small businesses and schools still face a cliff edge in the spring” and will be “unable to plan ahead”.

Echoing Labour’s national call, Khan said energy companies “making huge profits off the back of Putin’s war in Ukraine” to be charged more tax to meet the cost of the support instead of it being eventually met by the public due to the government borrowing money to compensate energy companies for charging less.

The government scheme is expected to cut business energy bills to half the level they would otherwise have been, but Khan also asked for a “comprehensive support package”, including value added tax reductions and business rates relief, “to avoid potential business closures and job losses”.

Khan reaction to the energy relief scheme comes after new Prime Minister Liz Truss launched a string of attacks on him at the final hustings of the recent Conservative Party leadership campaign, which took place at Wembley before an audience primarily composed of London Tories. Truss accused him of being “anti-business”, anti-growth” and insufficiently “tough” on crime, and called for his defeat at the next mayoral election, due to take place in May 2024.

The Mayor hit back, saying he did not apologise for being “anti-poverty, for being anti-climate change and for being anti-crime” and said London has suffered from “huge underinvestment over the last few years”. Relations between national government and City Hall were strained through most of Boris Johnson’s time as PM, notably over funding for Transport for London.

Others have greeted aspects of the relief scheme, while issuing their own warning that more help could be needed. Muniya Barua, managing director of policy and strategy at BusinessLDN (formerly London First) said it “staves off the threat of mass bankruptcies for now, but may not go far enough for those firms already graining under the weight of Covid-related debt”. She added: “The government must keep all options open if prices spike further, or risk seeing the impact only delayed to spring rather than avoided.”

London Chamber of Commerce and Industry chief executive Richard Burge welcomed today’s announcement as “a clear step in the right direction towards saving businesses and jobs” and as providing “at least some respite during the winter months” but expressed caution about the government’s approach to what will follow, saying it “threatens to draw businesses towards another cliff edge in March 2023”.

Burge said there are “further steps to take that would facilitate business investment by creating greater clarity over the medium term”, stressing that investment has still not recovered to its level prior to the UK’s departure from the European Union and urging the government to “enact a long-term plan that invites business confidence, boosts productivity and delivers economic growth for the UK”.

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Categories: News
Tags: BusinessLDN, energy crisis, Liz Truss, London Chamber of Commerce & Industry, Sadiq Khan

London business survey finds mixed views and limited knowledge of ‘levelling up’

The flagship agenda of Boris Johnson's government may be on the way out without having made any clear or consistent impact on business opinion
Dave Hill

With the future of Boris Johnson’s “levelling up” agenda unclear under his successor as Prime Minister, Liz Truss, what have London businesses been thinking of whatever “levelling up” has been since being billed as a defining mission of the Conservatives when they won the 2019 general election?

The findings of a survey for the London Chamber of Commerce by pollsters Savanta ComRes, conducted during May and released today, reveal an intriguing mix of attitudes and perceptions towards the progress of the Johnson project.

Of 510 leaders of businesses of all sizes 82% had heard of “levelling up” of whom 30% said they “could not explain what the policy was”.

Awareness of it varied according to the size of the business, with “practically all” of the large companies – defined as having 250 or more employees – saying they “had at least heard of ‘levelling up'” and nine out of ten of these being able to give a brief explanation of it compared with only just over half of and small and medium sized (10-249 employees) or “micro” firms (0-9). Companies in the finance and insurance and the information and communications sectors were the most aware.

There were also significant variations in opinions about the effects “levelling up” polices were likely to have on businesses in the capital. “Some of these will be positive and some will be negative for the capital’s firms,” says the LLCI’s report about the survey, which found that although there was “no obvious leaning towards either a positive or negative impact” overall, larger firms are described as “much more likely than their SME and micro counterparts to say the policy would be positive for London businesses in general”.

Asked if they thought “levelling up” would mean London losing out, 45% of respondents said they thought levelling up could be achieved without “levelling down” the capital, with a larger proportion of larger firms holding that opinion. Even so, 32% of all business feared that London would lose out from the agenda as it stood. The LCCI notes that “the political framing of ‘levelling up’ has been adversarial” and that “communications around the policy agenda has pitted London and the Southeast against the rest of the country”.

The 510 business leaders were also asked what they thought would happen if they could not work with other businesses located outside the capital. Half of them said they would face “at least minor difficulties” under that scenario, a figure rising to 76% of leaders of larger firms.

LCCI chief executive Richard Burge described “levelling up” as “an admirable socio-economic goal, but it must not happen at the expense of London”. He added: “The policy will have a far greater chance of succeeding if London is recognised and treated as the economic engine room of ‘Global Britain’. A thriving London is good for the prosperity of the whole country. We need to get back to a collaborative mindset in charting the course of our economic future, not pitting regions against each other.”

Image from cover of LCCI’s report about the survey findings.

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Categories: News
Tags: "levelling up", economy, London Chamber of Commerce & Industry, Richard Burge

Transport for London weekend stats: some ups, some downs, new normal approaching

The Queen's funeral and the days preceding it produced some interesting patterns of public transport use
Dave Hill

The weekend preceding the late Queen Elizabeth’s funeral saw significant increases in London public transport use compared with the previous weekend, and the early morning of the event itself was busy compared with the final pre-pandemic bank holiday Monday of this time of year, before falling away.

Transport for London recorded 2.7 million journeys on the London Underground on Saturday 17 September, a rise of 8% compared with the previous Saturday, and 2.08 million on Sunday 18 September, up by 16% compared with the Sunday before.

On both days, the hikes in usage were concentred in central London stations, suggesting that the last two days of the period of mourning for the queen attracted extra people to the capital.

There were big increases on pre-Covid numbers especially on Sunday at Charing Cross, Green Park, Westminster and, in particular, Hyde Park Corner and St James’s Park stations.

Strikingly, on Monday morning until 10am Tube entries and exits – 460,000 – practically matched those of the 26 August 2019 bank holiday Monday, which TfL has taken as its baseline for comparison purposes. For Monday overall, they reached only around 64% of the 26 August 2019 number, though stations close to tourist destinations saw roughly 72%.

With the Queen’s funeral ceremony beginning at 11am and much normal economic activity suspended, it is thought likely many people chose not to travel into the heart of the capital for the bulk of the day.

Use of London’s buses services also increased on Saturday and Sunday, week-on-week – up by a more modest 3% on both weekend days. Bus use reached on 56% of the baseline 2019 figure. TfL has noted that “many routes were diverted or stopped short of their destination due to road closures”.

With the pandemic over and summer holidays and the mourning period for the Queen complete, uses of TfL bus and Tube services can now be expected to reflect stabilised “new normal” post-Covid demand patterns. Daily modal use and longer-term trends can be tracked using TfL’s Network Demand data.

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Categories: News
Tags: buses, London Underground, Transport for London

Goodbye Elizabeth: Versions of London, present and past

Even if you weren't drawn in by the grieving, the national farewell provided time and space to think about the capital city
Dave Hill

London is a big place: 606 square miles with something like nine million inhabitants. And London is experienced and perceived in many different ways, both by Londoners and non-Londoners. In advance of the Queen’s funeral, some thought that today, a special bank holiday Monday, would be like the English Sundays of decades back, when everything was shut except the churches and, except for a couple of hours, the pubs. Well, it has been and it hasn’t.

My local corner shop was open this morning for coffee and croissants as usual, thank God. Although the Tesco Express didn’t open until 5pm, staff were in there early, accepting deliveries and stacking shelves. On Hackney Downs, a frail man in a wheelchair reversed towards the bench he clambers on to, and my slow run took my past, as it so often does, two women walking and talking in an east European language I can’t identify.

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That is the London I mostly inhabit. And as someone unexcited by either royals or republicanism, I’ve felt fairly detached from the passing of the Queen and what has followed, including today’s ceremony at Westminster Abbey and all that has gone with it – the ritual and processions, the crowds in Hyde Park (photo above, grabbed from the BBC) and the central London streets. That said, the strangeness of the past ten days and the national focus on the city has provided food for thought about its wonders and variety, and the ways in which it is seen.

The capital is not for moving. The latest renaissance of anti-London feeling has produced sporadic calls for somewhere else to be called the UK capital, as that would lead to “levelling up” and cut London down to size. The two goals are contradictory – even the new Prime Minister has noticed. The temples and ceremonies of the monarchy are part of what makes London so big and so important to the whole country. The Queen’s passing has underlined that London is irreplaceable as the nation’s capital.

The Thames is forever ever-changing. It’s been an avenue of colonisation and global commerce. It has teemed with fish – flounders, pikes, eels, salmon and tenches “all caught in nets with baits of cheese and tallow”, according to a 15th Century account quoted by Peter Ackroyd – and later been lined with docks and rendered rank with sewage. In September 2022 it served a different purpose – defining the line of The Queue, which mesmerised some like slow TV.

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Cockney legend. When Leytonstone-born David Beckham was a famous footballer he made some people cross: he was judged foppish, girlish, too keen on clothes and celebrity. But perhaps he was just a new link in the long chain of London dandies. And when he was spotted and interviewed in The Queue, shuffling his way to Westminster Hall from Southwark Park with normal folk, far from perturbing gatekeepers of English manliness, he fitted neatly into one of their templates, professing his royalism, being an ordinary bloke and speaking in his estuary accent of heritage boiled sweets. Suddenly, he was more Blitz spirit than Simeone’s dupe. He even wore a flat cap.

Ghosts of London past. The tumult drew me twice to the centre of town: once on the Friday morning after the evening before and once yesterday, to lurk and spy from Southwark Bridge. The city’s history hits you like an avalanche, an engulfing archive of references and memory prompts, tailored like an algorithm to experience and taste. Walking on the Thames Path and across London Bridge and Southwark Bridge, all sorts of people and things popped into my head: Michael Caine; The Lambeth Boys; The Pool of London; All That Mighty Heart.

So that was my great mourning. Though not much drawn in by the grieving, Elizabeth’s long farewell provided time and space to think about the city. There’s much more thinking to be done, and a need for action too. Summer is behind us, and there is much bleakness to come.

Image from BBC News.

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Categories: Culture
Tags: Queen Elizabeth, River Thames, Southwark Bridge

John Vane’s London Stories: Sudden death, few mourn

A sad story recalled
John Vane

This is a second hand story from nearly 30 years ago. Can’t guarantee the details. Can’t think why it came to mind.

The man had been found dead in his room in a house in north London. Two people from the council went round, mid-morning. Another resident opened the door. He wore black underpants, black ankle socks and an unbuttoned shirt. That was all. He had a cigarette going and a beer.

The council people went upstairs and let themselves in to where the corpse had been discovered, then removed a few days before. There was untidiness, some clothes, some drink and not much more, though there was a ticket from a football match at Wembley: England versus Hungary, 1953, a day of national shame.

Anything that looked as if it might mean something to someone related to the man was shoved into bin bags and taken away: humane, if brisk. The man had a name, likely a Polish one – let’s call him Tomasz – but no one knew if he had any family, still less how to find them.

A sudden death is what they called it. Today, the word “sudden” seems often replaced by “unexpected” and its meanings, as set out on local authority websites, include causes thought to be suspicious. This didn’t seem to apply to Tomasz. He lived alone, he was quite old, he pegged out and he was gone. That was all.

What brought him to London? When? The football ticket suggested he might have arrived during the war, but that was the sole clue in the room. His funeral took place soon after, at a glum crematorium at taxpayer’s expense. A vicar did his best with the eulogy, mentioning a local pub. Only two other people were there. One was a nosey parker. The other was an official. From the council? From the coroner? Only he and the vicar knew.

So that was the passing of Tomasz, a Londoner, like so many others, who came from somewhere far away, perhaps by accident, perhaps in search of something. Maybe he found it, maybe he didn’t. He is long gone. But at least he’s been remembered now.

John Vane writes word sketches of London and bits about its past. Sometimes he makes things up. Follow John on Twitter.

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Categories: Culture, John Vane's London Stories
Tags: health, immigration, London Councils

Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park: East Bank and east London’s future

The most ambitious cultural and educational project the capital has seen since the South Bank is approaching completion at the edge of Stratford
Dave Hill

Media coverage of the tenth anniversary of the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games has, with one welcome exception, been miserabilist or non-existent – what some might call a very British attitude to what was not only a superb sporting event but also the culmination of an extraordinary feat of infrastructure delivery few believed Britain was capable of – including, at the start, some of those centrally involved, as Alison Nimmo, a key figure in project, recently remarked

In keeping with all the moaning about what has already been accomplished, a fast-emerging new element of the legacy of the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park has so far attracted little coverage. And yet the East Bank development is huge and has immense potential. In December 2013, when he was London’s Mayor, Boris Johnson claimed the endeavour would help seize “a historic opportunity to accelerate the transformation of east London and to deliver a significant economic boost to the UK”. Just because Boris Johnson said it doesn’t mean it isn’t true.

East Bank is the collective name for a group of major arts, cultural and educational organisations which have taken the bold step of expanding or consolidating their activities in a part of the capital which, prior to 2012, was neglected and largely unrecognised. The idea was born in the run-up to the Games as an additional dimension of the Park’s physical legacy, which at that stage was to be composed of the permanent sports venues, the reclaimed rivers, new wetlands and open spaces, the tech business and education hub which became Here East, and five residential neighbourhoods.

All of those things are still happening, but Johnson and others, including leading local government politicians of the time, believed something extra could be added. Johnson’s name for it was Olympicopolis, a Borisonian tongue-twister which deliberately echoed Albertopolis, the nickname given to the cultural cluster nowadays known as South Kensington, which Prince Albert steered and promoted using profits from The Great Exhibition of 1851. East Bank, as it became after Sadiq Khan became Mayor, is arguably the biggest venture of its kind since, and certainly since the the South Bank reached a settled form.

University College London (UCL), which had previously looked at founding a new campus on the site of Newham’s Carpenters estate, secured two spaces on the Park, one each side of the Waterworks River. One of these, One Pool Street, standing directly south of the Aquatics Centre, will open its doors in the coming weeks. The other, the larger Marshgate, next to the Orbit Tower, will follow next autumn.

UCL East, designed by architects Stanton Williams, is being joined by a new Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A East, left in main picture), a new Sadler’s Wells dance theatre and studios (Sadler’s Wells East), a new BBC home of live music and a new single campus home for the London College of Fashion (right in picture), all on a finger of land to the north of the Aquatics Centre known as Stratford Waterfront. Later, four blocks of housing, 35% of it affordable, will be added to the finger’s tip.

The homes of the four institutions have now largely taken shape under the masterplan auspices of Allies and Morrison in partnership with O’Donnell and Tuomey, who’ve produced  V&A East and Sadler’s Wells East, and fellow architects Arquitecturia. The whole of East Bank will become fully open in 2025, as will the V&A’s other venture in the Park, the new location of its vast reserve collection in the former Games time broadcast centre at Here East. V&A East Storehouse, unlike the collection’s old home, will be viewable by the public.

Last week, New London Architecture hosted an event at the British Council building close to East Bank at the edge of the Park, where Allies and Morrison’s Alex Wraight talked about the particular challenges of the Stratford Waterfront task, and V&A East’s Maia Ardalla described how the museum will work in new ways to involve local people and reflect the cultural character of the part of London it has chosen to expand to.

The London Legacy Development Corporation calculates that East Bank will bring an additional 1.5 million visitors to the Park and its surrounding area each year and create more than 2,500 jobs. The LLDC published an Impact Report in June. If East Bank keeps the big promises made in its name, its effects on east London will be long-lasting and profound.

Dave Hill is the author of Olympic Park: When Britain Built Something Big available HERE.

Categories: Analysis
Tags: Allies & Morrison, Boris Johnson, East Bank, O'Donnell & Tuomey, Sadler's Wells, University College London, Victoria and Albert Museum

Vic Keegan: Tower 42’s extraordinary City history footprint

The spot just off Bishopsgate where the Square Mile's oldest skyscraper stands has been the site of exceptional building and endeavours for many centuries
Victor Keegan

Number 25 Old Broad Street, better known as Tower 42 – and even better known by its former name of the NatWest Tower – is a vertical history book just off Bishopsgate. If you know nothing about London’s history except what has happened on this site over the centuries you will be acquainted with some of its key moments.

Designed by Richard Seifert, who was also the architect of Centre Point, the tower was the City of London’s first skyscraper. Formally opened in 1981, it was the tallest building in London until the topping out of One Canada Square in Canary Wharf in 1990 and the tallest in the City for 30 years.

Though long since departed, the NatWest bank has left an indelible mark – the top of the building was designed in the form of the company’s logo and can still be seen if you look at one of the 3D maps online, such as Apple’s, or maybe from an aeroplane if you are flying by.

As with so many places in the City, Roman remains were found during archaeological digs at the time of the tower’s construction. Mosaics and tessellated floors have been preserved in the Museum of London. But the real fascination of this building, with its offices, restaurants and other amenities, is what came after the Romans.

In 1466 Sir John Crosby built a mansion on the site called Crosby Place, having purchased the land from the nuns of St Helen’s Priory who had been there since the early 13th century. Crosby was a City dignitary, knighted for his role in resisting an attack on London by the so-called “Bastard of Fauconberg”, a cousin and accomplice of the Earl of Warwick – known as Warwick the Kingmaker – who was trying to reinstall Henry VI as King. This was an extraordinary moment when the Wars of the Roses, fought mostly in the north of England, reached the gates of London Bridge.

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Crosby’s mansion, often known as Crosby Hall, was completed in 1472 but Sir John wasn’t able to enjoy it fully because he died four years later. In 1483 it was bought from his widow Lady Crosby by the Duke of Gloucester, the future Richard III. Robert Fabyan’s Chronicle of 1483 notes that “the Duke lodged hymself in Crosbye’s Place, in Bishoppesgate Street” where the Mayor and citizens waited upon him with the offer of the Crown.

Much later on, in 1598, William Shakespeare, who we know lived nearby for a while, used the location for parts of his controversial play Richard III, such as in Act 1, Scene 3: “When you have done, repaire to Crosby place”. One wonders how many people think of Richard when they enter Tower 42.

In 1519 another great figure of history, Thomas More, Henry VIII’s ill-fated Lord Chancellor, purchased the lease to the property. He subsequently also bought an estate in Chelsea, which would become part of the Crosby Place story.

Later that century Crosby Place belonged to Sir Thomas Gresham, founder of Britain’s first stock market, the Royal Exchange. In 1596, in keeping with Gresham’s will, the Institute for Physic, Civil Law, Music, Astronomy, Geometry and Rhetoric was established in the mansion’s Great Hall. Known as Gresham College, it provided free lectures – including, over time, by the likes of Christopher Wren and Robert Hooke. Amazingly, 500 years on, today’s Gresham College is still fulfilling this role, though its lectures are delivered not at Tower 42 but at Barnard’s Inn or online.

Sir Walter Raleigh, another formidable intellectual, had lodgings there in 1601, two years before he was imprisoned in the Tower of London by James l. And between 1621 and 1638 Crosby Place again became a global centre, though not of science but international trade when the East India Company, then the biggest company in the world, made it its headquarters, prior to moving to Leadenhall Street. It would take a book to chart the company’s amazing rise and shameful fall as it became mired in slavery and corruption.

During the 1660s another intellectual powerhouse moved in – the Royal Society. Its origins can be traced to a meeting at Gresham College on November 28 1660, following a lecture by Wren. Endorsed by Charles II in 1663, its full name was The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge.

Crosby’s mansion survived the Great Fire of 1666, but in 1672 was severely damaged by another one. Only the Great Hall and one wing survived, but these carried on through most of the 19th century partly by being turned into a luxurious restaurant. Augustus J. Hare, the Victorian author, said it was “altogether the most beautiful specimen of fifteenth century domestic architecture remaining in London”.

However, in 1907 oblivion beckoned as new owners the Bank of Australia and China made plans to demolish it to make way for a new bank building. Fortunately, an outburst of public opposition saved it.

The building was pulled down and yet preserved. After considering various suggestions, the London County Council (LCC) found a new site for it and, stunningly, in 1909-10, transported the 500 year-old remains, stone by stone, five miles along the Thames to be rebuilt in Chelsea, in part of the garden of the estate former Crosby Place owner Thomas More had purchased there.

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Having become in effect a council property, the hall was for years the home of the British Federation of Women Graduates. The Greater London Council (GLC), successor body to the LCC, maintained it until it was abolition in 1986. The London Residuary Body, formed to dispose of GLC assets, put the new Crosby Hall up for sale, ushering in an astonishing end to this tale.

It was purchased in 1988 by Christopher Moran, a philanthropist and sometime controversial businessman. He spent lavishly to return it to its former splendour as his private mansion and last year renamed it the Crosby Moran Hall. The picture above shows the outside of the restored Great Hall in Portland stone on the right and a recent modern addition in red brick on the left.

Sir Simon Thurley, who was involved in its restoration, calls it “the most important surviving domestic medieval building in London”. It may well last longer than Tower 42. What goes around comes around.

PS: In 1993 tragedy struck when the then NatWest Tower was badly damaged in the IRA Bishopsgate bombing, which killed one person and caused extensive damage to other buildings.

This is the second article in a series of 20 by Vic Keegan about locations of historical interest in the Eastern City part of the City of London, kindly supported by the EC BID, which serves that area. On London’s policy on “supported content” can be read here.

Categories: Culture, EC BID supported series
Tags: Bishopsgate, Leadenhall Street, Old Broad Street, Tower 42

Chris Kaba: IOPC says it aims to complete criminal investigation ‘within six to nine months’

Sadiq Khan has underlined his wish for a "thorough and comprehensive" establishment of the facts and for "key findings" to be made public
Dave Hill

The Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) has said it aims to complete its criminal investigation of the shooting dead of Chris Kaba by a Metropolitan Police officer on 5 September 2022 “within six to nine months” and has informed Kaba’s family of this.

In a statement released this evening the IOPC said its investigators are collating and reviewing “a large amount of evidence” about the homicide and are exploring circumstances including how the officers involved “came to be aware of the vehicle Mr Kaba was driving”, if they had “any prior knowledge of Mr Kaba” and their “decision-making and actions” on the night of Kaba’s death, as well as examining “whether or not Mr Kaba’s race influenced any actions taken by the police”.

The statement adds that the IOPC will “continue to be limited in what details we can release as we can’t risk prejudicing any proceedings that may follow” but also that “the law requires us to to produce a detailed final report that accurately summarises all relevant evidence before we can decide whether to refer a file of evidence to the Crown Prosecution Service”.

Kaba was killed by a single gunshot wound to the head after he was pursued while driving and brought to a halt in Streatham Hill by two police cars. The IOPC stated on 7 September that the chase took place following “the activation of an automatic number plate recognition camera which indicated the car was linked to a firearms incident in previous days” and that “no non-police issue firearm has been recovered from the vehicle or the scene. Two days later, on 9 September, the IOPC disclosed that “the vehicle Mr Kaba was driving was not registered to him”.

The new statement confirms reports that Kaba’s family have been offered the opportunity to “privately and confidentially” view video footage “as soon as is practicable”.

Responding, Sadiq Khan said: “I’ve said from the outset that the IOPC must go wherever the evidence takes them and they have a duty to examine all the factors involved without fear or favour. I hope they can do so as swiftly as possible. I fully understand the grave concerns and impact of Chris Kaba’s death on Black Londoners across our city and the anger, pain and fear it has caused across our communities – as well as the desire for justice and change.”

The Mayor, whose job includes being London’s police and crime commissioner, continued: “The IOPC have confirmed to me that they are fully committed to carrying out a thorough and comprehensive investigation to establish all of the facts – with all key findings made public. I’m clear that the independent investigation must be fearless and leave no stone unturned.”

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Categories: News
Tags: Chris Kaba, Independent Office for Police Conduct, Metropolitan Police, Sadiq Khan