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Arise, Sir Keir of Camden

Some words the Prime Minister might like to consider including in his speech to the Labour Party conference
Dave Hill

If Sir Keir’s aides have a moment, they are invited to run their eyes over the below.

Why do our most extreme opponents – Britain’s enemies within, often funded from abroad, who pose as patriots but peddle lies, incite violence and stir up hate  – so often denigrate their own capital city?

Our capital city – London.

Why do they falsely claim that it is “fallen” or “lost” when, in so many ways, and despite Brexit, the pandemic and the sidelining it suffered under the Conservatives, it is still growing and thriving?

They do it because they cannot bear to recognise that London, with its energy, creativity and vast human variety, represents one of things – one of the very many, very different things – our country can be proud of.

London, let us remember, is the mighty engine room of our country’s economy. Almost a quarter of all UK economic output comes from it. Every year, tens of billions of pounds in taxes raised in London are spent in other parts of the country – north and south, east and west – on public services and on funding infrastructure.

I would like to see less of that dependency on London. I want all of our other great cities to become more successful, more independent, more attractive to business, more able to provide great opportunities for their people and draw others from around the country and the world.

But we cannot achieve that if London is made weaker – precisely because the stronger London and its economy is, the better able the government – this Labour government – is to fund the skills training and new transport and revived industrial power that Birmingham and Leeds and Cardiff and Manchester and Bristol and Glasgow and Liverpool and many other cities need.

My friend Sadiq Khan is right when he insists that when London does well, the whole country does well. And just because Boris Johnson used to say the same thing, doesn’t mean it isn’t true.

To help London grow stronger – and grow better – and to help our other cities and regions at the same time, we are now finalising plans, worked out with Sadiq, to give away more powers to London’s City Hall so that London can take care of its own affairs better – and, as a result, do more for the rest of the country too.

We will build further on the historic devolution of power to the capital made by the last Labour government at the start of this century to put London and Londoners more in charge of their own destiny, and become even more of an asset to our country than they already are.

Those powers will include more freedom for London government to raise more taxes at London level and spend those taxes the way its Mayor and its local councils, rather than Whitehall and the Treasury, thinks best.

That won’t mean the rest of the country gets less. Quite the opposite – by giving London more freedom and control over taxes raised in London, London will generate more for us all.

Conference, we must not fall into the trap of blaming one part of our country for the problems of others. It is true that some parts of Britain have, for many decades – indeed, for centuries – been wealthier than others.

But even the wealthiest have also contained stubbornly high rates of poverty and disadvantage. My job as Prime Minister and leader of a Labour government is to recognise that truth and to work relentlessly with every part of England, Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales, to create opportunity, spread wealth and bring those rates of poverty down.

We will never do that by pretending that favouring some parts of the UK at the expense of others will end inequality. In the Britain I want to build, no one would be left behind, whether they live in Aberdeen or Anglesey, Blackpool or Birmingham, Carlisle or Camden, where my constituency is.

The dead end, regional politics of the so-called “north-south divide” are not progressive, not patriotic and not prepared to deal with reality. They are though, as their name suggests, divisive.

The different regions and nations of our United Kingdom have long had precious and profitable relationships with each other. We need to strengthen those good relationships, so that all concerned get more out of them, not encourage destructive resentments and rivalries.

We need all of our cities to grow stronger economically, and build stronger relationships – with other cites, including cities overseas, and, of course, with the towns and villages that surround them, so that as prosperity increases, it is also shared.

Conference, our country does not need any more voices of grievance and division, seeking to blame honest, hard-working migrants or supposed “metropolitan elites” – who include, I am told, north London lawyers – for difficulties whose true roots and causes could not be more different.

Instead, the regions and nations – the cities and towns and villages – of the United Kingdom need unity – unity in their dazzling diversity – to work together for national renewal.

All reasonable suggestions for re-writes considered, but don’t push your luck. Follow Dave Hill on Bluesky.

OnLondon.co.uk provides unique coverage of the capital’s politics, development and culture with no paywall and no ads. Nearly all its income comes from individual supporters. For £5 a month or £50 a year they receive in-depth newsletters and London event offers. Pay via any Support link on the website or by becoming a paying subscriber to publisher and editor Dave Hill’s Substack.

Categories: Comment
Tags: Camden, Keir Starmer, Labour

Lewis Baston: Trouble grows for Newham Labour with landslide by-election loss

The latest victory for the Newham Independents follows a succession of governance crises and internal strife for the ruling party locally
Lewis Baston

The Newham Independents, a local political party, made a landslide gain in a by-election held last Thursday in the ward of Plaistow South. The Plaistow area has fallen within Labour-run councils’ domains since 1919, initially as part of the County Borough of West Ham and since 1965 as part of the London Borough of Newham*. Could this change in the borough elections of 2026?

Labour’s defeat in Plaistow South was just the latest bit of damage inflicted on its Newham fortress. The party won every seat on the council in three successive elections between 2010 and 2018 and has provided the borough’s directly elected mayor since the post’s creation in 2002.

But the 2022 elections were preceded by internal Labour strife in the council chamber, leading to the party’s National Executive Committee (NEC) administering the re-selection of mayoral incumbent Rokhsana Fiaz, who had won for a first time in 2018. The election results showed some slippage from the 2018 high point. Although Labour won another massive majority, winning 64 seats, the Greens took two, both of them in the new Stratford Olympic Park ward, and support for Fiaz fell from 53,214 votes (73.4 per cent) in 2018 to 35,696 (56.2 per cent).

Since then, a sense of crisis has gripped the borough, with a financial difficulties leading to an above-normal nine per cent rise in Council Tax, emergency funding from central government and looming “tough decisions” about spending in the light of a £40.6 million overspend, largely the result of demand for temporary housing.

Newham’s housing services received a damning C4 rating from the Regulator of Social Housing indicating “very serious failings” requiring “fundamental change”. There have been frequent changes of chief executive, with three permanent and three interim appointments in post since 2018. The borough has fallen a long way since it was held up as a role model by a sympathetic central government when it was led by the its first Mayor, Sir Robin Wales.

In May 2025 the government issued a “best value” notice to Newham expressing concern about its governance and culture. Paul Martin, the latest chief executive, who was appointed in July, warned councillors that the government imposing commissioners to take charge of Newham over the head of the local executive was a “plausible outcome”.

A row rumbled about the terms of departure of Martin’s predecessor, Abi Gbago, who left with a £230,000 payoff and a non-disclosure agreement. In July 2025, Mayor Fiaz announced that she would be standing down. The Labour NEC panel selected her successor as Labour candidate. Newham may not have a tradition of organised political opposition to Labour, but it has a lively and critical local media including Newham Voices and Open Newham, which receive a steady stream of Town Hall news and gossip.

Labour’s response to the Israeli attack on Gaza after October 2023 added to the party’s problems in Newham. The borough’s population is 35 per cent Muslim and many of the rest are young and have left-wing and pro-Palestine values. In the general election, the Newham Independents polled a significant 20 per cent in West Ham & Beckton and a Gaza Independent polled 18 per cent in East Ham, as Labour’s vote fell by 26 percentage points compared with 2019.

But Newham Labour started losing by-elections even before Gaza became the major issue in UK domestic politics it is now. A Boleyn ward seat was lost to Mehmood Mirza, now leader of the Newham Independents, in July 2023. The independents won again the following November, in Plaistow North. And now comes Plaistow South. In addition, Labour has lost four Newham councillors through defections or suspensions. There are now nine Newham councillors not taking the Labour whip, which the largest since the council term of 1974-78.

The Plaistow South by-election was caused by the death of Labour councillor Neil Wilson, who had represented this ward and its predecessor, Hudsons, since 1994. Wilson’s long service made him “father of the council”. He played a mentoring role for successive intakes of new councillors, which will be much-missed. He was cabinet member for health and adult social care under Mayor Fiaz, and for equalities under her predecessor, Mayor Wales. His Cabinet colleague Sarah Ruiz paid tribute to him:

“Neil was a very dear friend and colleague. His beliefs shaped him and his values, and his life of public service – as a teacher, and as a councillor.  Neil was loved and respected by Member colleagues across the chamber, and by all the Council officers he worked with, for his experience, dedication and commitment to the borough and people he loved – and his sense of joy and fun.”

Plaistow South is more or less in the geographical centre of the borough of Newham. The ward is well-defined on the map. Its boundary to the south is the A13 Newham Way. The line follows New Barn Street and Barking Road to the west and north, and then Boundary Road to the west. Boundary Road defines the border between the former boroughs of West Ham and East Ham.

It is divided by the elevated Greenway, which follows the course of Joseph Bazalgette’s Northern Outfall Sewer, one of London’s great Victorian public works. The ward includes Newham Hospital. It contains no stations, but a very high 25 per cent of its working population travels to work on the Underground, mostly from Upton Park or via a bus connection to Canning Town.

Like most of Newham, Plaistow South is a multi-ethnic, predominantly working-class area, but its demographics are a bit distinctive. For an inner London ward, a high proportion of people (76 per cent) live in houses rather than flats, and 41 per cent (above the 33 per cent Newham average) own, rather than rent, their homes.

Fewer people are educated to degree level (35 per cent) than is usual for Newham (40 per cent) or for London (47 per cent). It has a larger white population (35 per cent) than Newham as a whole (31 per cent) and not as many people of Asian heritage (35 per cent rather than 42 per cent). It has a smaller proportion of Muslims (32 per cent) than either of the other two wards previously gained by the Newham Independents (Boleyn has 46 per cent, Plaistow North 43 per cent).

Plaistow South was won by Labour by a large majority over the Conservatives in the 2022 elections, but it was clear from the outset that, although six candidates came forward the by-election, the contest was between Labour’s Asheem Singh and Md Nazrul Islam** for the Newham Independents, both of whom ran proper campaigns with leafleting and canvassing while the other parties were less active.

Islam (pictured) gained the seat with 913 votes (44.7 per cent) – more than twice as many as Singh’s 436 votes (21.3 per cent). Labour’s vote share was down 34 percentage points, its worst London result since the general election except for Redbridge Mayfield in March.

In third place was Lazar Monu for Reform UK, whose 16.1 per cent (329 votes) was a creditable showing. The other three contenders – Nic Motte for the Greens (152 votes), Rois Miah for the Conservatives (123) and Sheree Miller for the Liberal Democrats (90) – all lost vote share. It was the fourth-worst Conservative by-election performance in London since the general election by this measure. Turnout was poor, at 23.1 per cent.

The by-election issues, according to Islam speaking to Newham Voices directly after his win, were housing plus the Council Tax rise, emission-related charges for parking permits (the “parking tax”, as he dubbed it) and charges for bulky waste. In the background were Gaza, the national government and the general state of Newham governance, but most of Islam’s priorities could have come from a pro-motorist, low-tax Conservative.

The perception that groups like the Newham Independents are left-wing relies heavily on their stand on Palestine. Look more closely, and a more complex picture emerges. The local party is a catch-all. It has not had to make the sort of choices that being in government involves.

Labour’s candidate for Mayor of Newham next May is Forhad Hussain, who was a councillor for Plaistow North in 2010-18 and served in Wales’s cabinet. He will face determined competition from the Newham Independents, surely in the form of party leader Mehmood Mirza. The Plaistow South by-election is a sign that Labour’s mighty fortress is perilously besieged from without, and at risk of collapse from within.

Newham is one to watch in the May 2026 elections. Despite its century-long history of Labour municipal control, it is one of the party’s more likely losses.

*Labour won only 30 seats out of 60 in the 1968 elections, but retained an overall majority thanks to indirectly elected Aldermen.

**Md or MD is a common abbreviation among Bangladeshi Muslims for Mohammed when used as a personal name.

Follow Lewis Baston on Bluesky and read all his writing for On London here. Photo from Newham Independents x/Twitter feed.

OnLondon.co.uk provides unique coverage of the capital’s politics, development and culture with no paywall and no ads. Nearly all its income comes from individual supporters. For £5 a month or £50 a year they receive in-depth newsletters and London event offers. Pay via any Support link on the website or by becoming a paying subscriber to publisher and editor Dave Hill’s Substack.

Categories: Analysis
Tags: Council Tax, Labour, Newham Council, Rokhsana Fiaz

How is the local government Fair Funding Review unfair to London?

The capital's number crunchers have been working overtime to prevent Londoners losing out from a new formula that seems far from flawless
Dave Hill

Last month, the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) released its calculation that inner London borough councils were lined up to be the biggest losers from the Fair Funding Review 2.0, the government’s process for changing how money for local government will be allocated across England from next year.

Alarmingly, it estimated that some of the capital’s boroughs would “see funding fall by over a quarter if the reforms were introduced immediately”. Even if they increased their Council Tax levels by the highest amounts permitted over the next three years they would still, the IFS said, “face a real terms cut of 11-12%” despite a floor to limit losses.

As a region, Greater London would be hit harder than any other, with the East Midlands and Yorkshire & The Humber doing best, though that wouldn’t be the whole London story. Further analysis has taken place, including by London Councils, the cross-party body representing all of the capital’s local authorities. These efforts indicate that some boroughs would fare relatively well under the proposed new formula, all of them in outer London, as the London Councils graphs below show.

Screenshot 2025 09 20 at 11.10.56

Among the winners would be Hillingdon, Havering, Hounslow, Enfield and Croydon. But more than 20 of the 32 boroughs would be worse off, with Camden, Hammersmith & Fulham, Kensington & Chelsea, Westminster and Wandsworth the most heavily clobbered.

Screenshot 2025 09 20 at 12.50.31

London Councils warned the government a year ago that many boroughs were facing a funding crisis. In June, it stressed the importance of the funding reforms recognising London’s pressing social problems, and last month produced a briefing arguing that the review proposals “will fail to produce a robust, long-term funding system that genuinely matches resource to need” and land more boroughs in deep financial trouble. Already, seven of them have had to seek extra financial support.

How has the government, specifically the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, come up with its new Fair Funding formula? Is it fair to London? And what could it mean for Londoners?

*  

The main purpose of the Fair Funding Review is to allocate a bunch of grants to local government in a new way, essentially by simplifying them and distributing them according to new set of formulae the government regards as being fairer. London Councils thinks that, as things stands, the boroughs would collectively receive £700 million less than they do at present.

It is, perhaps, not widely known that the largest proportions of local authority spending go on adult and children’s social care, which are among the services councils must provide by law. The more visible to most of us are things like rubbish collection, road repairs and street cleaning. The Fair Funding proposals as first set out envisage redistributing existing total funding for England to help poorer areas more. The worry is that its calculations fail to recognise the levels of poverty and need in London.

Councils also raise funds locally, of course. An Institute for Government explainer from five years ago said just over half the funding for local government in England comes from Council Tax and just over a quarter from the portion of Business Rates they are allowed to retain. That left 22 per cent from government grants. The government’s proposals raise the possibility of many Londoners having to pay more in Council Tax and see cuts in services too, as boroughs struggle to balance their budgets.

Another part of the national context is that local authority revenues as a whole fell substantially under the austerity policies of the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition government before partially recovering from 2017/18. Between 2009/10 and 2019/20, the government grant element was cut by an astounding 40 per cent in real terms, the Institute’s explainer says, before recovering a bit during the pandemic. Throughout, the proportion accounted for by Council Tax has risen.

The austerity period hit inner London boroughs particularly hard. In 2019, Centre for London analysis put Westminster, Newham, Tower Hamlets, Hackney, Camden and Wandsworth at the top of the list. The then chair of London Councils, Peter John, said government funding for the boroughs had dropped by 63 per cent since 2010. And now, under Labour, the axe is out for London again.

The government’s approach, which dates back to pre-Covid, has been to make a calculation about the amount of need that exists in each local authority area compared with all the others, and another one about the resources at that local authority’s disposal, which largely comes down to the amount of Council Tax it can raise. The difference between the two is the basis for deciding how much grant the government should bestow.

London’s beef is with the way the “relative needs” assessment has been calculated. This has involved boiling down about 15 different formulae for each local authority into seven main ones and, rather than ring-fencing the different grants as before, pouring them all into one pot. The seven areas covered are adult social care (the largest), children’s services (the second largest), a “foundation formula” element derived from population and deprivation figures, homelessness, road maintenance, fire and rescue provision and home-to-school transport.

It’s a mathematical equation for working out who gets what that generates bad results for most of London. It’s also very complicated – the document explaining how it’s done is around 120 pages long plus ten annexes. A lot of is drawn from its now rather outdated Indices of Deprivation, which haven’t been revised since 2019 and were based on the findings of the 2011 Census. The formula for children’s services has its own deprivation index, which also comes into the calculation.

Because these reforms have been a long time coming, London government has been able to anticipate some of what is proposed. That is just as well, because national government has not attached any figures of its own to the impacts of its changes. That makes it much harder to respond to them with precision. Doing so has entailed working with specialist consultants and modelling the impacts as well as possible. No one has a definitive answer. The broad direction of travel, though, seems pretty clear.

*

What will happen next? London government, which includes Sir Sadiq Khan, has been arguing for adjustments. There has been, it’s fair to say, some amazement that housing costs were not factored in. As the London Councils chart below shows, it is these that push Londoners whose incomes might be quite good compared with counterparts elsewhere into the “in poverty” category, which in London is very large – the city’s poverty rates are the country’s highest. The word is that there might be some movement on the housing front, but nothing has yet been confirmed.

Screenshot 2025 09 20 at 11.13.01

The children’s services formula is causing particular concern and seen as the most consequential change in the Fair Funding Review as a whole. It leaves every London borough except one worse off in that department, and the exception only just.

A multi-level regression model has been assembled. Devised by the Department for Education under the last government, it uses a number of socioeconomic datasets to predict the needs of local school students. Its final evaluation report is 200 pages long and enough to make the most accomplished number cruncher weep. Long story short, a top drawer team assembled to divine its meaning concluded that this “whole new approach” wasn’t very good.

Overtures have had a hearing, a ministry technical working group has been formed and, again, progress is being made with recognising some of London’s distinctive social characteristics. These again include housing and also the free school meals situation which, in London, already has a universal element, thanks to Mayor Khan’s high-profile Londonwide initiative. Eligibility for Universal Credit has been suggested as a better metric.

Measuring children’s health was identified as another tricky area, and not only in terms of what it meant for London. The review relied on responses to the 2021 Census, in which a question asked parents only if their child was in general good health or not. Hardly any – about two per cent nationally – ticked the “bad health” box.Then there are the effects of household overcrowding. Past studies have demonstrated a link between it and the likelihood of children ending up in care. Yet somehow the new model points to the opposite.

Among the vaguer elements is a “remoteness factor” which was presented in the review as an adjustment based purely on theory, together with a request for supporting evidence. It supposes that access to any kind of service, product or amenity will be easier and cheaper if you live in an urban area than a remote one, solely on the basis of proximity. This has induced significant annoyance, not least because other government research has shown that the theory doesn’t hold up.

Does the Fair Funding model work properly? Are its mechanisms muddled? Are its ingredients sound? Are its potential outcomes actually fair at all?

*

The process continues. There is lot at stake. It has been estimated that the children’s services formula alone, if left in its initial form, would see £1.5 billion go out of London. The deprivation measures, the free school meals and the omission of housing costs in their own right also seem to have the potential to leave Londoners in need of local council support worse off. London is also pushing back on the overall population numbers the review relies on. These are drawn from the last Census, which was conducted when many Londoners left the city temporarily because of the pandemic and could therefore be artificially low.

There’s acknowledgment that the outgoing funding mechanism has in some ways, favoured London: for example, it factors in ethnicity, especially of black groups, as a proxy for higher need, and has historically enabled Westminster, Wandsworth and Kensington & Chelsea, all of them Tory strongholds until two turned Labour in 2022, to set very low Council Tax rates.

At the same time, the new formulae overall seem to effect London as a whole so negatively that there is an urgent need to understand them better and figure out why that might be. The government’s consultation period is over, but that work is still ongoing with London concentrating particularly hard on children’s services and housing costs. In the midst of this uncertainty, boroughs are trying to plan their budgets. the uncertainty isn’t helping.

A formal government response to the feedback to its consultation is expected to be published next month and a policy statement from the department, now headed by Steve Reed, at around the same time, perhaps the same day. The final outcome of the Fair Funding Review 2.0 will not be known until the provisional local government finance settlement comes out in December, following the budget late the preceding month. Fingers crossed.

Follow Dave Hill on Bluesky. Photo from Greater London Authority.

OnLondon.co.uk provides unique coverage of the capital’s politics, development and culture with no paywall and no ads. Nearly all its income comes from individual supporters. For £5 a month or £50 a year they receive in-depth newsletters and London event offers. Pay via any Support link on the website or by becoming a paying subscriber to publisher and editor Dave Hill’s Substack.

Categories: Analysis
Tags: child poverty, housing, London Councils

Nick Bowes: Sub prime Lime

The e-bike company can't be bothered, the rules are too weak and when the rider of a stolen one puts you in hospital there's not much you can do
Nick Bowes

On Tuesday 12 August at around 6:30 pm, my left wrist was shattered in an accident as I cycled on a quiet residential street near Elephant and Castle. At point blank range, directly ahead of me, a group of boys aged no more than 11 or 12 on Lime bikes shot straight into the road at speed without looking. With no time to brake, I slammed into the side of one of them. The impact crushed my front wheel and threw me over my handlebars.

The group of lads, none of whom were injured, stayed around for five minutes or so, more amused than remorseful, before leaving the scene. One kind fellow cyclist stayed with me, tying up the remains of my bike before waiting until my taxi arrived. At the hospital, an x-ray confirmed a bad fracture. A fortnight later, I had a metal plate and screws inserted during surgery. Months of recovery and interruptions to my normal routines lie ahead.

Being a good citizen, I filed a police report and contacted Lime. The police opened and closed the case (no CCTV, no hope of tracing the kids) and Lime launched an investigation. Their insurers have been in touch, but a top personal injury lawyer warned me not to get my hopes up.

Hire a Lime bike through the app and your journey is insured, covering the rider, the bike and any third parties. Lime policy is that only over-18s can rent one of its bikes. But I collided with a child who was either riding a Lime without paying (in effect, stealing it) or had an account (or was using someone else’s) contrary to Lime’s rules. Either way, he was uninsured.

There’s little reason why you’d have heard of the Motor Insurers’ Bureau (MIB). Funded from everyone’s car insurance premiums and backed by section 95 of the Road Traffic Act 1988, if you are in an accident caused by an uninsured motor vehicle, the MIB steps in. Effectively, it is the insurer of last resort. But be in an accident with a stolen Lime bike and you’re on your own – the MIB does not cover uninsured rental e-bikes – nor is there an equivalent for micromobility.

Let’s be clear – I have no grudge against e-bikes. I have had a Lime account in the past. E-bikes have obvious positives (adding to transport options) and widely acknowledged negatives (dumping of bikes, reckless cycling). The drawbacks do not solely lie with Lime to fix – e-bike users also must take some responsibility. But Lime could do more to address areas where it is falling short.

Take the ease with which Lime bikes can be stolen. It would seem simple to prevent people pedalling off on one without paying. Yet Lime repeatedly seems incapable of stopping it, always one step behind those who’ve worked out another way to hack them. Ever wondered what that “clack, clack, clack” sound you sometimes hear on the street is? It’s someone on a stolen Lime bike.

Take Lime’s policy of renting bikes only to those over the age of 18. When setting up an account, you are asked to tick a box accepting Lime’s user agreement. Only if you click on this and scroll down quite some way do you come to a mention of the minimum age rule. And when hiring, no proof of ID to verify a user’s age is asked for. How many Lime bike users on London’s streets either lied about their age or didn’t read the user agreement and so are unaware that they are too young to be riding one? 

Then there’s the question of those underage users “borrowing” an adult’s account. We already know from my recent experience that a child on a stolen Lime bike causing an accident isn’t insured. But what if it’s a child using an adult’s account or an account that includes false information? Is Lime’s insurance null-and-void? The kids I encountered didn’t hang around, and even if they’d volunteered names and addresses, the chances are they would have been be false.

Washing its hands of responsibility, Lime claimed that what happened to me was a police issue, as the theft of the bike was a criminal offence. But the company’s failure to get the details of those who steal its bikes makes it impossible to do anything.

The messiness surrounding what is and isn’t insured makes the case for universal insurance cover, whenever Lime bikes are in use and regardless of who is in the saddle. If this was the case, it would focus minds at Lime – overnight, I bet they’d triple efforts to prevent theft and dramatically tighten up age checks. Reducing theft would also help with the problem of dumped Lime bikes – Lime’s policy of fining users who recklessly leave bikes strewn across pavements is toothless for perpetrators that don’t have an account!

The problem is that without being dragged kicking and screaming, Lime won’t voluntarily take such steps. They will need to be mandated by an appropriate regulatory body. Alas, none of the obvious authorities have the required powers. Certainly not London’s 32 local authorities, left to make do the best they can with by-laws and enforcement regulations that were never intended for e-bikes. Neither does Transport for London. It has jurisdiction over black cabs, private hire vehicles, a trial of e-scooter trials and, coming soon, pedicabs, but it is powerless when it comes to e-bikes.

The law, as is often the case, is a decade behind. There is a glimmer of hope on the horizon – the English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill working its way through parliament includes new clauses (Part 2, clauses 23-29) designed to strengthen and simplify the regulation of micro-mobility providers. Credit where it’s due to TfL and London Councils for their constant lobbying.

Alas, this becoming law, let alone put into action, is some years away. No doubt Lime will fight a rearguard action. But if parliament does its job, e-bike providers will be licensed, subject to stricter rules on safety and usage, liable to penalties for failures and could even lose their licences. Hopefully, as part of this, the insurance gap my accident exposed will be closed.

In the meantime, until laws are passed more people will be injured and maybe even killed. While some journalists (such as Jim Waterson) have dug away at Lime’s failings, it’s sad to say that only a horrific fatality might force the pace of change that is desperately needed. But these aren’t risks we should be taking with the safety of Londoners. I’m a cyclist and pro-cycling, but until sufficient regulations are in place, I’m not convinced rental e-bikes should be on our streets.

Follow Nick Bowes on Bluesky.

OnLondon.co.uk provides unique coverage of the capital’s politics, development and culture with no paywall and no ads. Nearly all its income comes from individual supporters. For £5 a month or £50 a year they receive in-depth newsletters and London event offers. Pay via any Donate link on the website or by becoming a paying subscriber to publisher and editor Dave Hill’s Substack.

Categories: Comment
Tags: cycling

Enfield: Local Green Belt housing event hears polite but firmly-opposed views

The north London borough is at the heart of arguments about developing protected land, as a discussion arranged by The London Society and Enfield Dispatch showed
Charles Wright

London desperately needs more homes, but where should they be built? Should some of them be on the previously sacrosanct Green Belt, prompting conflict in the suburbs? That was the thorny subject addressed this week at an event held at the Dugdale arts centre in Enfield Town, hosted by The London Society with the local community newspaper, Enfield Dispatch, and chaired by On London publisher and editor Dave Hill.

It was an appropriate location. Green Belt land makes up 37 per cent of the borough of Enfield, whose council has led the way in London in identifying development sites within that protected zone. Its new Local Plan, now at its public examination stage overseen by a government planning inspector, proposes some 9,200 new homes on the Green Belt at Chase Park and Crews Hill.

Meanwhile, Sir Sadiq Khan Khan is conducting his own Green Belt review, Transport for London has made an “illustrative” proposal for Enfield to accommodate up to 12,000 new homes on alternative Green Belt land nearer to public transport, and there are strong suggestions too that the government’s New Towns taskforce will soon recommend Crews Hill for one of these settlements, aiming for at least 10,000 homes there.

Following an overview of London Green Belt history by Dr Jack Brown, senior lecturer in government studies at King’s College, and a summary of the local situation by Enfield Dispatch editor James Cracknell, debate was polite but revealed firmly-held opposing views.

“Families need homes, no more excuses,” said London YIMBY representative John Murphy. “Young people” unable to get on the property ladder were now in their 40s, he added. “I want more affordable homes, so people can have more children and live better lives, not so pressured financially.” The Green Belt, he said, was now “strangling London”.

He said the deposit for first-time buyers in Enfield is now £85,000 while private sector rents are higher than ever, making it harder to save such a sum: “If you’re a couple and you’ve done everything right but you can’t afford a house you therefore can’t afford to have a child.”

Addressing the council’s objectives for Crews Hill, Murphy said it was “a good plan” and that although he felt sorry for people employed by the area’s many garden centres who might lose their jobs if the area was cleared for housing, he asked why they couldn’t be relocated somewhere further north. “Nobody has to lose,” he said.

Murphy was also critical of the council, though, over its handling of a major brownfield site, Meridian Water, in Upper Edmonton in the south-east of the borough. Enfield owns nearly two-thirds of the developable land within the site, and a new railway station opened there in 2019, but progress has been slow.

“It’s a good plan, I’m in favour of it,” Murphy said, but while local were residents were having to help meet the cost of the scheme, it had been blighted by “delay, delay, delay”. He concluded: “Families need homes, builders want to build and nobody needs any more excuses from politicians.”

Opposing the council’s plans, Andrew Lack from the Enfield Society said one of the sites it had chosen was a significant remnant of the historically important ”Enfield Chase”, a Royal hunting ground from medieval times and “part of the character of the borough” akin to Richmond Park or Hampstead Heath. He argued that it should remain protected and the council should instead be prioritising brownfield sites, which a society survey suggested could accommodate 38,000 homes.

Chair@londonsociety.org.uk

“There is land and it’s not being developed,” he said, citing stalled progress on sites including Meridian Water, where 10,000 homes are promised, but also on a 1,800 home scheme in Southbury, which was abandoned when planning permission expired last year.

Lack set out a nuanced position, saying the society had backed development on the Arnos Grove station car park in the south of the borough and also supported Tottenham Hotspur FC’s recent controversial plans for a women’s training centre in the Green Belt. “The society does accept some development may be needed,” he said. “The critical factor is that it must be sympathetic.”

That also meant no “tower blocks” in locations such as Enfield Town, he added, when pressed on the need for building in well-connected areas. It still had the “character of a small market town,” he said, as well as being a conservation area with a significant number of listed buildings where new tall buildings were inappropriate, though the society “would accept up to seven storeys”.

However, a member of the audience said the housing crisis was now at such a level that Green Belt development was needed alongside “densification” in town centres and around transport hubs. Other points included the need to “go back to council housing” to guarantee affordability, as well as building sustainably “where the buses and trains already are” and to a higher standard as well.

A local property developer highlighted soaring building costs increasingly rendering brownfield sites unviable, while architect Russell Curtis recalled that development around railway stations was not new in Enfield. Another audience member asked how to counter well-organised “NIMBY” campaigns – get lobbying your councillors, was the answer –  and another called for consultation to engage more with people who actually needed homes, as well as hearing from opponents.

Can Enfield’s Green Belt defenders hold their position? London Society trustee and experienced town planner Heather Cheesbrough set out the council’s legal duty to prepare a Local Plan that broadly complies with all mayoral and national planning policies as well as being designed to meet housing need.

That inevitably meant finding more land to meet Enfield’s share of London’s new 88,000 homes a year target, taking into account recent dramatic falls in brownfield site supply, the “human and financial” costs of homelessness for families and the council alike, and the impact on the wider economy of failing to provide enough homes. “That’s the dilemma for the council, identifying those sites,” she said. “But we can’t put our heads in the sand and say we don’t want development.”

Where that development takes place will be largely determined over the coming months. The examination of the Enfield plan resumes on 21 October, followed by further consultation before ministerial sign-off. Meanwhile, the findings of the New Towns Taskforce are expected within weeks.

Follow Charles Wright on Bluesky. Photos by Simon O’Connor. Main pic L-R: Jack Brown, Andrew Lack, Dave Hill, James Cracknell, John Murphy, Heather Cheesbrough. Comprehensive coverage of Enfield’s Local Plan by Enfield Dispatch here. The next London Society housing event will take place on 25 October in the City of London. Details here.

OnLondon.co.uk provides unique coverage of the capital’s politics, development and culture with no paywall and no ads. Nearly all its income comes from individual supporters. For £5 a month or £50 a year they receive in-depth newsletters and London event offers. Pay via any Donate link on the website or by becoming a paying subscriber to publisher and editor Dave Hill’s Substack.

Categories: News
Tags: Enfield Dispatch, Green Belt, housing, The London Society

Julie Hamill: Bowie overshadowed

Something - or someone - is missing from the V&A collection in east London
Julie Hamill

“Don’t let me hear you say life’s taking you nowhere…”

David Bowie is playing on Greatest Hits Radio (the Ken Bruce show) as I do up my top button and think about a jacket for the weather, which has suddenly turned dismal. Soon, I’m heading to Brondesbury Park station to take the eastbound Mildmay line to the David Bowie Centre at the V&A East Storehouse for press day.

The Tube strike explains why I’m going by Overground – which, ironically, makes me start humming Bowie’s Underground – so I’m expecting the train to be busy. It is, in fact, quiet, with plenty of empty seats. Only the big corrugated rubber-joiny bits of the train squeak and stretch as we whirr along to Hackney Wick. A woman a few seats away smiles as she breastfeeds her baby.

With the rain pelting outside, it’s cosy in the carriage, and I can see why people like travelling on the big trains. I hit “play” on Moonage Daydream, looking forward to feeding my five senses with the great musical inventor and all the little wonders of a new collection from his personal estate.

The V&A has been gifted Bowie’s personal archive, which contains over 90,000 items: costumes, handwritten notes, lyrics, instruments, props and a vast number of photos. The collection will be permanent, but with so many objects only 200 can be displayed at any one time, to be refreshed every six months. For something specific, visitors can book an “order an object” session and view it in a smaller room under close supervision.

As I head into the Storehouse at Here East on the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, I’m surprised to see no signage or posters in the window, not even a single Aladdin Sane lightning bolt. I’m not the only one checking if this is the right door. I hear others asking, “Am I in the right place for the Bowie Cent…?”

“Yes, you are! Right this way,” the two door staff reply, as if they’ve been saying it all morning.

Brollies down and wet things in a locker, I get my wristband and we’re led upstairs along a corridor into the exhibition room. Bowie videos roll on a big screen. I desperately want to hear his music, any of it, but it’s turned down very low on a not-great sound system. My ears sink. Where is he now? I need his voice to heat the air and dry my trousers. Alas, it’s held at a careful volume.

Then it’s turned off completely as the curator gives a talk about the items in this vault from Bowie’s career: his favourite Little Richard photo, the rejection letter from Apple Records, the glass ball from the movie Labyrinth, the iconic Yamamoto designs, right up to the notes he made on a musical set in 18th Century London called The Spectator, which was writing just before his death.

It’s an intimate space, and I hear others asking, “Is it just these two rooms?”. In the smaller one, some “order an object” items are on display: Ziggy’s guitar, one of Bowie’s kimonos, the palm tree heels. I imagine, despite the limits, there’s excitement in the constant rotation, so repeat visitors won’t be seeing the same pair of Pelican platforms twice.

Back in the main room, I look up to notice some of his costumes are hanging from the ceiling in white suit bags with a small viewing section and some writing and order numbers on each one, but it’s not big enough to see what’s inside. I wonder what delights are hidden, and why they couldn’t have made the bags entirely transparent or, better, displayed the clothes from the ceiling in a more creative or experimental way – something more befitting the artist’s vibrancy.

Unnamed

Box upon box of grey archive files are stacked neatly along one wall, labelled. A few duplicates are open on a table to provide a taste of contents. I open one and read about Labyrinth, a classic movie in our house. There are stories and handwritten lyrics to Magic Dance from the movie tucked inside plastic covers, hole-punched and indexed. It feels very much like a library: quiet, hushed, low mumbling in the background. A staff member puts the music back on, even lower. I imagine Bowie walking in and saying “Shh!”, like in China Girl.

I move over to the glass cases holding handwritten lyrics for Win and Heroes. There’s a section for Gail Ann Dorsey, his bassist and friend for over 18 years, and notes on his drum-and-bass work with Goldie. The Nile Rodgers and Last Dinner Party guest curations showcase their chosen objects: photos and lyric notes. There are many costumes, including the Let’s Dance suit and Ziggy/Yamamoto outfits, displayed on headless mannequins…which feels a bit faceless and department store.

The “Bowieness” of this whole thing is missing. He is not here, literally or metaphorically. His things are, yes, but there’s no flavour of him in how they’re displayed, no sense of his unique sparkle, very little of his face. I suppose you could ask, what was I expecting? This is a museum with a huge vault of his stuff. It’s a challenge to choose and display. True. But if the boxes have to be stacked, must they be grey? If the costumes have to hang in suit bags, can’t we see them? This is the most inventive artist in history, so where’s the flamboyance? Perhaps I wasn’t expecting to see, but to feel. And I didn’t.

I did love discovering that Bowie treasured all his fan art, sent from around the world. Only three small items are on display, but knowing he kept and catalogued every piece gave me the closest glimpse of David Jones himself. That alone could make a powerful exhibition.

The stretch of Bowie’s musical influence is well covered, from Charli XCX to The Last Dinner Party, Chappell Roan and many others, all citing Bowie as their pathway to individuality. This feels more suited to a music magazine or talking-head documentary. That wall might have been better used to showcase his beautiful paintings, or a commissioned painting of his face.

Afterwards in the foyer, I hear other press visitors marvelling at how wonderful it all is, to see Bowie’s personal life and legend in one place. No doubt the reviews will be five stars across the board. And maybe they’re right, and I’m a brat. This is his collection, after all, gifted with his blessing. But for me, it’s a stack of stuff, much of it paper, pictures, and notes, all filed away, with only glimpses on display. It’s hidden bits of Bowie in boxes. It didn’t fill my heart, so I run for the shadows.

Follow Julie Hamill on Instagram. Centre photo from V&A East Instagram.

OnLondon.co.uk provides unique coverage of the capital’s politics, development and culture with no paywall and no ads. Nearly all its income comes from individual supporters. For £5 a month or £50 a year they receive in-depth newsletters and London event offers. Pay via any Support link on the website or by becoming a paying subscriber to publisher and editor Dave Hill’s Substack.

Categories: Culture
Tags: London Overground, Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, V&A East Storehouse

Sadiq Khan calls for government rethink on ‘fair funding’ for London boroughs

The Mayor's intervention came at City Hall question time and follows concerns expressed by London's councils themselves
Charles Wright

Sir Sadiq Khan has warned the government that new plans to reform borough council funding would be a “false economy”, undermining the capital and hampering efforts to promote economic growth.

The government’s Fair Funding proposals, due to come into effect next year, would update the formulas used to fund councils all over England, which have remained unchanged for a decade, aiming for a system where “allocations are made based on the latest and best available data and recognise the areas where demand for council services is greatest”.

But the proposed new arrangements would create “big winners and losers”, according to the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS), with London, and inner London in particular, losing out most – prompting the all-party London Councils group to accuse the government of ignoring deprivation in the capital, where poverty levels after taking housing costs into account are the highest in the country.

The group has already warned the government that “after more than a decade of structural underfunding, rising demand and skyrocketing costs”, the change could have “devastating consequences” for London boroughs and their residents. The Mayor (pictured) told the London Assembly yesterday that he backs its call for a rethink.

“If London is to continue driving the national economy, we can’t risk repeating the mistakes of the past,” he said at Mayor’s Question Time. “Our city has suffered under the weight of austerity for too long. Now is the time for investment, not further cuts, which would only suppress growth and stifle our potential.”

The old formula needed to change, he agreed, but the new arrangements needed to take more account of the “disproportionately high housing and living costs in the capital” as well as appropriate deprivation indicators. “Otherwise we risk support being taken away from those who need it most. We all believe in those with the broadest shoulders carrying the greatest burden, but civil servants are in danger of not recognising that London councils in particular are carrying a huge burden already.”

Cutting allocations to London was also a “false economy, doing London down,” Khan said, responding to a question from Conservative Assembly member Thomas Turrell’s, in which he referred to a Labour MP in the north of England celebrating funding moving northwards.

“I welcome a fairer funding formula,” the Mayor continued, “but what I wouldn’t want is money taken away from London, not just because inequalities in London are huge, but because with the right support we can contribute even more to the Treasury, which can then support people across the country.”

The capital’s unique position, making an outsized 25 per cent contribution to the UK economy, needed to be recognised, but the continuing perception that the streets of London “are paved with gold,” also needed countering, he added. “They really aren’t, and the way the proposed formula works doesn’t take into account the needs of our city.”

City Hall would continue to make the case for fairer funding, alongside London Councils, Khan said, and Assembly chair Len Duvall suggested that the Assembly itself could also support that effort, with a further joint cross-party call on ministers. The Mayor agreed; “That would demonstrate a real coming together of ‘Team London’,” he said.

Watch the September Mayor’s Question Time here. The fair funding discussion begins at 2hrs, 36mins. Follow Charles Wright on Bluesky.

OnLondon.co.uk provides unique coverage of the capital’s politics, development and culture with no paywall and no ads. Nearly all its income comes from individual supporters. For £5 a month or £50 a year they receive in-depth newsletters and London event offers. Pay via any Donate link on the website or by becoming a paying subscriber to publisher and editor Dave Hill’s Substack.

Categories: News
Tags: London Councils, Mayor's Question Time, Sadiq Khan

Vincent Stops: Are London’s bus services really getting ‘brighter’?

A new Transport for London advertising campaign does not reflect the gloomy reality of its own performance figures
Vincent Stops

When bus passengers are asked about their priorities, reliability always comes top. The reasons are obvious: commuting time to work, parenting commitments, meeting friends, hospital appointments or getting to school. Knowing a bus will arrive regularly and that you will reach your destination in a reasonable time is fundamental to travel choice, if you have one.

So when I read a Transport for London poster at Dalston Kingsland station recently, with its message about bus journeys “getting brighter”, it angered me enough to refer it to the Advertising Standards Authority. The poster may be cleverly worded, but it isn’t truthful. You have to go back to the early years of this century to find bus reliability figures as bad as they are now.

Transport for London was established in 2000 and very soon was incredibly proud of what it achieved for bus passengers in a remarkably short space of time. The chart below of “excess waiting time” dramatically demonstrates the improvements in reliability between the late 1990s and early 2000s. This was delivered initially by an active Government Office for London and then by TfL itself. The average amount of time London bus passengers had to wait beyond the scheduled period was halved.

Screenshot 2025 09 11 at 19.55.55

The first Mayor of London, Ken Livingstone, understood what mattered to bus passengers and focussed TfL’s attention accordingly. He used a mix of measures to achieve this aim, both physical and financial. At the heart of his policies was the so called “quality incentive contract”, a combination of bonuses and penalties for bus operators to run their contracted bus mileage, and to do so reliably.

Primary amongst the other measures was the London bus initiative, which introduced over 200 bus priority lanes across the city and, crucially, enforced them with cameras. Oyster ticketing reduced boarding times. And, of course, congestion charging was the most effective area-wide method for increasing bus priority. The funding from scheme was directed towards new and better services.

The improvement continued in the early years of Boris Johnson’s time as Mayor, maintaining a golden era for bus passengers, with more frequent services, more routes and route extensions. Passenger levels rose rapidly to 6.5 million journeys a day.

But his good work didn’t last. A second round of bus priority and a second new contract regime to incentivise quality of service were abandoned and the western extension of the congestion charge zone was removed. And in his second term, from 2012, Johnson appointed Andrew Gilligan, a journalist friend and fanatical cyclist, as his “cycling czar”.

The focus of London streets policy turned dramatically from tackling congestion and further enhancing London’s most important passenger service, the bus, to London’s smallest private transport mode, the bicycle. Cycle Superhighways and mini-Hollands consumed much of TfL’s energy and eye-watering sums of money for the next four years. Bus lanes were converted to cycle tracks and motor vehicle capacity was reduced in favour of cycle priority.

With massive amounts of disruption due to road works, the loss of bus lanes and overall motor vehicle capacity at key junctions across inner London, the inevitable occurred – bus journey times got longer. TfL and the bus operators did their bit to maintain performance by adjusting traffic lights to favour buses, shortening bus routes and improving their control of services. TfL officers undertook a lot of work to establish that a decline in passenger numbers was linked to slower bus speeds.

Sir Sadiq Khan’s mayoralty carried on where Johnson’s left off. A new cycling and walking commissioner, Will Norman, continued Gilligan’s focus on bicycles, this time under the cover of a “healthy streets” agenda. There has lately been some recognition of the damage being done to the bus service – hence the poster. But there are inherent contradictions: part of TfL is putting in bus lanes and other bus priority measures, while another part is taking out bus priority and removing motor capacity from bus routes in favour of cyclists.

As a result, bus service performance is the worst it has been since Livingstone’s first term. Reliability is worsening, as shown in the chart. Bus speeds are the slowest they have since the reporting mechanisms of TfL’s I bus system were introduced in 2013. TfL have missed their bus journey time target for the last three years, despite that target being slackened. And what of the actions the poster describes for making bus journeys “brighter”?

A plan published in 2022 promised to adjust traffic signal timings, add bus lanes and increase the hours of operation. These are good things to be doing. However, the root of the problem is that whilst there may be policies supporting buses, London government has been, and continues to, be far too casual about bus performance. The scale of the effort to turn around the decline is woefully inadequate. There are neither the policies nor the commitment to do more. Bus journeys aren’t about to get brighter anytime soon.

Vincent Stops is a former Hackney councillor and lead member for transport who worked on streets policy for London Travelwatch, the capital’s official transport users’ watchdog, for over 20 years. Follow him on X/Twitter.

Categories: Comment
Tags: buses, Transport for London