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Richard Derecki: Happy Nowruz

On Thursday 20 March at 09:01 the sun crossed the equator going north to mark the vernal equinox. This was the point in the year at which day and night became of equal length and, going forward, will mean days becoming longer than nights – astronomical spring. It also marked the start of Nowruz, a festival marking the first day of a new year on the Iranian calendar.

Nowruz, which means “new day”, is celebrated by many peoples across West and central Asia, the Caucasus and the Balkans, but particularly in Iran. Its foundation myths are rooted there, in the pre-Islamic religions of Zoroastrianism and Mithraism. The Islamic Republic  grits its teeth and tolerates this ancient, secular festival. In nearby Afghanistan it has been banned by the Taliban.

Nowruz is a moment in time to say good-bye to the old year (a spring clean is in order), to celebrate the new one, and to look forward with hope and positivity. It is largely based around family get-togethers, with special foods being served such as Sabzi Polo ba Mahi, saffron rice with herbs and fried fish, and Kuku Sabzi, herb omelette made with eggs, parsley, coriander, and other greens.

A table called Haft-Seen (or Haft-Sin) – see below – is laid at home with seven special items that start with the letter “S” in Persian, each one symbolising different aspects of life and well-being – garlic (seer) for health and protection, an apple (seeb) for beauty.

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Families visit each other, ideally within the first three or four days of the holiday, with the older relatives having pre-eminence, to share tea, sweetmeats and nuts and fruit. Children receive Eidi, which is money given by elders as a New Year gift. The holiday lasts for 13 days, and on the  final one, people go outside to be in and wonder at nature, and to enjoy a picnic called Sizdah Be-dar.

But for all these pleasures, Nowruz can be a poignant time for families of Iranian heritage in London. Many are separated from their extended families and forever concerned about their wellbeing in today’s increasingly authoritarian Iran.

The UK has a long, complex and troubled relationship with that country, dating back to the late 16th Century. Most notoriously, the UK was instrumental in the 1953 military coup to overthrow the democratically elected Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh.

He came to power in Iran in 1951 and was hugely popular for taking a stand against the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, a British-owned firm that made vast profits while paying Iran very little and operated as a state within the state. Mosaddegh’s nationalisation of the company led the British government to work with the Americans to remove him.

The initial wave of Iranian migration to the UK began in the 1950s, with students from well-to-do families coming to gain a university education. Some stayed and moved into the professions. The Iranian Revolution of 1979 marked a significant turning point, leading to a substantial increase in Iranian emigration as people fled political and religious persecution.

In a 1989 oral history study called In Exile: Iranian Recollections, part of a project supported by Hammersmith & Fulham Council, five young people told their harrowing stories of escape from Iran and of the initial hardship they faced in London. But they also record the acts of kindness that helped them into a new life.

The Iranian diaspora is very diverse, encompassing various cultural, religious and linguistic backgrounds.* Professional and affluent Iranians initially settled in west London, south Kensington being particularly popular. Working and middle-class Iranians moved into Ealing, Acton and Hammersmith. Iranian Jews escaping persecution following the Islamic Revolution were drawn to Finchley and Barnet.

In these areas, Persian grocery stores, restaurants and cafes and other community spaces have flourished. Ballards Lane in central Finchley has come to be called “Little Tehran”, with its high concentration of Iranian restaurants, sweet shops, cafes, bakeries and money exchanges jostling alongside south Asian, east European and locally owned businesses.

In recent years, the proliferation of Iranian/Persian cooking across London has become marked. Leading the change is British-Iranian chef and author Sabrina Ghayour, dubbed ‘The Golden Girl of Persian Cookery’. She has just celebrated the 10th anniversary of her debut cookbook, Persiana, which has sold over 1.5 million copies.

Persian restaurants traditionally offered a range of grilled meats and kebabs instantly recognised by British palates as being akin to what was supplied in Turkish and Greek doner shops. However, since the early 2010s more sophisticated Persian dishes and Persian-inspired stews infused with flavours of saffron, sumac, cinnamon and rose, and beautifully garnished with walnut and pomegranate seeds have started to take centre stage. Particularly worth noting are the smaller spaces offering “Maman Paz” (home-cooked by mum) dishes, such as Maryam’s Kitchen in south Ealing or Saffron Kitchen on Ballards Lane.

Back in Iran, food can also be resistance. In January 2023, Navab Ebrakimi, an Iranian chef, with over 3.5 million Instagram followers and popular for his effortless cooking of classic Persian dishes, was arrested and his café closed. He was one of tens of thousands arrested as the Iranian authorities clamped down on growing anti-government dissent following the death in police custody of Masha Amini in September 2022 for allegedly wearing a head scarf improperly.

Ebrakimi was eventually released without charge, but it is widely assumed that he had been detained after one of his recipes was interpreted as mocking the death of regime hero General Qasem Soleimani. More widely, some restaurants and cafés have become spaces for political discussion and dissent, including by allowing women to enter without hijabs. Recipes shared on Tik Tok or Instagram can include coded messages as symbols of defiance.

It’s food for thought as you tuck into a Khoresht-e-Karafs (celery and lamb stew) and saffron steamed rice and finish off with a sublime wash of rose water in the classic vermicelli sorbet Faloodeh and celebrate in your own way the arrival of spring, with hope for a better future for us all.

*The word Persian means an ethnic group whereas “Iranian” refers to a political structure and nationality. Persians comprise the majority of the population of Iran, but there are Kurds and Azeris and others living there too. Persians can also be found in Afghanistan and Tajikistan.

OnLondon.co.uk provides unique, no-advertising and no-paywall coverage of the capital’s politics, development and culture. Support the website and its writers for just £5 a month or £50 a year and get things that other people won’t. Details HERE. Follow Dave Hill on Bluesky. Main image by Sarah Rahmani.

Categories: Culture

Redbridge and the rise of east London Independents

Coverage of national politics is often focussed on the challenge to Labour of Reform UK, which has been running close behind the party of government in opinion polls, and sometimes just ahead. But in much of Greater London, recent election results show that Labour faces stronger opposition from very different parts of the political spectrum, varying in strength and character in accordance with local demographics.

The map of general election runners-up below, compiled by the LSE’s Jenevieve Treadwell, shows that the Green Party finished second in many seats in Labour-dominated inner London east of the city’s north-south axis last July. But also significant are the patches of grey, which denote Independent candidates coming second to Labour – the darker the grey, the closer.

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These Independents had more in common than being unattached to national parties. All but one such candidate was Muslim and all placed Gaza and criticism of Labour’s stance on the war there at the centre of their campaigns. This was augmented by policy positions generally to Labour’s left and by claims of being more closely attuned to local voters’ everyday concerns.

The same mix of issues and and emphases helped an Independent win close to 12,000 votes in the Havering & Redbridge London Assembly election last May. He finished fifth but contributed significantly to a split in the left-of-Tory vote that probably weakened Labour’s otherwise decent chance of gaining the seat from the Conservatives.

Before that, in 2023, candidates under the banner of Newham Independents had won two borough by-elections at Labour’s expense. The first of those occurred before the war in Gaza began, which underlines that strong feelings among Muslim Londoners about that conflict haven’t been the only factor behind the progress of Independent candidates of this type.

Earlier still, in May 2022, Lutfur Rahman had regained the mayoralty of Tower Hamlets and the local Aspire Party that he leads won a small majority of council seats (since wiped out), ousting Labour in the heart of the East End. Again, the result, like Aspire, reflected the strong support and concerns of local Muslims.

All of this forms the context for a Redbridge Council by-election to be held on 27 March. It will provide a further test of Labour’s resilience in a part of outer east London where its strength has lately been eroded, most famously by Independent Leanne Mohamad who almost unseated Wes Streeting in Ilford North. Labour candidates won all three Mayfield ward seats with ease at the last borough elections. Defending the one now up for grabs might be much harder.

The seat has become vacant because Labour’s Jas Athwal resigned as a councillor last month. Previously council leader, he stood down from that role after becoming the MP for Ilford South last year. But his pleasure at entering Parliament was diluted by revelations about the poor condition of several homes he owns and rents out through an agent.

To that dark cloud over Redbridge Labour can be added the case of Hainault ward councillor Sam Gould, who has just pleaded guilty to two counts of indecent exposure. Gould, suspended by Labour, was an aide to Streeting. He has now resigned from the council, meaning another by-election will ensue.

These events will have encouraged Noor Jahan Begum, who is running as an Ilford Independent for Mayfield. Begum finished second to Athwal in Ilford South last year with a vote share of 23.4 per cent. She was a long way behind, but Athwal’s 40.2 per cent was 25 per cent down from Labour’s portion in 2019. And if dismay at the plight of Palestinians is, as seems likely, a mobilising issue in a ward where a small majority of residents are Muslim, current events in Gaza could boost support for her too.

In that light, Begum’s media pitch to Mayfield electors has been interesting. Introducing herself as a local person and magistrate who works for the NHS, her written statement is entirely about local issues, criticising both Labour and the Tories, describing Mayfield’s streets as dirty and unsafe while also complaining about “huge tax rises”. Her X output, too, majors on her promise to “be your voice” and provide a change from the council status quo.

Gaza doesn’t feature in these campaign outputs, though it did when she contested Ilford South and the war made a recent appearance in the Redbridge & Ilford Independents’ X feed, which has also likened Redbridge Labour to “a mafia”.

Begum’s campaign and Ilford Independents as an entity, which announced its creation a few days after the general election, is also being energetically backed by the Redbridge Community Action Group (RCAG), which since December 2023, shortly after the Israel-Gaza war began, has been attacking Labour for its stance on the issue, denouncing “Zionists” and re-posting messages about spending cuts from Independent MPs representing other parts of England.

Other backers of Begum include Andy Walker, a supporter of TUSC – Trade Union and Socialist Coaltion – a grouping co-founded in 2010 by the late RMT union general secretary Bob Crow. Walker, whose X output has been reposted by RCAG, was TUSC’s candidate for Havering & Redbridge last year, but he has been helping Begum in Mayfield. Begum has also been joined on Mayfield doorsteps by Rosa Gomez, a Redbridge councillor who left Labour last June, one of three to do so since May 2022.

Will Begum win? Mayfield itself and factors further afield appear to give her grounds for optimism, and a Labour activist told On London that the race is close. That said, though striking, the rise of Muslim east London Independents, often women (though not in the case of Aspire), allied with the far-Left against Israel abroad and public spending cuts at home while also promising to be more receptive than rivals to everyday neighbourhood concerns has not necessarily been victorious, including in Newham and elsewhere in Redbridge last year.

In addition, Labour candidate Mazhar Saleem might be helped by having the Green Party’s Nadir Iqbal Gilani in the candidate line-up too, providing another option for left-leaning voters unhappy with his party. Note, too, that On London‘s elections expert Lewis Baston has shown that Labour support has not, in general, fallen as much in Greater London in general as in other parts of the country and might even be recovering. Another Redbridge Labour activist maintains that most residents recognise that local councillors can do something about getting potholes filled but are unlikely to get Israel out of Gaza.

With the Conservatives, the Liberal Democrats and Reform UK also fielding candidates, Mayfield voters have plenty of choice. The result, as ever, will depend significantly on turnout, with Labour hoping their supporters don’t vote with their feet. Whatever the outcome, though, the new crop of east London Independents seems set to continue to make a mark.

OnLondon.co.uk provides unique, no-advertising and no-paywall coverage of the capital’s politics, development and culture. Support the website and its writers for just £5 a month or £50 a year and get things that other people won’t. Details HERE. Follow Dave Hill on Bluesky. Photo: Redbridge Town Hall.

Categories: Analysis

Charles Wright: Limited competition in City of London elections this year

Almost half of the 100 people who will take seats on the Common Council of the City of London following this week’s elections will have done so without facing any challengers.

Fourteen of the Square Mile’s 25 wards, which are represented by between two and six council members, have only the same number of candidates as Guildhall seats available, guaranteeing that all the candidates nominated for those wards will be elected.

In the previous Common Council elections, held in 2022 – delayed by a year late due to the pandemic – six wards went uncontested.

Candidates facing no competition this time include current policy chair Chris Hayward, effectively the council leader, and Shravan Joshi, chair of the local authority’s powerful planning committee.

The Corporation’s unique electoral system means it’s not just City residents missing out on the chance to exercise a choice at polling stations. Along with the 8,600 people living in the Square Mile, City workers are registered to vote by their employers in numbers based on the size of their workforces.

For businesses of up to 50 people, one voter is selected for every five workers. For those with more than 50 people, ten voters are chosen plus one more for every additional 50. Between them, these voters make up about two-thirds of the electorate.

This entitlement applies to companies, sole traders, partnerships and other bodies, including charities, churches and hospitals, with a physical base in the City. These business electors cast their votes as individuals and the franchise is designed to ensure that the preferences of the roughly 680,000 people who work in the Square Mile are reflected in the Common Council’s composition.

However, the number of non-contests this year means that attendance at many of the traditional “wardmotes” – local eve of poll meetings to quiz the candidates – may be disappointing, despite the traditional proclamations issued by the Guildhall’s tricorne-hatted and mace-bearing ward beadles:

“Oyez, Oyez, Oyez. All manner of persons who have anything to do at this Court of Wardmote…draw near and give your attendance. God Save the King.”

Luckily the beadles no longer have the power to fine non-attendees.

Another quirk in the Common Council voting system is voters are exempt from the requirement recently imposed for all other UK elections to produce photographic ID at polling stations.

It may all look rather quaint for a local authority whose remit is extremely wide, extending well beyond the the Square Mile boundary. What happens there matters in the rest of London and across the country.

As well as the usual council services, the Guildhall runs its own police force and plays a significant role in supporting and promoting its lucrative business sector. When it comes to backing the Square Mile, it has considerable clout.

The shape of the City skyline is largely within its purview  and it is responsible for five Thames bridges and four private schools along with, lately  controversially, the historic Smithfield, Billingsgate and New Spitalfields markets, the last two of which lie outside its boundaries.

Also further afield, its responsibilities include Hampstead Heath, Epping Forest, Highgate Wood, Queen’s Park and West Ham Park, ten academy schools and, surprisingly, the Heathrow animal reception centre. Much of its activity, over and above routine council functions, is funded from significant endowments going back some 800 years, with assets approaching £3 billion in 2023.

The City Corporation was once seen as anachronistic and anomalous at best by Labour, and reforming or even abolishing it was a regular clarion call. When shadow chancellor, London MP John McDonnell pledged to scrap what he called the “last bastion of the undemocratic business vote”.

But that opposition has dwindled, and Sir Sadiq Khan firmly rejected abolition calls in 2016. The corporation, said a City Hall spokesperson, “is the City’s bedrock, playing an historic and vital role representing business. Any suggestion that the Corporation should be abolished is ridiculous and clearly not in the interests of London.”

Labour currently holds five Common Council seats and is standing 13 candidates this time, with a notably high-profile ground campaign being mounted in Vintry ward by public affairs big hitters Jon McLeod and Mark Glover.

Apart from Labour’s forays, the corporation has been untouched by explicit party politics, with all other councillors running as Independents. This time round, 45 such candidates are already sure of their seats. This may not be the finest hour of the “oldest continuous municipal democracy in the UK”.

OnLondon.co.uk provides unique coverage of the capital’s politics, development and culture with no paywall and no ads. Support it for just £5 a month or £50 a year and get things for your money other people won’t. Details HERE. Follow Charles Wright on Bluesky. 

Categories: News

Dave Hill: Chris Philp’s ‘foreign’ claim about London social housing was inflammatory and false

According to Chris Philp, MP for Croydon South and aspiring to be the nation’s Home Secretary, “48 per cent of London’s social housing is occupied by people who are foreign”.

Let’s go through the ways in which that assertion is incorrect, inflammatory and an insight into how far the Conservative Party has fallen.

Philp’s definition of a foreigner and the meaning he ascribes to data gathered during the 2021 Census are, whether by accident or by design, misleading and feed an ugly and untrue far-Right story about London in particular and immigrants in general.

In making his remarks on X last week, Philp gave fresh momentum to that story, even though it has been being convincingly challenged since at least the back end of 2023 after it began circulating.

There are two big problems with what Philp claimed:

  1. The 48 per cent figure is not, in fact, a measure of the proportion of those living in London social housing who were born overseas.
  2. Even if it was, many of those the 48 per cent figure does refer to, who were indeed  born overseas, are British citizens.

The Census data Philp relied on isn’t about the total number of London social housing occupants at all. Rather, it records the “household reference person” of such dwellings.

In UK statistics, the term household reference person (HRP) is an updated version of the older concept of the “head of the household”. It means one individual within a household, the one in whose name the accommodation is owned or rented or is otherwise responsible for it.

So although the Census data says that 376,754 HRPs in London social housing out of the 790,959 recorded were born outside the UK – 48 per cent of them – it doesn’t follow that 48 per cent of all London social housing occupants were born outside the UK.

Dealing first with those 376,754 HRPs, is Philp right to call them all “foreign”? Many people who migrate to the UK from another country later attain British citizenship and receive a certificate to prove it, along with a welcome pack.

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Having British citizenship is a type of British nationality. A migrant who becomes a British national is, like all other British nationals, entitled to apply for the British passport, and will probably get one.

Looking at Londoners as a whole – all nine million or so of us, regardless of housing tenure – the 2021 Census found that 41 per cent of us were born overseas, but only 23 per cent had a non-UK passport.

Some British citizens do not have a UK passport and might have one for another country – Ireland, for example – meaning they have dual citizenship. It’s a bit complicated. But unless the London HRPs born overseas have been attaining British citizenship (mostly through “naturalisation”) at a far slower rate than other Londoners born overseas, a big chunk of that 48 per cent will no longer be considered foreign nationals by the Home Office. Many will not have been so for decades. Yet Philp, who would be Home Secretary if the Conservatives were in government, thinks it’s OK to go on calling that category of his fellow Britons “foreign”.

When we consider the other occupants of London social housing whose Census HRP was born overseas, the 48 per cent figure looks even dodgier. Many of them will be that person’s children or even grandchildren and there’s a good chance that they have been British since birth and if not become to later.

Thanks to PA media’s analysis of December 2023 we know that other Census data shows that in 2021 more than 1.3 million UK-born people were living in social housing in London compared to about 525,000 who were born overseas. That’s about 29 per cent.

And once you then strip out those born overseas who have become British citizens, the figure for non-UK passport holding Londoners mentioned above suggests about half of them might be British citizens too. Others have  looked into this and found it to be less than 15 per cent – that’s a lot less than 48 per cent.

Why did Philp think it a good idea to revive this, to put it mildly, questionable and discredited narrative? The answer appears obvious: it is part of his party’s strategy to fish for voter support in the same pool of anti-immigrant sentiment as Reform UK, which is currently ahead of the Tories in opinion polls.

That’s what informs Philp’s slack and emotive use of the word “foreign”. Indeed, the map that forms part of of his X post was compiled by an ardent Reform supporter from the Rupert Lowe wing of that party who uses the same definition.

It’s a formulation that legitimises the mistaken belief that migrants are the cause of London’s – and Britain’s – social housing shortages; the idea that if immigration was stopped there would suddenly be plenty to go round.

Philp also makes the bald assertion that these “foreign” London social housing occupants “have likely paid little or no tax”, providing no evidence to back it up. In summary, his message is: “They’re coming over here, living on benefits and taking all our housing.”

There is also a culture war attack line embedded there, a dog whistle about who is and who isn’t really British that was heard loud and clear by an out-and-out racist who responded favourably to Philp’s post.

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Does Philp apply his definition of “foreign” to all British citizens who were born overseas? To Mo Farah, for example? To his erstwhile parliamentary colleague Nadhim Zahawi? Or does he reserve his pejorative deployment of the word for those most likely to attract resentment from the sorts of people the Tories want to woo back from Reform?

Does he know or care that the figures he has used are wrong and have been shown to be wrong many times, or has he taken inspiration from Donald Trump, who when caught in a lie responds by repeating the lie until, in the minds of those he is able to dupe, it becomes an alternative truth?

Does he care or understand that the distinction he inherently makes between Britons who were born in Britain and those who were not implies that, whatever immigration law says, the latter group should not enjoy the same entitlements as the former? That a two-tier approach to British nationality should apply, with anyone not born here forever treated differently?

The fact that such questions even need to be asked shows how far to the Right the Conservatives have travelled and how low they are prepared to go. And it makes you wonder what depths they might sink to next.

Footnote: Philp has a history of making false claims and failing to correct them.

OnLondon.co.uk provides unique, no-advertising and no-paywall coverage of the capital’s politics, development and culture. Support the website and its writers for just £5 a month or £50 a year and get things that other people won’t. Details HERE. Follow Dave Hill on Bluesky

Categories: Comment

Charles Wright: What has Sadiq Khan’s MIPIM visit achieved?

Sir Sadiq Khan made quite an impression during his first-ever appearance at the MIPIM property conference last week. Property industry figures queued up to welcome his visit, and the high-profile Mayor, according to one report, was “regularly stopped for selfies”. More significantly, he met investors from across the world, including sovereign wealth funds in the Gulf and north American pension funds.

How successful will Khan’s trip turn out to have been? It will be some time before that can be assessed. But the Mayor was certainly sounding particularly business-friendly. “In the real world you’ve got to understand there’s nothing wrong with profit,” he told the Times.

We can expect more action designed to put City Hall on the side of “the builders not the blockers” on top of its recent interventions in Wandsworth and Wimbledon. For example, a streamlining of the Mayor’s policy-heavy London Plan, the development blueprint for the capital, is anticipated over the course of this year.

Getting money flowing in will be the big prize, though. Khan’s pitch, set out in the London Investment Prospectus, features 20 projects seeking a potential £22 billion, ranging from a domestic energy network in Islington to major schemes at Earl’s Court, Brent Cross, Enfield, Camden, Ealing, Docklands, Barking and Old Oak Common.

Many of these are long-standing. Most eye-catching were the inclusion of newer projects such as Network Rail’s plans for Liverpool Street, Waterloo and Victoria stations, as well as the Euston HS2 terminus and Khan’s own plans for the Bakerloo line and Docklands Light Railway extensions and the West London Orbital.

Those three mayoral schemes have long been at the top of Transport for London’s shopping list when negotiating for government funding. Now, as the prospectus states, London is “seeking opportunities to partner with private finance to enable their delivery”. Is this the new normal for infrastructure projects?

The need to supplement public largesse with private cash was spelt out by the then Network Rail chair and former TfL chief Lord Peter Hendy when the controversial Liverpool Street scheme emerged in 2023. This proposed putting a million square feet of office space over the station to finance much-needed upgrades. There was “no likelihood of such a significant improvement in the station without this injection of private sector capital,” Hendy said.

With Hendy now installed as rail minister, that position doesn’t seem to have changed. The same is true of Euston, where the government is relying on private cash to build the new HS2 terminus and update the existing station. Add on Victoria, Waterloo, Khan’s extension plans and the Old Oak Common HS2 station, and we could be about to see a new “golden age” for rail in the capital, rivalling that of the 19th Century, substantially backed by private money.

However, tapping the private sector isn’t new. And it has rarely been a silver bullet. The Jubilee line extension almost never happened when Canary Wharf developers Olympia and York collapsed, putting their promised £400,000 contribution to what was then a £1 billion scheme at risk. When costs escalated, public money filled the gap, as was the case with the Elizabeth line, despite significant business contributions overall.

Just last month MPs on the public accounts committee warned, as Khan had before, that with no detailed arrangements in place, the government’s plans for the private sector to take the strain at Euston carried “huge risk”, potentially leaving taxpayers on the hook for a significant proportion of the estimated £6 billion cost of the scheme.

With other projects, public money has been deployed early on. At the 6,700 home Brent Cross town development the new station, vital to its, progress was built by Barnet Council using £40 million of government funding. And the new station serving Enfield’s potential 10,000-home Meridian Water development was paid for by the council and City Hall.

Old Oak Common, according to new research, is now a “development hotspot”, supporting more than 22,000 homes and almost 19,000 jobs, with a £10 billion boost to the local economy over the coming decade. But that’s on the back of £1.67 billion government money paying the bill for its new HS2 station.

Even at King’s Cross, often seen as the model for urban regeneration, the site’s location at an existing major transport hub underpinned its success, along with government cash for infrastructure and public bodies “de-risking” the scheme by taking up early occupancy, as research by the Centre for Cities think tank points out.

While wooing the private sector, Khan will no doubt be reminding the government of those Old Oak and King’s Cross lessons and hoping he isn’t playing a zero-sum game.

OnLondon.co.uk provides unique coverage of the capital’s politics, development and culture with no paywall and no ads. Support it for just £5 a month or £50 a year and get things for your money other people won’t. Details HERE. Follow Charles Wright on Bluesky. Photo from Deputy Mayor Howard Dawber’s LinkedIn feed.

 

Categories: Analysis

Elin Morgan: ‘Combing out’ Walthamstow’s filmmaking past

There is currently just one cinema in the whole of Waltham Forest. It recently reopened after the chain that used to run it went bust. But 100 years ago an entire film industry was based in the area.

In the early days of the art form, between 1910 and 1930, Walthamstow’s Wood Street was home to three film studios before there were any in Hollywood. Nearly 400 films were made in E17 during the silent era.

If you think it impossible that this three-quarters-of-a-mile stretch on the edge of east London once hosted movie stars and film crews, I wouldn’t blame you. There isn’t much evidence of it.

Quite close to my home is a housing development called Picture House Mews. That has a blue plaque on it, marking the spot where the Cunard film studio, later the Broadwest, stood between 1914 and 1921. There’s another plaque further up the road where the Precision studio, founded in 1910 by the Gobbett brothers, James and David, used to be. But if you’re wanting more you need to search for it.

My own Wood Street history began in the late 1990s when I studied at the Sir George Monoux sixth form college, about 15 minutes’ walk away. We students would come down to Wood Street to buy old books and records in the indoor market. My friend Mike’s dad had a garage on Vallentin Road and I’d sometimes go there on a Friday afternoon for a smoke while Mike tinkered with an engine.

By the time I came to live in Walthamstow, I had been working in theatre for several years. One thing that drew me back was that it seemed to be a creative place with plenty going on. I don’t work in the arts anymore, though. Successive years of budget cuts made it difficult to earn a living.

I’m far from alone in this. Low pay and burnout topped a recent list of reasons why people have left the sector. And trade union BECTU has described an “existential threat” to the UK film industry, with many out of work and uncertainty taking a toll on wellbeing.

It is sad that things have come to this. I’ve come across many examples of the power of the arts to change lives. Perhaps that is why I’m so keen to find out more about the Wood Street film industry, how it shaped the geography of the area and the people who lived there, and share that story with others.

***

My search began in the British Film Institute’s Rueben Library. I had been excited to learn of a film about the highwayman Dick Turpin, made in 1913. Scenes had been filmed at the old dairy yard on Wood Street and in nearby Epping Forest, where the real life Dick Turpin had a hideout. But there is no surviving footage and the two images from the film I found in the archive show actors who seem to be standing in the garden of a stately home.

Fortunately, some other Wood Street films have survived. These can be watched in the Mediateque, the BFI’s free viewing gallery. I settled into one of the snazzy red booths and selected The Mystery of a London Flat, made at Broadwest in 1915. The film being a silent made the headphones provided somewhat redundant, although they did help drown out the gentle snoring coming from the adjacent cubicle.

The 15-minute crime caper involves a detective investigating two incidents he believes may be linked. It was quite hard to follow, although it seems that by the end both crimes have been solved and everyone lives happily ever after. What it didn’t do was provide any clues about where it was shot. The rooms it shows could have been anywhere.

My search continued at home, where I discovered that another Broadwest production is available on the website of the Imperial War Museum. The Adventures of Dick Dolan was made in 1917 in the middle of World War I and has a propaganda aspect to it. I had heard that the first part of the film was shot outdoors on Wood Street and surrounding roads, so I was eager to see if I could map its locations onto the place as it is now.

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The Adventures of Dick Dolan is a morality tale that combines two plots: one about the evils of gambling; the other a story of heroism in which Dolan, a tramp, rescues a young woman whose shoe has got caught in train tracks on a level crossing. Looking at the grainy, grey footage, I’d say the crossing is at Highams Park station, one stop along the Overground Weaver line from Wood Street.

As with The Mystery of a London Flat, it was quite hard to follow the plot. The patriotic message is hardly subtle, but lot of lipreading is needed. Our hero is rewarded with a cash whip-round and invests the money in National War Savings Certificates, which he purchases in Trafalgar Square, earning him a handshake from an British bulldog.

I was struck by a phrase that appears on one of the dialogue intertitles – “Combed out”. The term was used to describe factory workers who were called up to the army, as happens to one of the characters in the film. The practice was controversial and debated in parliament. I spotted several locations I recognised and felt ready to go combing for further lost remnants of the film industry on and around Wood Street itself

***

My investigative walk began at the southern end of Wood Street, where the tree-edged plains of Hollow Ponds meet Lea Bridge Road. It’s a busy intersection hemmed with a cycle lane. At the start of the 20th century, it was the terminus of the tram line from central London. There are low-rise buildings in yellow brick on either side. On the left is Beuleigh Court, where the Precision Studio plaque is.

Next up is Picture House Mews, four red-brick storeys, where the the Cunard and Broadwest studios were. The Cunard venture lasted only a couple of years and not much remains of its legacy. More has been uncovered about Broadwest, a partnership between George Broadbridge, who later became a Conservative politician, and Walter West, a film director and impresario. There are several Broadwest films in the BFI archive along with images of the studio building, a largely glass structure reminiscent of a miniature Crystal Palace.

On the opposite side of Wood Street there is a side street of neat terraced houses called Chestnut Road North, which a UCL film lecturer has identified as the location for some of the outdoor scenes in Dick Dolan.

It’s hard to identify the exact two houses shown in the film, which would have been new at the time, due to the embellishments of UPVC and bay windows that have appeared over the years. But on the bend on the road, I found them. One has its London stock bricks cleaned to gleaming yellow and its door and windows painted trendy grey. Its neighbour is pebble-dashed.

Taking a left turn on corner, exactly as seen in the film, returns you to Wood Street. Ahead is another building shown in the film. It bore a “to let” sign when I found it, though until quite recently it was a depot for the Arla dairy company. Through the chained doors of the yard can be seen a mural of Alfred Hitchcock, the legendary film director who came from nearby Leytonstone.

Screenshot 2025 03 15 at 16.30.24

Looming above the railway bridge ahead is a weird, red postmodern promontory called Northwood Tower. Just to the right as you look at it is what was the exterior of the pub that appears in Dick Dolan. It’s now an off-licence.

Walk under the railway bridge and you’re into in fully-retail part of Wood Street, with grocery shops, bakeries and craft beer stores lining the way. Just past The Duke pub, newly rebranded and painted blue with a dog dressed in red military regalia on its sign, is the setting for a scene which in the background shows a woman leaving a bakery.

I tried to work out which shop it is and what it is being used for today. I think it’s Gigi’s Dressing Room, which hires out outfits for special occasions. I wondered if Gigi knows about the Wood Street films and thought about going in to ask her, but she was busy, as ever, styling a customer.

***

A few days later, I took the short walk to Walthamstow Village to meet Barry Bliss, a locally based film-maker and a key advocate for the blue plaques on Wood Street, which went up in 2017. He’s lived in the area for decades and first learned about the Wood Street studios from the elderly mother of a neighbour who could recall the time when they were operating.

Barry discovered that it cost a shilling to watch a film at the local Picture Theatre, which a 1914 Ordnance Survey map shows had its entrance on Wood Street where the indoor market is today. If you sat behind the screen and watched it in reverse, you only paid sixpence.

He also found out that part of the appeal of Wood Street was the easy access to it by tram for the actors, who apparently travelled to the shoots wearing full film make-up – white pancake, blue lips and red eyeshadow. Quite a sight they must have been for fellow commuters.

Wood Street was also outside of the smoke zone of central London and close to green spaces. Barry told me that the studios were made of glass because, where possible, the films were shot using natural light. Early film lighting had a habit of rendering the actors temporarily blind.

The star of the Broadwest studio was Violet Hopson, a beautiful Australian woman who appears in the Dick Dolan film. She was Walter West’s lover and enjoyed riding up and down Wood Street in her yellow Roadster, no doubt drawing crowds of admirers.

Screenshot 2025 03 15 at 16.28.34

Locals could be relied upon to gather when larger scenes were shot. Extras were recruited in The Duke. Someone from the production team would go into the bar and offer a shilling to anyone prepared to give up their afternoon. Children got in on the act too, bunking off school to be in a movie and being rewarded with a shilling and a hot meal.

It’s hard to know if people from the community secured more permanent jobs in the industry, given that such roles weren’t usually credited. But if they did it wouldn’t be surprising given that, as Barry says, “Walthamstow has got a tradition going back to the 18th century of people being involved in the arts”.

Barry has filmed in the area himself. “I always made it my policy, wherever I could, to have at least one scene round here so I could go home for my tea,” he says. One day, he sent the catering staff home early and taking the entire crew to the late, lamented L. Manze pie and mash shop in Walthamstow Market.

***

Eventually, the expense of filmmaking and the superior production values offered elsewhere led to the demise of Wood Street’s studios. But as I walked home from seeing Barry, I summoned to mind the flickering black-and-white figures of those films gone by: Dick Dolan in his cloth cap and Voilet Hopson bombing past The Duke in her sports car.

Who knows, if we dim the lights, we may just be able to see them again, shimmering like spectres in the window of Gigi’s Dressing Room or darting into a café where today’s Wood Street’s creatives work away, lit by the glow of their screens.

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Categories: Culture

Comment: London’s universities are vital to its future economic growth

As London enters a new chapter with the launch of the London Growth Plan, the city’s higher education sector can be optimistic about the future. Financial pressures, shifting government policies and evolving student needs present challenges but also an opportunity to shape a transforming sector, country and world.

The growth plan will stimulate economic growth, improve quality of life and cement London’s reputation as a global innovation hub. But universities and higher education institutions are vital to making this vision a reality. Having long been engines of innovation as well as providers of key skills, their resilience and adaptability will be essential as London navigates rapid economic, environmental, and societal change.

The capital’s economy is strong and expanding, yet still falls short of reaching its full potential. The London Growth Plan prioritises investment in high-growth sectors such as life sciences, AI, quantum computing and the green economy.

However, long-term success depends on much more than financial backing – it also requires a highly skilled workforce and a seamless link between education and industry. Universities are best placed to deliver this, providing the expertise, research and talent pipeline needed to keep London at the cutting edge.

The plan rightly underscores the need for a skilled workforce. In a fast-evolving economy, employability and innovation must go hand in hand. As the government advances its Get Britain Working agenda, London’s higher education institutions can help design and implement solutions, leveraging their expertise in widening participation and upskilling underserved communities.

For decades, London’s universities have worked with partners to break down barriers to employment and are uniquely positioned to support this national priority. They already make a huge economic impact beyond teaching degree courses, from lifelong learning and professional training to research partnerships and start-up incubation.

Take City St George’s, University of London’s collaboration with Tech City UK, which connects students with fast-growing digital businesses, ensuring that education aligns with industry needs. Another prime example is the University of East London’s investment in entrepreneurial education, which has propelled it from 97th to 4th in the UK for student start-ups.

Since 2018, UEL has both incubated and accelerated hundreds of new student- and graduate-led ventures, demonstrating that targeted university-led initiatives can directly fuel London’s innovation economy.

With the right investment and coordination, London’s higher education sector can continue to drive workforce development in vital growth industries and position London as a world leader in innovation.

London’s universities offer immense value to businesses – from specialist research to next-generation technologies – but external partners often find them difficult to access. The London Growth Plan provides a framework for improving collaboration, encouraging streamlined business partnerships, university-led innovation hubs, and expanded SME engagement.

A model example is London South Bank University’s Help to Grow programme, which supports over 200 SMEs across the capital, helping them scale through tailored growth strategies. Such initiatives demonstrate the tangible economic contributions of universities and their potential to turbocharge London’s business landscape.

In November, education secretary Bridget Phillipson outlined reforms expected from England’s higher education institutions before guaranteeing any future funding boost, including expanding access to higher education, fostering regional collaboration, and increasing efficiency.

Her focus on widening participation aligns with the London Growth Plan’s goal of inclusive development. London already leads in this area – a recent report by London Higher’s AccessHE division found that the proportion of free school meals-eligible pupils progressing to higher education is set to reach 60 per cent within a decade.

However, disparities persist across boroughs, underscoring the need for targeted interventions to ensure economic growth benefits all communities, not just the wealthiest. London’s universities have the expertise, resources and networks to help turn the London Growth Plan into a reality, but they cannot do it alone.

To drive innovation, boost productivity, and secure a diverse, highly skilled workforce, businesses must actively engage with universities, whether through joint research projects, industry-led training programmes or investment in university innovation hubs.

For their part, London’s higher education institutions must take steps to make their expertise more accessible. London’s future prosperity depends on breaking down barriers between academia and industry, scaling industry collaborations, expanding funding for high-impact initiatives that drive economic and social mobility, and a skills pipeline tailored to business needs.

Now is the time to for bold, coordinated action. London’s universities can help create a thriving, inclusive, and sustainable future, not just for the capital, but for the entire country.

Amanda J. Broderick is Vice Chancellor and President of the University of East London and Chair of London Higher. Diana Beech is London Higher’s CEO. Photo: City St Georges, University of London.

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Categories: Comment

Wandsworth: Ideology meets maths as City Hall rebukes Labour council

City Hall Conservatives have been known to upbraid Labour Mayors by pointing out that 50 per cent of nothing is nothing. The barb has been aimed at planning policies requiring half of all homes in new residential developments in the capital to be “affordable” in some form if permission for a scheme is to be granted.

The argument goes that supplying the 50 per cent would so erode developers’ profits that the scheme would be rendered financially unviable. Result? The scheme is abandoned, meaning no new homes of any kind are built, “affordable” ones included.

Some might dismiss this as a traditional Tory aversion to regulation and an unfounded faith in good outcomes flowing from the free play of market forces. Yet a similar case has been made on behalf of Sir Sadiq Khan in a crisp rejection of Labour-run Wandsworth Council’s proposals for changing its local planning rules.

The affair has illuminated both the mathematical calculations that inform Mayor Khan’s policies in this area and conflicting philosophies about housing supply, including within Labour circles. It has also generated some instructive social media exchanges.

The disagreement began after Wandsworth, which came under Labour control in May 2022 for the first time since 1978, submitted draft plans for a “partial review” of its existing borough Local Plan, which was adopted in July 2023.

Mooted changes included give planning applications for private developer house building schemes an incentivising “fast track route” to approval if 45 per cent of the total number of homes envisaged were deemed “affordable”. But Local Plans have to be in what is termed “general conformity” with the Mayor’s London Plan, the capital’s master planning blueprint. The Mayor’s plan has a fast-track threshold of only 35 per cent for sites that are not on publicly-owned or industrial land.

(The Mayor also has an over-arching, long-term strategic target of 50 per cent of homes on all new housing schemes meeting his definition of “genuinely affordable”, but that includes council and housing association schemes and homes build on publicly-owned land, such as TfL’s).

Wandsworth also wants to introduce that are called “late-stage viability reviews” on fast-tracked projects, essentially a way of re-assessing a scheme’s financial calculations to discover if a bit more housing affordability can be derived from it than was originally agreed. This too, says City Hall, is “not in accordance” with the relevant London Plan policy.

Among other issues raised by City Hall is a draft Wandsworth policy about the mix of affordable types in new Build to Rent accommodation and proposed review mechanisms for housing with shared facilities.

The letter also has a section on a Wandsworth viability assessment accompanying its draft Local Plan changes. It says City Hall officers have reviewed this and concluded that “the majority of the scenarios tested” against its provisions “appear to be unviable with 45 per cent affordable housing”.

All told, City Hall thinks what Wandsworth has in mind would result in fewer affordable homes being built rather than the higher number aspired to. In its words:

“Although intended to secure a higher level of affordable housing, in practice this would disincentivise applicants from following the FTR [fast-track route], and require the majority of schemes on private land to be viability tested, slowing down the planning process and requiring additional resourcing to assess applications. Most importantly, it is also likely to result in lower levels of affordable housing being secured and/or reduce the effectiveness of viability reviews.”

Put another way, 45 per cent of nothing is nothing.

The upshot is that the Mayor would make known his “general conformity” concern at future Local Plan consultations and inquiries, which would not bode well for Wandsworth.

The council’s ideas have excited lively debate online. Wandsworth’s cabinet member for housing, Aydin Dikerdem, an unreconstructed Corbynite, has been enthusiastically advocating the proposed changes, as you would expect.

But Sam Dumitriu, head of policy at think tank Britain Remade, said that “forcing developers to sell half the homes they build at a massive discount will kill otherwise viable housing projects”. Referring to Wandsworth’s overall strategy target of 50 per cent affordable, he remarked – conveniently for this article – that “50% of 0 is 0”.

And Chris Worrall, a member of the executive committee of the Labour Housing Group, similarly argued that Wandsworth’s was “bad policy that results in fewer social housing developments”. In a tart aside, he inquired: “Why do marxists not understand maths?” Dickerdem and Worrall engaged in frank exchange of views. Worrall has since written a more detailed critique of Wandsworth’s Local Plan review at Left Foot Forward.

Who is right? I’m leaning towards the Mayor’s point of view on the grounds that not a damn thing is getting built at the moment and his policy chiefs, along with Angela Rayner’s department, are trying every which way to get stalled schemes going as it is, without boroughs providing developers with further reasons for delay.

But, in the end, it’s always, always about balances, priorities, resolving dilemmas and, not to be forgotten, doing whatever it takes to get the most homes with the most affordableness priced in built for as many Londoners as possible. Discuss.

Update, 16 March 2025: It has been pointed out that Wandsworth has, since 2016, had a “shared staffing structure” with next-door, Lib Dem-run Richmond, which in 2023 was told by City Hall that its desire to set a local fast-track threshold of 50 per cent was not in general conformity with the London Plan.

Perhaps Wandsworth, though advised by the same officers and surely familiar with what had happened with Richmond, decided to nonetheless have a go at getting City Hall to accept a higher threshold than its own 35 per cent by going for five per cent lower than Richmond had. If so, it didn’t work.

OnLondon.co.uk provides unique, no-advertising and no-paywall coverage of the capital’s politics, development and culture. Support the website and its writers for just £5 a month or £50 a year and get things that other people won’t. Details HERE. Follow Dave Hill on Bluesky. Photo of Wandsworth Council housing from council website.

Categories: Analysis