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Dave Hill: Mending the Met means rising above the culture warriors

Improving London's policing requires continuing focus on higher standards and a refusal to be swayed by low forms of political pressure
Dave Hill

Something unusual happened the other day – a media story about the Metropolitan Police that everyone stood up to applaud. If you haven’t seen it already, it involved two officers from Lambeth dressed up as Batman and Robin apprehending a pair of fleecers operating the old “three cup” racket on Westminster Bridge. The Met has made the most of its pictures of the arrest and favourable coverage has been widespread.

This entertaining tale of ingenious police work has been pleasing, not least because the brazenness with which scammers have been breaking the law just a stone’s throw from Parliament, where laws are made, has long been maddening and depressing. But the unanimous agreement that Old Bill’s caped crusaders did a heroic job was also sobering for being so rare. It is very far from new for the Met to be the object of disagreement and concern. But has that ever been truer than in recent times?

The striking difference from before is that the Met has been under pressure from just about every political direction. Conventionally, criticism of London’s police has come from the Left, civil libertarians and minority groups often quite rightly enraged by individual examples of extreme misconduct, gross incompetence and unacceptable attitudes. The cases of Stephen Lawrence and Daniel Morgan are among those that come swiftly and chillingly to mind.

But the rise of the populist Right in Britain has seen the Met subjected to a rival castigating narrative, one that has been deployed in the past few years by everyone from the most senior Conservative government ministers to the lowest social media bottom-feeders. In the past, the view from that part of the opinion spectrum was, by and large, to always insist that “our policemen are marvellous”. Today, though, that default defence is often over-run by howling protestations that the upholding of law and order is being undermined by “woke”.

According to this version of reality, a Met that employed the man who, in March 2021, kidnapped, raped and murdered Sarah Everard and that two years later was taken comprehensively to task by Dame Louise Casey in her review of Met culture and behaviour did not need to get acquainted with basic standards of probity and public service so that it did a better job, but instead should be made a target of a Brexit mindset culture war, subjected to accusations of institutional contamination by a “liberal elite” outlook.

Attacking the Met’s control of street protests has been central to these hostilities. The last days in power of Rishi Sunak and, in particular, Suella Braverman, saw them lean on Met Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley to ask for marches in response to the war in the Middle East to be banned, an approach he judged legally flawed and likely to lead to more trouble than it would prevent. His Tory assailants’ view seemed to be that such things were unimportant if there were electoral points to be scored.

More recently, the same chorus has proclaimed that the (mostly non-violent) Black Lives Matter protests of 2020, many of which took place in London, were handled less forcefully than the (mostly violent) protests around the country, including in Whitehall, in the wake of the Southport child murder horror, supposedly revealing a discriminatory “two-tier” approach.

This line of argument, pursued by the now wildly extreme Telegraph and the Spectator as well as by the familiar far-Right broadcaster and social media agitator herd, has been condemned as “disgraceful” in a new report by the cross-party, Conservative-chaired Commons home affairs select committee about police responses to last summer’s disorder. It is, though, unlikely to go away while the usual suspects believe maintaining it suits their purposes.

Such is the climate in which Rowley, backed by Sir Sadiq Khan, has been striving to implement the Met’s “turnaround” plan and pursue its mutually-reinforcing goals of increasing trust in the service, reducing crime and raising standards.

He has secured successes, rooting out many who are unfit to wear the uniform and lifting the Met out of the police inspectorate’s “enhanced monitoring” programme at the start of this year. But he has had setbacks too, including budget strains the Met says mean that 1,700 warranted and support officer and staff jobs will have to be axed from the current total of 46,000 during the next financial year, despite increases in funding support from both the government and the Mayor.

That is not good news at a time when London’s population and demands on the Met keep on growing. Even so, progress is being made in the right direction. The low drumbeat of goads, grievances and insinuations from those who resent it must not be allowed to impede it.

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. Image from Met Police YouTube.

Categories: Comment
Tags: crime, Mark Rowley, Metropolitan Police

Wandsworth: Labour leader faces challenge from within party group

Simon Hogg led his party to a landmark victory in 2022, but sources say he could soon be toppled by fellow councillors
Dave Hill

Wandsworth Council will soon have a new leader if an expected challenge from with its majority Labour group to current group and council leader Simon Hogg is successful, with a decision likely to be made at a meeting scheduled to take place later this month.

Sources say Hogg’s fellow Labour councillors Kate Stock and Rex Osborn have been seeking support in advance of the group’s annual general meeting, due to take place on 22 April, though it may be that only one of them eventually stands in the election for group leader. Neither have so far responded to On London‘s attempts to contact them.

Stock is Hogg’s fellow representative of Wandsworth’s Falconbrook ward and the council’s cabinet member for children, and Osborn represents Tooting Broadway ward and chairs the council’s general purposes committee.

In May 2022, Hogg led Labour to its first victory in Wandsworth since 1974, depriving the Conservatives of a borough that had long been one of their London and national flagship local authorities.

Labour currently has 34 councillors compared to the Conservatives’ 23, and one Independent. The Tories are hoping to regain control at the next full borough elections in May 2026. London by-elections since the general election last July have seen Labour losing support.

Under Hogg’s leadership, the council has continued the Conservatives’ tradition of setting low Council Tax rates, and will charge Band D households £990 in total for the financial year 20025/26 – the capital’s lowest. It has claimed success for its Cleaner Borough Plan, saying this has increased recycling and enabled more money to be spent on cleaning services, and promoted “active travel”, with more road space being allocated for exclusive bicycle use. It was chosen by Sir Sadiq Khan to be London Borough of Culture for 2025.

On housing policy, the council has recently proposed changes to its Local Plan, which it argues would result in private developers providing greater numbers of homes for social rent, though this has been opposed by City Hall, which has argued that it would have the opposite effect.

Wandsworth has recently been criticised by the Regulator of Social Housing, which found “serious failings” in its duty to meet legally-required health and safety standards for tenants, such as around 40 per cent of its 17,000 social rented homes not having had an electrical safety test and almost 1,800 “overdue fire safety remedial actions”. The regulator also found that Wandsworth “does not have up to date information on the condition of most of its homes”.

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: News
Tags: Council Tax, Labour, Wandsworth Council

Lewis Baston: Labour takes London by-election beatings from two directions

The Greens made a big gain in north London and the Liberal Democrats secured an emphatic hold in the suburban south-west
Lewis Baston

There were two London borough by-elections last Thursday, 10 April. They produced two bad results for Labour and two convincing victories for rival parties of the centre or left. The more dramatic came in Haringey, where the Green Party gained the St Ann’s ward. But a Liberal Democrat hold in Sutton Central had its own lessons for London’s political parties.

***

The Haringey St Ann’s contest was triggered by the resignation of Labour councillor Tammy Dymas, who had become disenchanted with Labour national government policy on a range of issues, including the funding of local government, telling the Ham & High: ‘The Labour Party nationally is making our lives difficult to deliver the services we need to so it’s very hard to justify continuing to be a councillor for a party who is doing that.”

Dymas felt unable to vote for the cuts in Haringey’s budget and, like several councillors recently, became concerned about personal safety, blaming transphobic threats against her and abuse. Disaffection with Labour is not unique in the former “Corbyn council” – since 2022, three Labour councillors have formed an Independent Socialist group and one has gone Independent.

St Ann’s was a most unwelcome ward for Haringey Labour to defend. It was a target for the Green Party in the 2022 borough elections, where it polled 41 per cent – easily the party’s best in Haringey – compared with Labour’s 52 per cent. In 2018, the Greens had polled more than a quarter of the vote in the larger version of the ward that existed before boundary changes in 2022 created a new Hermitage and Gardens ward.

A two-member ward in the west of Tottenham, St Ann’s is basically a combination of the west side of Seven Sisters with the south of West Green. It is a typically mixed, diverse slice of middle London – 49 per cent white, a mosaic of housing tenure, profession, deprivation, and religion. The ward’s best-known landmark for the casual observer is the cheerful snail mural on the gable end of a house on Victoria Crescent facing Seven Sisters Road, which has lifted the hearts of passers-by since the mid-1970s.

The 2022 election was fought between Labour, the Greens and Liberal Democrats. Other candidates came forward to fight the by-election, representing the Conservatives and Reform UK from the Right, and two from the Left in the form of TUSC (Trade Union and Socialist Coalition) and the Communist League. But none of these stood much of a chance in what was always going to be a Labour versus Green contest. The Greens used Lib Dem-style bar charts to make the point.

Their candidate, Ruairidh Paton, is a worker for a youth climate group. Labour’s defence was in the hands of Stephen Tawiah, an asylum and human rights lawyer. The result was a big win for the Greens. Paton was elected with 1,059 votes (55 per cent) to 589 (31 per cent) for Tawiah. None of the other candidates managed as much as five per cent of the vote. Turnout was 29 per cent, which is not bad for a local by-election and down less than three percentage points on what it was in the full borough elections in 2022.

Although St Ann’s was a particularly vulnerable ward, the result reflects general disaffection among Labour’s metropolitan core vote, as did the Ilford Independents’ triumph in Redbridge two weeks earlier. Labour’s national strategy has taken this vote for granted, and the party has been bleeding votes to its Left and to abstention since before the July 2024 general election. Where a clear alternative exists, voters who were enthusiastic Labour supporters in 2017 or even in 2019 will coalesce around it to give the government a kicking. Councils such as Haringey are collateral damage, both for the national government and for angry voters.

***

Sutton Central is accurately-named. It contains the town centre of Sutton and some surrounding residential areas, mostly to the north and east of the High Street. Sutton formally became part of Greater London in 1965, but it has been in the metropolitan region for much longer.

My 1876 Hand Book of the Environs of London by Dr James Thorne notes that “Sutton has of late years grown largely in wealth and population. Its easy distance from London, the railway facilities, the proximity of the Downs, the pleasantness of the scenery, and its reputed salubrity, have made it a favourite residence for City men, and houses have been built for their accommodation on every available site.”

Earlier in the 19th Century its reputation was rougher, the main landmark being the Cock Hotel run by former boxer “Gentleman” John Jackson, which was the last place before Epsom racecourse where crowds could watch animal-baiting. The Cock’s sign is preserved as a feature of Sutton High Street.

There may not be blood sports in the streets of Sutton any more, but local politics has tended to be a cruel business for parties other than the Libs Dems. The party has been in majority control since 1990 – only five boroughs have a longer continuous record of single-party majorities.

The origins of Lib Dem strength in Sutton are a bit different from those in Richmond-upon-Thames. Sutton is much less dominated by the wealthy and educated who make up the party’s core demographic. It is more ordinary outer London territory, reminiscent of Bexley, and was one of the five boroughs to vote Leave in the 2016 Europe referendum.

It is historically contingent on a December 1972 parliamentary by-election, which was won by the Liberal Party candidate Graham Tope from a standing start. Tope lost the seat in February 1974, but in May of that year was elected for Sutton Central ward, which can claim to be one of the hearths of Liberal activism in Sutton.

Tope, who was appointed to the House of Lords in 1994, remained a councillor until 2014. The local party has kept up a classic campaigning machine – pavement-pounding councillors and activists, year-round Focus newsletters and an emphasis on very local issues.

While the Lib Dems have been dominant in Sutton, including Sutton Central, opposition has not melted away. Being in power a long time means being held responsible for unpopular decisions, such as the siting of an incinerator in the east of the borough, and the last couple of sets of borough elections have produced smaller majorities than the Lib Dems have been accustomed to.

There was a serious prospect of them losing in 2022 despite the favourable national background, but in the end they managed a three-seat majority. Sutton Central was one of the wards where the line held, despite a strong Labour challenge in a three-way contest. The ward is demographically one of the more Labour-inclined parts of Sutton, being largely composed of flats rather than suburban houses, and with an above-average proportion of social housing for the borough.

Another symptom of longevity in power is splits and personality conflicts. It appears that these lay at the root of the Sutton Central by-election. Outgoing councillor David Bartolucci had previously been deputy leader of the council, but had fallen out with colleagues over a town centre redevelopment project. Relations had broken down so badly that he stopped going to council meetings and was disqualified for non-attendance.

Long-term incumbency, the 2014-22 decline in Lib Dem dominance at council level, the ward’s marginality and the embarrassing reason for the contest could have made Sutton Central a difficult defence. But the result was a comprehensive Lib Dem victory.

New candidate Richard Choi (pictured), a member of Sutton’s sizeable Hong Kong Chinese community, was elected with 1,291 votes (56 per cent, compared to 39 per cent in the 2022 borough elections) and a landslide majority over a splintered opposition. Labour’s vote share fell from 27 per cent in 2022 to nine, a result that should be nearly as mortifying as the one in St Ann’s. The Conservatives took second place by default, but their vote share was down by nine percentage points. Reform will probably be a bit disappointed by its 12 per cent share.

There are not many places where one can imagine the Lib Dems facing off against Reform, but Sutton is one of them. The Sutton Liberal Democrats can look forward to the 2026 borough elections with some confidence after Thursday’s strong swing in their favour.

Support OnLondon.co.uk and its writers for just £5 a month or £50 a year and get things for your money that other people don’t. Details HERE. Follow Lewis Baston on Bluesky. Photo from Lib Dem victory Richard Choi’s X/Twitter feed.

Categories: Analysis
Tags: Conservatives, Green Party, Haringey Council, Labour, Liberal Democrats, Reform UK, Sutton Council

How to rid London’s high streets of their rubbish

A new report supported by some of London's Business Improvement Districts suggests ways to do away with unloved heaps of commercial waste
Dave Hill

“Many of London’s high streets are dirty,” says a new report about how to put that right. “This is not due to careless fly tippers. It is the system operating normally.”

Compiled by Nicholas Boys Smith and Tom Noble of Create Streets, and funded by three of London’s business improvement districts (BIDs), it addresses problems with commercial waste and why so much of it is left lying around. Three key issues are defined:

  1. Britain’s waste collection market is “uniquely fragmented” and under-regulated, with consequent pile-ups of “rubbish refuse” on pavements commonplace.
  2. These unsightly heaps are bad for high street businesses.
  3. Waste mounds attract pests and other litter, and the systems for clearing them add to traffic, noise and pollution.

The last of these, the report says, creates “a vicious cycle of decline and degradation” in the context of “increasing business costs and cash-strapped local authorities”. Moreover, the authors fear that the government’s introduction next year of its “simpler recycling” rules and plans for a future “deposit return scheme” for drink containers could have unintended consequences in terms of burdens for high street businesses. They ask: “Is it possible to have a system that works for businesses, improves low recycling rates, and keeps our streets clean?”

Well, maybe. And it surely ought to be, given the avoidable nature of this aspect of what is wrong in Britain’s big city high streets.

The report isn’t solely about London, but the capital is its primary focus. The size and the ubiquity of commercial waste intrusion on pavements is illustrated by Bond Street, our very poshest. Even there, it is not unusual to encounter “heap afer heap after heap of piled and tumbling rubbish”. That is despite Bond Street benefiting from a “consolidation scheme”, designed to concentrate collections at particular times.

Camden Council, which includes part of the West End, has a Love Clean Streets app and website and encourages residents to use them to report fly tipping. The report includes a heat map showing how prevalent rubbish pile-ups are in some of Camden’s busiest commercial areas. The borough is – partly precisely because it enlists local people to assist it – considered to be better than most at keeping its streets clear and tidy, which makes you wonder what the less good are like.

The report also draws attention to a survey conducted by one of the three the BIDs supporting it, Central District Alliance – the other two are London Heritage Quarter and South Bank – showing how important cleaner streets are to its members and argues that fewer but more effective collections could make a significant contribution to reducing congestion and associated poor air quality. A nationwide study commissioned from Deltapoll finds that the public find rubbish-free streets strikingly more “pleasant” to behold than those dotted with even neatly-bagged heaps of rubbish.

There is some crossover between commercial waste and the domestic waste of people who live above shops. The report looks at the work of what used to be called the London Waste and Recycling Board, now shortened to ReLondon, in busy Upper Street in Islington. ReLondon is a partnership between City Hall and London boroughs to try to make a better job of waste management with the goal of turning London into “a leading, low-carbon circular economy” or, in plainer language, one where people “waste less and reuse, repair, share and recycle more”.

The report praises the simplicity of one solution, re-purposing grit bins, but also the great complexity of putting it in to effect, involving draining searches for sign-offs from Transport for London (Upper Street is a red route), allaying the concerns of the police, who feared the new bins would be used for stashing weapons or drugs, and lots and lots of “on the ground” engagement with shopkeepers and residents.

The report comes up with three sets of recommendations.

  1. In the short term, more Bond Street-style consolidation schemes, more use of e-cargo bikes for collections, and more centralised locations for depositing waste that don’t look horrible.
  2. In the medium term, councils making better use of powers they already have, higher fines for those who break existing rules, and simplifying enforcement systems.
  3. In the long term, fewer and better commercial waste collection operators, creating a new category of “ordinary commercial” waste which would enable smaller firms to use ordinary municipal services in return for a small fee, and setting up a zones in which a single operator is responsible for everything.

“Through a range of solutions, from small scale, bottom-up collective action through to top town regulatory changes, we can create high streets that are cleaner, more sustainable and more inviting for everyone,” the report concludes. Read it in full here.

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 from the “Rubbish Refuse” report.

Categories: News
Tags: Create Streets, environment

News: Senior Tory reported over image which ‘depicts violence’ against Sadiq Khan

Former Conservative London Mayor candidate Susan Hall is the subject of a City Hall code of conduct complaint for recent social media activity
Dave Hill

Social media output by Conservative London Assembly member (AM) and former mayoral candidate Susan Hall attacking Sir Sadiq Khan has prompted a complaint to the Greater London Authority’s monitoring officer, who has a statutory responsibility for ensuring that City Hall politicians adhere to its Code of Conduct, including by investigating potential illegality.

The complaint has been submitted by Labour AM Leonie Cooper in relation to Hall responding to an AI-generated image depicting the Mayor drowning at sea by suggesting “a ULEZ camera” should be thrown to him.

The image was originally posted by a far-right activist and prolific poster on X who describes himself as a “patriot” defending free speech and expresses support for Reform UK, whose leader, Nigel Farage has vowed to replace the Tories. He asked his followers what they would “throw to save Khan”, prompting Hall to publish her remark.

In a statement, Cooper said “these comments and images are unacceptable and any politician should be able to see that”. While emphasising her view that political disagreements and robust debate are “vital to the democratic process,” Cooper added that “reposting, sharing and making jokes about AI generated imagery which depicts violence against politicians is beyond the pale”.

Hall, who chairs the Assembly’s police and crime committee, lost last year’s mayoral election to Khan by eleven percentage points following a campaign which prominently featured a pledge to do away with the Labour incumbent’s expansion of the ULEZ – the Ultra-Low Emission Zone – to cover the whole of Greater London.

She received criticism during the campaign for past social media posts, including an endorsement of a fellow X-user who cited Enoch Powell as an example of how to “get London back” and a reposting with thanks of far-right agitator Katie Hopkins describing Khan, a Muslim, as the “mayor of Londonistan”.

More recently, Hall has used X to express support for Rupert Lowe MP, who is currently suspended by Reform following claims about his conduct, which he denies. Other interventions on X by Hall this year include reposting a claim by nationalist-populist activist David Atherton that Southport murder Axel Rudakubana “probably was a Muslim terrorist”. The chief constable of Merseyside had previously told MPs that this was not the case.

Hall has also endorsed the view that businessman and Reform backer Charlie Mullins OBE was a victim of “free speech” double standards after he he was rebuked for “bringing the honours system into disrepute” by suggesting on X that “someone should kill” Khan over the ULEZ expansion policy.

Khan has long received round-the-clock police protection due to the high number of threats he receives, many of them related to his Muslim faith, both from far-right and Islamist extremists.

Cooper’s complaint about Hall relates to a “general obligation” under the Code of Conduct to “treat others with respect” and to avoid conduct “which could reasonably be regarded as bringing your office or Authority into dispute”.

She points out that Hall pinned her “ULEZ camera” remark to the top of her X feed, ensuring its high prominence, and that it attracted a number of “abhorrent” comments. “I hope Assembly Member Susan Hall takes the opportunity to reflect and apologise,” she said.

The Conservative London Assembly group has been approached for comment.

Updated, 10 April 2025 at 07:27.

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: News
Tags: Conservatives, Leonie Cooper, Susan Hall

Jenevieve Treadwell: London must rev up its EV chargers

Transition to electric vehicles is racing ahead, yet vital infrastructure for them in the capital is patchy
Jenevieve Treadwell

Picture the scene. You are part of an increasingly environmentally-friendly police force. You are responding to an emergency call in Havering, driving fast, lights flashing, when you realise that the battery of your electric squad car is about to die. Where can you charge it?

In Havering, the situation is particularly challenging. According to Open Charge Map data there are around 12,000 charging stations in London, of which just 36 are in Havering. Of those, more than half have access to them restricted in some way, including through private membership schemes.

Furthermore, only 16 of the 32 offer fast-charging points (50kW or above) and only seven of those are for public use. The ultra-fast chargers (150kW+) which are preferred by emergency services are even harder to find – there are only three such charging stations in the entire borough offering these highest speeds to everyone.

This problem is not unique to Havering. London’s charging infrastructure varies hugely by borough, but in most places there is simply not the right volume of the right kind of connections to meet the needs of the public or the emergency services.

To address this shortage, the Metropolitan Police have begun to invest in charging infrastructure at its own sites. In 2022, of the 128 Met buildings with parking facilities, about 33 had electric charging stations. This translated to 264 individual charging points across the Met’s estate. But by 2024, the number of points had grown by only 55, to a total of 319. This is equivalent to about 49 electric or hybrid cars per charging station, or five Met cars per charging point.

The issue has become particularly pertinent with the Met’s transition from petrol and diesel to electric. At present, roughly one in three police vehicles are electric or hybrid. So far, much of the infrastructure strain has been mitigated by a reliance on hybrids. Between 2021 and 2023, the Met acquired 437 hybrid cars and only 30 pure-electric cars.

But in less than five years, the Met will not be able to buy new petrol or diesel cars. In 10 years, they won’t even be able to buy hybrids. Instead, they will have to buy exclusively electric when replacing old vehicles. The Met has already taken this into account in terms of the models they plan to buy, with an additional 677 electric vehicles to be bought by 2030. But where will their increasingly electric fleet be charged?

We have been in something of a chicken-and-egg situation when it comes to electric vehicle infrastructure. For policymakers and companies to make the necessary investment, there needs to be a wide usership of electric cars. And for consumers to buy electric, they need to believe there are sufficient chargers for them to avoid running out of power when driving around.

That loop has now been partially broken. Although the Labour government has in recent days partially relaxed electric vehicle sales targets in response to Donald Trump’s tariffs, its ban on selling new petrol and diesel cars will still come into effect in 2030 and its ban on sales of hybrids from 2025 is unchanged, too. Also, many public bodies have their own, separate commitments to Net Zero, such as the Met’s target of having a zero emission fleet by 2050. As a result, the number of EVs on our roads is going to grow. But so far the number of charging stations isn’t keeping up.

Access to charging stations varies hugely across the city. On the whole, outer London has worse coverage, though it is particularly limited in the outer east: Barking & Dagenham, next door to Havering, is the most poorly-served borough of all, with just under 30 charging stations. By contrast, the number of vehicle chargers is highest in inner London. Hammersmith & Fulham has over 1,700 stations and Southwark has around the same number.

Car ownership is lower in the inner boroughs, but electric vehicles (EVs) tend to former a bigger part of the market in those local authority areas, as shown by the map below. Yet at the same time, because overall car ownership rates are higher in outer London boroughs, the total number of EVs there is bigger.

Screenshot 2025 04 08 at 18.10.09

By looking at the number of charging stations per electric car registered in London’s local authorities, we can get a better picture of what provision across the different boroughs is. It turns out that Hillingdon, at the outer edge of west London, has the highest EV to charging station ratio in the city. There are nearly 16,000 electric vehicles registered in the authority, but only 113 charging stations. This equates to 140 EVs for every one of them. Havering has a ratio of 121, while Bromley and Harrow aren’t much better off with 118 EVs for every charging station.

In inner London, the ratios are a lot smaller. In Hammersmith & Fulham there are seven EVs to every charging station, although it is Southwark that has the lowest ratio – its roughly 1,700 stations mean that its 3,391 EV drivers enjoy a ratio of two to one.

Screenshot 2025 04 08 at 20.03.03

It’s also important to note that not all charging stations are created equal. The majority of chargers in the city are either slow or fast – taking anywhere from two to 12 hours to charge a car. Rapid is anything from 50kW up and ultra-rapid is above 150kW. The London-wide distribution of the differently-powered chargers is shown below.

Screenshot 2025 04 08 at 20.06.00

The patchy coverage and slow charging are not going unnoticed. YouGov found that for one quarter of Londoners, the biggest barrier to getting an EV would be their inability to charge it at their home – unsurprising, givnen that 56 per cent of us live in flats. Nearly 40 per cent of Londoners would be put off purchasing an EV because of the lack of public charging infrastructure, making it a bigger concern in the capital than anywhere else in the country. And 16 per cent of us would be put off by slow charge times.

The Mayor’s London electric vehicle infrastructure delivery plan acknowledged that infrastructure limitations are a key concern. But the team behind it also acknowledged obstacles to EV uptake more fundamental  than the lack of chargers, including complicated and inconvenient charging systems, higher energy costs and competing pressures on the grid. Getting these basics right is essential to ensuring that the new wave of EVs doesn’t hit a wall.

Footnote: All Open Charge Map data is open source data, not official government body statistics.

Jenevieve Treadwell is a Policy Fellow working on the LSE’s Leading for London programme. Follow her on X/Twitter. 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.

Categories: Analysis
Tags: environment, Havering, transport

Dave Hill: West End problems stem from new consumer appetites and crime

Last week's government announcement that the Mayor might get more powers over borough licensing was a bit beside the point
Dave Hill

It was a lovely photograph, the Mayor, Chancellor and Deputy Prime Minister at Ronnie Scott’s making a harmonised “last orders” call on “red tape” the government proclaims is “choking” restaurants, pubs and clubs such as Ronnie’s, a Soho institution since 1959. Scott himself, a saxophonist and compere, would urge audiences to “join hands and contact the living“. A sceptic might invite last week’s politician line-up to get in tune with West End reality.

Top of the bill was a pledge to arm Sir Sadiq Khan with “new powers to review blocked licensing applications and boost the capital’s night time economy”. What blocking, though? What powers, and when? In Westminster, well over 2,000 licensed premises can stay open until midnight or later, including nearly 300 – including Ronnie’s – until at least 3am (figures below from Westminster Council document).

Screenshot 2025 04 07 at 18.43.21

Theatreland, by the way, is roaring. And while a “landmark pilot” which “could” lead to more al fresco dining and later opening hours is promised, the small print is vague, mentioning only the possibility – nothing more – of a new “call in” power for City Hall over borough licensing decisions defined as having “strategic” significance.

The initiative speaks to media preoccupations and industry beefs about the capital’s central pleasure zones, but has a tin ear for other concerns. The recent case of the proposed Blue Note Jazz Club in Covent Garden illuminates these. The plan was to launch a 350-seat venue in a St Martin’s Lane hotel basement with a drinks licence until 1am. This was refused because the Met expressed concerns about the safety of people leaving the club in the small hours, maybe female, maybe tourists, maybe drunk and maybe, as a result, easy targets for thieves and worse.

The applicant, dismayed, hopes to win an appeal. But whatever the rights and wrongs of that particular example, it highlights wider worries about street criminality across the whole of the West End, long profitable territory for such activity but lately a lot worse. The cops, you might contend, should be doing their job, not penalising jazzers because they can’t. Perhaps, though, they’re just facing reality, with phone-snatching on the rise and officer numbers set to fall. And what would a collapse in confidence in public safety do for trade?

There are other trends in motion in this landscape, among them the decline in alcohol intake among the young. Hospitality bosses know their customers, but what if customer tastes are set for long-term changes to which the sector needs to respond?

The question doesn’t just apply to hospitality. Looking at the West End more broadly, adjustments to changing consumer demands are already underway. Speaking at City Hall last week, Dee Corsi, chief executive of the New West End Company business improvement district, underlined that Oxford Street footfall has been “in decline for a number of years” and is currently half of what it was in 2008, with competition from such as Westfield, west and east, contributing.

She, along with fellow guests, told London Assembly members that a gradual post-Covid recovery is partly down to retailer and Westminster Council responses to “changing customer demands”, with people spending less and wanting something different and more varied from a trip to the West End than they once did. Corsi emphasised that good quality public realm is key to people sticking around for longer and coming back. “Our customers want experiences, they want to be wowed, surprised and delighted,” she said.

The Labour council, not invited to the Ronnie’s gig, just as it was sidelined by last September’s Khan-Rayner announcement that the Mayor wished to take control of Oxford Street, has worked hard since its election in May 2022 to find a post-pandemic way forward with all interested West End parties, including residents, to whom they have democratic responsibilities and not all of whom are stinking rich.

Not their exact words, but senior councillors take the view that one Soho restaurant’s al fresco delight can be one Soho resident’s doorstep puddle of piss. Its recently-published After Dark Strategy reflects a wish to respect and, where possible, reconcile conflicting needs, maintaining, too, that greater night time growth will not happen if crime and antisocial behaviour soar (not for nothing is it doubling its number of CCTV cameras to 200).

It urges a diversification of nocturnal attractions, just as it has sought to help West End retailers with enriching their mix, as shoppers have migrated online and floorspace has gone over to offices. It recognises, too, that pedestrianisation, Khan’s key Oxford Street goal, brings its own public safety challenges.

Such is the shifting context in which the council, the Mayor, national government and a range of sometimes competing business interests often seem to be jostling and jockeying rather more than they are productively negotiating a new West End planning and regulatory settlement for changing, uneasy and uncertain times. The optimal may be contested and elusive. Clearly, though, it is about more than banning traffic and enabling more boozing through ’til dawn.

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
Tags: Oxford Street, Soho, West End

Julie Hamill: I don’t know Bill Nighy, but part of me thinks I do

Living in London often means having chance encounters with the famous, but how familiar with them should you be?
Julie Hamill

I saw Bill Nighy the other day, on West End Lane. He looked exactly like Bill Nighy. My head went: “Oh! It’s Bill Nighy. You know him.” And then: “No, you don’t! He’s an actor. You just like him.”

He strolled past me, carrying on with his business. I then turned around to look at him from behind. He was dressed impeccably in a handsome overcoat, carrying a very stylish bag, and simply and unmistakably being “Bill Nighy” – sharp and chic, elegant and tailored, precisely as you would expect. Probably carries a pocket watch. If he doesn’t, he should.

Of course my head then went, “You should’ve said something”. But what?

“Hiya Bill! You were robbed of that Oscar!”?

Or: “Hiya Bill! I’ve seen that you’re an avid reader! Would you like one of my novels?”

No. Terrible ideas. Plus what writer carries a supply of their own books around?

We walked on in our different directions.

There are loads of famous people roaming around London, as numerous as double deckers. Every time I encounter someone of note I get a familiar feeling and I temporarily think, “Oh, I know them!” when I don’t.

It was only a few weeks ago that retro-national treasure Su Pollard was having lunch at a table beside me in a restaurant Marylebone. I heard her iconic and lovable voice before I saw her face. I knew that voice. I looked over and my mind went, “Hi-de-Hi!” But, I remembered that I don’t know Su.

Ho-de-Ho. I left and headed up Baker Street.

Over the years, there have been many other brief encounters. In the Nineties, I met Jason Donovan in Aldo Zilli‘s. Everybody hung out at Zilli’s (I have no idea why, it wasn’t so great). The details are fuzzy (it was the Nineties, man), but I recall Jason asking me to watch his bag while he went to the loo. I obliged, he returned, and that was that. Any dream won’t do.

At another party, late in the same decade, I met Steve Coogan. He was very charming, as was his girlfriend of that time. When I met Frank Bruno, he decided to change my name to Jimmy. “Ha ha,” I said, and asked him if he wanted punching.

Randomly, I’ve seen (and had that “familiar feeling”) with Eddie Izzard no less than three times on the Tube, with Patsy Kensit twice (once in a designer store in Bond Street), with Jo Brand in an Islington pub, with Gok Wan in Habitat on Finchley Road, with Jimmy Carr at a Soho bar, with Fizz off Corrie in a West End restaurant, and with the very beautiful Catherine Tate outside a classroom at the Sylvia Young theatre school.

One day, outside Regent’s Park, I saw I woman I thought I knew right in front of me, and she was smiling. It flew out of my mouth: “What are YOU doing here?” and we embraced. She said she was going to an art show. In that moment, I realised she was Janet Planet (Grace Stephenson) from Confidence Man, a wacky and wonderful pop act whose every song delights me to the toe. I went to jelly with the cringe and blush. We got a selfie and I died over and over on the way home.

Whilst zipping around Soho with three work colleagues one afternoon, Jeremy Paxman strolled towards us. “Hey look, it’s Jeremy,” one of us said, casually. A section of the pavement between us was narrowed by some builders’ scaffolding. The TV presenter gave way at his end so that we could walk through from ours.

One by one, we passed him going, “Hello Jeremy!” to which he happily replied “Hello!” each time. Four identical “hellos” in a row, he said, in the same cheery tone, as if we were his pals. It wasn’t ’til we turned the corner that we stopped and laughed,

“That was actually Jeremy Paxman.”

“Do you know him?”

“No.”

Back in 2012, I encountered Harry Styles standing outside The Queens in Primrose Hill with Nick Grimshaw. We ended up having a chat and a laugh. “Grimmie” made a comment about Harry liking older women. “She’s not that old!” we all scoffed as a photo was taken. Regrettably, though, in the pic I do look like Harry’s granny. I saw him again recently, at an Electric Ballroom gig. He’d come over to say “hello” to our group. I didn’t say, “HEY HARRY! IT’S ME, YER GRAN! REMEMBER?” But I did think about it.

When my sister came to London to visit with her two sons, we met three notables in the same afternoon. First off was Ed Balls near Great Portland Street. Exuberant and friendly, his piercing blue eyes locked onto my sister’s red hair, and we walked down the street chatting together. I say “we”. I mean the other two. I was the spare part of the group. Ed was warm and cordial. Why are politicians always more likeable after they leave politics, we wondered.  I was told later, by a Scottish political acquaintance, that he was “one of the worst” and it was “advisable not to fraternise with the likes of Balls!”

Later on the same day, we bumped into Dave Myers, one half of cooking duo The Hairy Bikers. My sister got a selfie but Dave acted as if he was meeting someone special. He couldn’t have been nicer, explaining he was only there to have his photo taken beside a poster advertising that the Bikers were appearing at the London Palladium – for Dave, the realisation of a life-long dream. He died, of course, last year. What a sad loss of a gorgeous human. He really was the cream.

Finally, dashing down just off Carnaby Street, we saw Rupert Grint. The “familiar feeling” hit me again, like he was my pal. He rushed past as swiftly as a flying broom, and my nephews didn’t believe us when we told them they’d missed Ron Weasley.

It’s an occupational hazard: in London, the stars live among us. I fully expect to see Bill Nighy on the street again one day. I’ll say nothing, of course. But I’ve ordered a few copies of my books to carry about.

Julie Hamill writes novels, appears on Times Radio and does lots more. Follow her on Bluesky. Support OnLondon.co.uk and its writers for just £5 a month or £50 a year and get things for your money too. Details HERE.

Categories: Culture
Tags: Carnaby Street, Great Portland Street, West End Lane