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The Square Mile might be reeling but reports of its death are surely premature

The City of London has gone very quiet during the pandemic but its powers of recovery should not be underestimated
Dave Hill

Transport For London’s press release deployed the language of our times to valorise their “temporary traffic restrictions” along Bishopsgate and Gracechurch Street, heading down to the disabled London Bridge. The changes will, it said, “transform one of Central London’s major thoroughfares into a safer and less intimidating place that prioritises people walking and cycling”.

You don’t have to be a sceptic (as I am) about the revolutionary potential of road space reallocation to recognise that the future of the City of London could be a lot different from its recent past. How different, though? And in what ways?

Walking south down the east side of Bishopsgate, inspecting the hopeful blue Streetspace fencing, I passed a large, gold “22” attached to a pillar outside an office block. I couldn’t remember seeing it before. I crossed the road, looked up, and was astonished by the cloud-pricking spectacle of the truly enormous tower that has sprouted there.

It is on the site of what was going to be The Pinnacle, once expected to become the second tallest building in London after The Shard. That fell victim to the Great Recession and this giant has taken its place. “Twentytwo” is 33 feet shorter than The Pinnacle would have been, but it still looks like a lift shaft to the stars. Not yet open for business, it appears to be encased in bubble wrap. Will its 62 storeys ever be filled?

I met a friend at the M Bar in Leadenhall Market, established in 1321 at the heart of what was Roman London and now a celebrated Square Mile shopping and dining spot. I was following in the trail of Karl Mercer of BBC London, who reported from the M Bar the other week. Karl heard that business had become painfully, indeed laughably, slow.

That impression was in keeping with a word portrait of the City by Sky News business journalist Ian King. “Even before Boris Johnson announced a lockdown on 23 March, the Square Mile was beginning to depopulate,” he wrote. And now? “This pulsating financial village feels a shadow of its former self.” King added that, like the Prime Minister, he would “love to see people returning to the office and for the City’s working population to be back where it was pre-crisis.” But is this likely? “Not in the short-term,” concluded King.

And what about the longer-term? My elevenses friend is far more expert in these matters than I. He stressed that everyone is guessing about what might happen next. Not only are the behaviour of the virus and the date of the arrival of a vaccine impossible to reliably predict, so too are the assessments of Square Mile workers and employers of Covid-19 risk. For some, home working has been an unexpected pleasure; for others, taking their chances with corona is a far preferable option to going on being stuck at home all day long.

But, given all that, he thought it reasonable to imagine a Square Mile in which more people work in its offices than before, but for fewer days a week, once the current fear of public transport has receded. Flexible combinations of home and office labour could enable rotating, enlarged casts of staff. Some companies are already trying to offload office space, but there aren’t a lot takers. The alternative might be to make better use of the empty space, including by turning some of it into living quarters and amenities. Young City workers could have a flat “over the shop” as part of their employment deal, affordably housed at the very heart of the greatest city on Earth.

Who knows? But my friend underlined that there will already be people out there thinking about these problems and how to solve them. Eventually, some of them will back their solutions with cash.

It was gone 1:00 before we left. When I’d arrived in Bishopsgate just after 10.00, the area had felt very quiet and I had felt a little blue. But by now Leadenhall’s main avenue was quite lively. Most of the out-front dining tables were occupied. There were even a few a few blokes standing drinking beer. The City might be reeling, but reports of its death are surely premature.

OnLondon.co.uk exists to provide fair and thorough coverage of the UK capital’s politics, development and culture. It depends greatly on donations from readers. Give £5 a month or £50 a year and you will receive the On London Extra Thursday email, which rounds up London news, views and information from a wide range of sources. Click here to donate via Donorbox or contact davehillonlondon@gmail.com. Thanks.

 

Categories: Analysis
Tags: 22 Bishopsgate, Bishopsgate, City of London, coronavirus, COVID-19 London, Gracechurch Street, Karl Mercer, Leadenhall Market, The Shard, Transport for London

Indy Johar & Simon Pitkeathley: We must create a new ‘deep work’ London for the Covid world

The virus has brought the city to a point where how we travel, produce and relate to our own homes must undergo big transformations
Indy Johar & Simon Pitkeathley

It is becoming increasingly clear that London is at a tipping point. Whilst the centre is struggling, the outskirts are beginning to thrive. Covid, Brexit and the broader effects of automation and Industry 4.0 are driving a new way of working. Home has become the place of work, and online shopping and enjoying the areas we live in, the new norm. For the past 50 years London has been home to a high value economy of financial, professional and creative services, and most recently various start-up clusters. This “cognitive” economy has driven the infrastructure and economic geography of London but, as the working patterns of this economy transform, they will demand a New London.

In a Covid world, feeling “safe” becomes a key deciding factor when choosing where to be and who to be with. The talent-led organisations London needs to attract and retain will look to safety first, so we must create “ultra-safe zones“ that feature things like real-time, digital health passports and body temperature surveillance systems, all assisted by state of the art test-and-trace and public health provision. London has shown great leadership in anti-terrorism and this can be built on to help create a 21st Century Social City with strategic ultra-safe bridges to local, national and international partners.

It is clear that the face-to-face economy is not going to disappear. Rather, it’s going from being the default means of organising, to being the high-value means of organising. Whilst, firms are discovering productivity and cost benefits from remote working, these virtual networks also need, and crave, safe places to “land” to do complex work. Gathering for five days in an easily accessible location, attuned for “deep work“ so teams can live and work intensively and safely together, becomes the gap in the market London can exploit. The glamorous head offices in prestigious, now empty, locations can become the new DeepWork/Live infrastructure. Alongside this we need a transformation in London’s housing offer.  

London’s housing was designed to create a place to sleep, shower and store personal effects. Covid has transformed this reality, with the London house now at the centre of work, as well as retail. It is highly likely that a significant portion of the shift we have seen will stick, and that the demands on an evolved London house will be significant. More separated indoor and outdoor spaces with good noise insulation, clean air and great broadband will be essential. And these houses will be located within what we will come to see as a City of Villages.

Londoners, and their spend and time, have been relocated away from Central London retail and consumerism, to Outer London high streets and commuter towns and their communities. We seem to have little choice but to reinforce this transition by making these high streets and parks digitally-assisted, high-quality environments. High streets can and must provide a multi-purpose offer; a hybrid of public services and flexible, experiential retail augmented by food truck infrastructure. Programmable public parks becoming a civic platform for health and wellbeing services. Tree-dense, curb-less streets, that enable easy access for all, as well as shelter from hot weather and flood management, also create the civic-life infrastructure and liveability vital for New London. 

Within this “village” life, we will need to embed skills development and retraining – a next generation of 24 hour polytechnics that include a hybrid of online teaching, apprenticeships and weekend and evening hackathons and ultra-safe residentials.  They will need to focus on data science, 3D printing and manufacturing, coding, languages, the Internet Of Things (IOT,) business and natural asset management, amongst other skills to keep our talent relevant and challenged.

How large this City of Villages becomes and how it interconnects will be a huge part of the new challenge for Transport for London. As we commute fewer days of the week, there will need to be more of us, to compensate for falling riderships, over the longer commuter routes. The City of Villages may have to both densify and extend well beyond what we see as the natural boundaries of London, and public transport will need to be even more integrated in order to release the economies of scale our new, sporadic, travel needs demand. 

At the same time, moving over shorter distances in safety will likely be more of a solo experience. Paris has talked up, and owned, the concept of every Parisian living in a 15 Minute City. London needs its own version. The e-bike and e-scooter revolution can put key parts of our large urban mass within a 20 minute ride. Investing in a “whole of London” e-bike network, with dedicated super-highways, will enable the centre to be accessible to nearly all Londoners and the city’s visitors ultra-safely in under 20 minutes – a 20 minute London. 

As well as “new housing standards“ to promote and support the “new house”, we will need significant investment in our logistics infrastructure to support it. The home is now the end point of distribution. We are going to need to upgrade the North Circular road to be a key logistics conduit. Supplemented by the re-zoning of the associated land and assets, along with devising a charter of interoperability protocols (APIs) for logistics providers in order to minimise journeys. And we will need a “sandbox” of experimental trials, with key partners, in order to achieve this effectively.

We are also going to have to embrace the “deep electrification“ of London. It is already clear that our energy demands are shifting to full electrification. Vehicles, bikes, batteries, heat pumps and endless gadgets all require electrical power. This demands an investment in new energy sources, an upgraded grid and large scale distribution of public charging points. 

And finally, online work, IOT, Augmented Reality and Spatial Computing are all becoming, or going to become, realities within our homes. So we are also going to need GigaBit Fibre, street-to-computer, for all Londoners if we are going to witness a just transition for all.

These investments sound significant, and they are. However, London needs to step forward to embrace the transition. Singapore is already seen as leading the way in terms of safety and security. Paris is already signalling its future as local and liveable.  We need to see ourselves in this context and become the international centre for ultra-safe, deep work. The cities of the world that can demonstrate that they understand the needs of future working, and can claim a clear role within it, will be the ones that the newly distributed and decentralised companies and organisations of all types, and their deep-working teams, will gravitate towards. This transition is going to be painful, as change often is. The question we need to pose ourselves is not can we afford it, nor how do we hold on to what we’ve got, but do we really have a choice?

Indy Johar is an architect and co-founder of Dark Matter Labs. Simon Pitkeathley is chief executive of Camden Town Unlimited.

OnLondon.co.uk exists to provide fair and thorough coverage of the UK capital’s politics, development and culture. It depends greatly on donations from readers. Give £5 a month or £50 a year and you will receive the On London Extra Thursday email, which rounds up London news, views and information from a wide range of sources. Click here to donate via Donorbox or contact davehillonlondon@gmail.com. Thanks.

Categories: Comment
Tags: Brexit, Central London, coronavirus, COVID-19 London, housing, North Circular, Outer London, Transport for London

Central London property group asks government to do more to restore confidence in public transport

Transport secretary Grant Shapps has been urged to continue funding TfL and to improve messaging about bus and Tube safety
Dave Hill

A leading London property sector body has called on transport secretary Grant Shapps to do more to build public confidence in the capital’s public transport networks and assist Central London’s economic recovery.

In a letter, the London Property Alliance (LPA), which represents over 400 property owners, developers and real estate professionals in Westminster and the City, has urged Shapps to provide “ongoing and sustainable funding” for Transport for London and “stronger messaging” from the government to “re-install employer and employee confidence” in using the Underground, other rail services and buses.

The request comes as the end of the period covered by the government’s emergency financial bailout of TfL approaches and amid concerns that the very slow return to public transport use seen since lockdown measures began being eased is inhibiting the economic recovery of Central London, which is vital to the UK’s wider prosperity.

The LPA’s letter tells Shapps, “The government’s strong message to avoid public transport on public health grounds was listened to” but has become “cemented in people’s minds” with the result that “whilst both rail operators and TfL are now close to operating full services, demand is not rebounding to match this capacity”. It describes as “devastating” the impacts on Central London’s economy, citing recent figures showing a year-on-year collapse in West End footfall.

With substantial numbers of financial sector employees working from home and some major companies giving their blessing for this to continue, some of Central London’s economic output, estimated to account for at least 10% of the UK’s overall total, will have continued to be produced from outside office locations, but the LPA tells Shapps there are “evident ‘agglomeration’ effects” brought about by similar businesses operating in close geographical clusters, including nurturing a “productivity bonus” in some sectors which “cannot be replicated in other, suburban, locations or online”.

The LPA’s appeal to Shapps to ensure continued funding for TfL “in order to prevent a reduction in services” comes as the period covered by the government’s financial bailout of TfL, announced in May, nears its end – the “support period” for essential services formally covers 1 April until 17 October – and a second temporary package is anticipated against the backdrop of a wide-ranging government review of TfL’s finances and funding in the longer term.

Sadiq Khan has separately set up an “independent commission” of four unpaid experts to examine possible alternatives to the funding model introduced when Boris Johnson was London Mayor, which has seen the withdrawal of government support for the cost of the day-to-day running of TfL’s public transport services. This has created a heavier dependence on income from fares, which has been massively reduced during the coronavirus period.

The LPA letter, which is copied to Deputy Mayor for Transport Heidi Alexander among others, describes London’s public transport funding as “more dependent on fare revenue than any major city in the world” and underlines that social distancing requirements mean capacity is only at 40% of normal levels. However, it urges to Shapps to strengthen government guidance “to encourage the safe return of workers to city centre offices where possible” with publicity about safety measures “such as regular deep cleaning and the requirement of passengers to wear face coverings and observe social distancing”.

Shapps is also asked to increase promotion of the “active travel” options walking and cycling and  to conduct a “rail ticketing review” taking in the possible introduction of reduced price “carnet tickets” consistent with trends towards more flexible and home-based working which were already underway before the pandemic. The LPA endorses a “head out to  help out” discount scheme advocated by the watchdog Transport Focus.

OnLondon.co.uk exists to provide fair and thorough coverage of the UK capital’s politics, development and culture. It depends greatly on donations from readers. Give £5 a month or £50 a year and you will receive the On London Extra Thursday email, which rounds up London news, views and information from a wide range of sources. Click here to donate via Donorbox or contact davehillonlondon@gmail.com. Thanks.

Categories: News
Tags: buses, City Property Association, coronavirus, COVID-19 London, Grant Shapps, London Property Alliance, public transport, Transport for London, Westminster Property Association

Sara Gariban: How do religious Londoners experience life in the capital?

Cities are often seen as heartland of liberal, secular values, yet London is actually the most religious region of the UK and many Londoners have socially conservative values
Sara Gariban

Religious Londoners are a sizeable group – in fact, according to Office for National Statistics data, 71 per cent of Londoners report following (but not necessarily practicing) a religion – but their experiences and behaviours have been under-explored. In a new regular survey of Londoners by Centre for London and Savanta, we have started to explore some of the key questions around who religious Londoners are and what life is like for them in the city. We found that…

Religious Londoners generally do better on educational attainment and have higher-graded jobs, but there are some important differences to be explored

Londoners who actively practice a religion (or religious Londoners as I’ll refer to them in this piece) have higher levels of educational attainment than their non-religious counterparts. Indeed, for 66 per cent of religious Londoners, higher education (university level) is their highest level of educational attainment compared to 55 per cent of non-religious Londoners.  

Perhaps it’s unsurprising that religious Londoners are therefore more likely to be classed as the highest social grade (AB – denoting work in senior managerial and professional occupations); 44 per cent of religious Londoners are classified as AB, compared to 37 per cent of non-religious Londoners. However, our data shows that this is not equal across religions, with 45 per cent of Christian Londoners classified as AB, compared to just 30 per cent of Muslim Londoners.*

These differences are also likely to reflect more than just the impact of religious adherence – there is also a relationship between ethnicity, religious practice and social grade. In our survey, just a third of white Londoners said that they practiced a religion; this is compared to over two-thirds of non-white Londoners surveyed.

However, this goes against what we might assume. We know that those from BAME backgrounds face economic disadvantage and are more likely to be working in lower-graded occupations, but here we see religious Londoners, who are also more likely to be from a BAME background, are also more likely to work in higher social graded occupations . While it is difficult to draw firm conclusions here, the relationship between religion, ethnicity and social grade is an interesting one to unpick.

Religious Londoners are younger, but also tend to be in a relatively stable living situation

Religious Londoners are less likely to live alone and more likely to live with a partner or children, a “more traditional” family unit; only 15 per cent of religious Londoners live alone, while 57 per cent live with a partner and 41 per cent with children. 

And this isn’t because they are older; in fact, our research shows that older Londoners are more likely to say that they do not practice a religion, while younger Londoners are more likely to say that they do; for instance 51 per cent of those aged 16-24 reported practising a religion compared to just 38 per cent of those aged 45-54. This shows that, contrary to common perceptions around age and religion, the capital has a strong cohort of religious young Londoners.   

Furthermore, religious Londoners are more likely to own their own home than non-religious Londoners (57 per cent vs. 49 per cent), and less likely to rent (29 per cent vs. 47 per cent). However, this is not equal across groups. Rates of home ownership for Christian Londoners are 10 per cent higher than for Muslim Londoners (46 per cent vs. 57 per cent).

Religious Londoners are more negative about crime and security 

Religious Londoners are more likely than non–religious Londoners to report that crime has been increasing in their area over the last year. Indeed, 45 per cent of those practising a religion say knife crime has increased in their neighbourhood in the last 12 months. This is compared to just 38 per cent of non-religious Londoners. Similarly, 42 per cent of religious Londoners say that gang related crime has increased in the last year, 10 per cent higher than non-religious Londoners.

Evidently, religious Londoners perceive or experience increasing levels of crime in their local areas to a greater degree than their non-religious counterparts. Our data doesn’t show us the reasons behind this, but religious Londoners may be more likely to live in high-crime areas, more engaged and aware of what’s happening in their neighbourhood, or more concerned about religious or racial hate crime because they are more likely to be victims of this.

Despite these security concerns, religious Londoners are still more positive about their neighbourhood and public services…

Nearly two-thirds (63 per cent) of religious Londoners agree that their neighbourhood is welcoming to people of all backgrounds, while 52 per cent say that there’s a strong sense of community in their neighbourhood (55 per cent and 33 per cent among non-religious Londoners). This is a substantial difference and is likely to be related to the fact that religious services and activities can foster a sense of community for attendees.

Alongside this stronger sense of community and neighbourhood values, religious Londoners are also significantly happier than non-religious Londoners with the quality of public services like healthcare, social housing  and education – for instance, 57 per cent report that they are happy with the quality of education in the last 12 months, compared to just 39 per cent of non-religious Londoners. In part, some of these higher levels of happiness may be related to the higher social profile that was highlighted earlier.

…and optimistic about the future

61 per cent of Londoners say they are optimistic about the next 12 months with regards to their family situation, while 60 per cent report this about their health and 48 per cent about their personal finances. These are significantly higher levels of optimism than reported by non-religious Londoners, of whom 53 per cent are optimistic about their family situation, 48 per cent about their health and 35 per cent about their personal finances. This optimism is reflected in the fact that a higher proportion of religious Londoners say that they are happy living in the capital, compared to non-religious Londoners (68 per cent vs. 62 per cent).

In a lot of ways, religious Londoners fare well in this competitive city – for instance, in education, employment and home ownership. And despite some negative perceptions of crime and security, more positive experiences of life in the capital may be driving their optimism about their neighbourhoods and happiness.

However, religious Londoners are not one homogenous group. Experiences and perceptions are different across different religious groups. This survey has shown us that, on several measures, Christian Londoners are in a stronger position than Muslim counterparts. Delving further into this, as well as looking more in depth at religious groups for whom the results were too small to make any conclusions, and understanding more about religious Londoners and their lives in the capital is a worthwhile endeavour – when it comes to religion (among other things), London is a fascinating and unique place.

*Note: While other religious groups were surveyed, numbers were too small to draw any reliable conclusions. Sara Gariban is Senior Researcher with think tank Centre for London, on whose website this article was originally published. Follow Sara on Twitter.

OnLondon.co.uk exists to provide fair and thorough coverage of the UK’s capital city. It depends greatly on donations from readers. Give £5 a month or £50 a year and you will receive the On London Extra Thursday email, which rounds up London news, views and information from a wide range of sources. Click here to donate via Donorbox or contact davehillonlondon@gmail.com. Thanks.

 

Categories: Culture
Tags: Centre For London, Christians, Muslims

Vic Keegan’s Lost London 158: The house where William Blake lived

His long-demolished home in Lambeth was where he produced many of his greatest works
Victor Keegan

In 1918, number 13 Hercules Buildings in Lambeth was demolished. This was the house in which William Blake lived with his wife during what is regarded as his most productive period in the 1790s. It was here that he wrote works such as Visions of the Daughters of Albion, Songs of Innocence and of Experience and poems like The Tyger, and produced his famous prints, including of Isaac Newton and Nebuchadnezzar.

It appears he had his vision of the measuring compass – now memorialised in Eduardo Paolozzi’s giant statue outside the British Library – on the stairs of his home. And it was here where, in his words, “We builded Jerusalem as a City & a Temple; from Lambeth We began our Foundations; lovely Lambeth!”

It was a clean house with about nine rooms, which housed Blake’s printing press and working areas. People visiting in later years found the front door of the house nailed up and, after achieving entrance to its garden through the next door neighbour’s passage, found it was overgrown with the vine and fig tree Blake often wrote about.

In those days, stepping out of the front door would have presented a semi-rural outlook. Today, there are dark railway arches resurrected with lovely mosaics of Blake’s works. (see one superimposed on the old photo of the house below). Together, they create the sort of derelict atmosphere that Blake, a compulsive night walker, wrote about in one of his most famous poems:

I wander thro’ each charter’d street,

Near where the charter’d Thames does flow.

And mark in every face I meet

Marks of weakness marks of woe.

It was at about the same time as Blake was in Lambeth that another poet called William – William Wordsworth – was rhapsodising about the view from Westminster Bridge. If he had turned the other way to face Lambeth Bridge the view would not have been so romantic. But then, unlike Blake, Wordsworth was not a Londoner.

Screenshot 2020 08 29 at 09.58.48

Near Blake’s house was a small road leading to the home of Philip Astley who ran a famous circus – claimed to be the world’s first modern circus – on the southern side of Westminster Bridge. Apparently, Hercules Road was named after one of its long-lasting performers.

Also not far away, at the southern end of Blackfriars Bridge, was Albion Mills, built by the great engineer Matthew Bolton between 1783 and 1786 and powered by steam engines which physician Erasmus Darwin called “the most powerful machines in the world”. Albion Mills was almost certainly the inspiration for Blake’s “dark satanic mills”. The mills caught fire in 1791, a spectacle that Blake would almost certainly have seen.

It is tragic that Blake’s house was demolished at a time when conservation was not in vogue. But Blake himself would have been pleased that his poems – through the mosaics – still haunt the place that inspired them.

All previous instalments of Vic Keegan’s Lost London can be found here.

OnLondon.co.uk exists to provide fair and thorough coverage of the UK’s capital city. It depends greatly on donations from readers. Give £5 a month or £50 a year and you will receive the On London Extra Thursday email, which rounds up London news, views and information from a wide range of sources. Click here to donate via Donorbox or contact davehillonlondon@gmail.com. Thanks.

Categories: Culture, Lost London
Tags: Blackfriars Bridge, Eduardo Paolozzi, Hercules Road, Lambeth, Lambeth Bridge, Westminster Bridge, William Blake

How is London’s recovery from Covid going? And what will happen next?

Statistical analyses suggest an uneven picture across the capital with much uncertainty
Dave Hill

The summer’s end approaches, autumn is in the air and the next phase of the coronavirus crisis is getting underway. London’s schools start to fully re-open from Tuesday, after the Bank Holiday, and the government is to renew its encouragement for people to return to their former places of work.

At the same time, the near future looks forbidding for many Londoners, with major employers planning many redundancies and the government’s furlough scheme due to close at the end of October – Sadiq Khan has written to the Chancellor, Rishi Sunak, warning of the “devastating impact” if he does not extend the scheme, which he says covers nearly 1.4 million London jobs.

So how is the capital recovering so far and what will the key indicators be about how well recovery is going and in what ways?

The latest edition of London’s Economy Today, GLA economists’ monthly analysis of trends and new statistics, pulls together a number of important threads. It reports that across the capital as a whole there has been a growing amount of “recreational activity”, including visits to shops, social venues and, most notably, restaurants, nurtured by Sunak’s “eat out to help out” discount scheme. However, that popular measure is about to end and “a considerable reluctance to go out and do things” among Londoners is stressed.

The bulletin cites the Centre for Cities national high streets recovery tracker, which puts London firmly at the bottom of the footfall league table, with less than a quarter of its usual activity during July compared with its level before the pandemic – no wonder the Mayor and Central London BIDS are asking for encouragement tailored to the specific needs of the West End.

However, as Centre For London has shown in its latest Intelligence report, different parts of London are faring differently. Outside of the centre, some suburbs have actually been doing a little better than usual, seemingly because residents are shopping locally more than they were before.

The GLA team, rather like the Mayor in his letter to the Chancellor, observes that London’s labour market could be at particular risk then the furlough scheme ends. Already, “the growth in people claiming Universal Credit has been higher in London than in the rest of great Britain,” they write, “and higher for the under-25s than the over-25s.”

They also map sub-regional variations across the capital, showing that “it is more common for employees in an arc from the north west to the east of London to be furloughed than [in] other parts of the city”. King’s College professor Jonathan Portes is quoted: “While most London office workers can work from home, those employed in service sectors – cleaners and security guards, sandwich shop assistants and dry cleaners – generally cannot”. Put another way, for many Londoners the worse of Covid-19 may be yet to come.

A lot of Central London’s footfall problems are, of course, due to people’s anxiety about using public transport, especially the Underground. These riderships had begun to pick up by the end of July, but not by very much – this won’t surprise people who’ve been using the Tube lately. By contrast, use of other transport modes has got back to pretty where it was at the beginning of March. Centre for London shows (pages 27 and 28) that by the end of the first week in July, weekday car use was approaching what it was pre-lockdown and cycle use had matched it (along with some sharp rises at weekends).

There is much to be uncertain about. London Chamber of Commerce chief executive Richard Burge, perhaps better attuned to London office workers’ mood than 10 Downing Street, has today called for discussion around city centre economies to be “intelligent”.

He adds: “Office working and remote working both have their respective merits and a tribalistic pitching of one against the other isn’t helpful, particularly as the likely short-term option for many firms is a hybrid of both. As schools reopen and more opportunity for a return to central offices presents itself, let’s make sure the dialogue is as helpful as it can be. I’d far rather hear of how a company has achieved a safe return than simplistic statements about ‘get back to work’”.

It’s hard to predict what the next few months will hold and a great deal might change. In some ways, London’s coronavirus journey has only just begun.

OnLondon.co.uk exists to provide fair and thorough coverage of the UK’s capital city. It depends greatly on donations from readers. Give £5 a month or £50 a year and you will receive the On London Extra Thursday email, which rounds up London news, views and information from a wide range of sources. Click here to donate via Donorbox or contact davehillonlondon@gmail.com. Thanks.

 

Categories: Analysis
Tags: Centre For Cities, Centre For London, coronavirus, COVID-19 London, cycling, Greater London Authority, Jonathan Portes, King's College, London Chamber of Commerce & Industry, Richard Burge, Rishi Sunak, Sadiq Khan, Universal Credit

Transport for London sets out ‘School Service’ bus plans for autumn term

Some buses will be designated for school children only during peak usage periods from next Tuesday
Dave Hill

Up to half the buses running on some of the capital’s bus routes will be reserved for school children during mornings and early afternoons from next Tuesday, as Transport for London seeks to facilitate the full re-opening of schools for the new autumn term.

Some regular services on high-frequency routes will be re-designated “School Service” buses, and be allowed to operate at full capacity under relaxed social distancing rules, but with all children required to wear face coverings while on board.

In addition, at least 230 extra buses will be deployed to some of the busier lower frequency routes used by large numbers of children.

TfL says the changes, which will affect “large parts of the bus network”, will also assist the expected growing number of workers returning to offices and other workplaces as the pandemic lockdown continues to ease in the capital by freeing up more space on non-School Service buses.

Buses will carry yellow-green signs to signal School Service designation or “Non-school service” ones, asking school children to wait for the next School Service bus. School Service buses will operate between 7.30 and 9.30 in the morning and 2:30 and 4:30 in the afternoons only.

Screenshot 2020 08 27 at 05.18.22

TfL is also encouraging parents, students and school staff to “walk, cycle or scoot” to school whenever they can as an alternative to using buses, which would release some pressure on capacity. Before the pandemic around 250,000 London schoolchildren used London’s buses every day to get to and from school.

The transport body also underlines that free travel for under-18s will continue for the time being and notes in its press statement about the bus service changes that a start date for the concession’s temporary suspension “requested by the government in the funding agreement between them and TfL has not yet been confirmed”.

Earlier this month, On London reported that a Department for Transport minister had told TfL in a letter, “we would like” the temporary suspension to be implemented from “immediately after October half-term”. The letter appeared to acknowledge that there are practical difficulties with removing the free travel arrangement, which Sadiq Khan and others have been campaigning to have dropped on the grounds that it will penalise poorer families.

Further information from TfL on the School Service bus route plans here.

OnLondon.co.uk exists to provide fair and thorough coverage of the UK’s capital city. It depends greatly on donations from readers. Give £5 a month or £50 a year and you will receive the On London Extra Thursday email, which rounds up London news, views and information from a wide range of sources. Click here to donate via Donorbox or contact davehillonlondon@gmail.com. Thanks.

 

 

 

 

Categories: News
Tags: buses, coronavirus, COVID-19 London, education, schools, transport, Transport for London

London schools’ ‘disadvantage gaps’ smallest in England, new report finds

Children from poor backgrounds lose less academic ground compared to wealthier peers in the capital than in most of the rest of the country
Dave Hill

A new report on education in England from the Education Policy Institute and partners paints a worrying national picture of children from the poorest homes starting to fall further behind peers from more affluent backgrounds in educational achievement. This “disadvantage gap” had been narrowing. But figures for 2019 – before the coronavirus struck, of course – show, the researchers say, that the gap has “stopped closing over the last five years and there are several indications that it has begun to widen”.

Different measurements and figures are used to produce findings for “early years” schooling, the end of primary school and the position when children come to take their GCSEs. There are also variations across the English school population, including by region and local authority area. How does London fare?

The good news is that the overall disadvantage gaps in a striking number of our boroughs’ GCSE students in 2019 were among the smallest in England. In a league table of sizes of the gap in attainment in GCSE English and maths (pages 27-30), in which those local authorities with the smallest ones are placed lowest, London boroughs occupy the bottom (meaning top) twelve places, headed by Westminster and followed by Redbridge, Ealing, Barnet, Newham, Tower Hamlets, Brent, Kensington & Chelsea, Hounslow, Hammersmith & Fulham, Hackney and Southwark.

Next on the list is Rutland, though this placing should be viewed with caution, due to the very small numbers of people who live in that famous county. London boroughs then take 18 of the next 23 places and even the two worst-placed, Croydon and Lewisham, are in well into the lower (meaning best) half of the 150-strong local authority list, placed 110th and 107th respectively. Basically, the capital leads the way in the smaller disadvantage gaps, and does so in a very big way.

Much the same picture emerges when these “raw” figures are adjusted to take into specific account the percentages of children in each local authority area categorised as “persistently disadvantaged”, defined as having been eligible for free school meals for 80% or more of their school lives. Westminster stays top while most of the other boroughs move up and down a bit – somewhere between one ranking and a handful.

This is all quite gratifying from a Londoncentric point of view, and it seems reasonable to regard it as more evidence to justify characterising London’s schools as the best in the country – especially in view of the very high poverty rates the city contains.  That said, disadvantage gaps continue to exist in the capital, and become apparent from the earliest years of schooling, just like everywhere else.

For example, even in relatively low gap Newham, children from poor backgrounds are on average close to a month behind their better-off peers by the end of primary school. in Tower Hamlets the gap is a little over a month, in Camden 2.5 months, in Richmond 3.4 months, in Harrow 4.4 months and in Lambeth 5.5 months. These compare very well with, for example, Bedford (14.8 months), Dudley (13 months) and Somerset (12.5 months).

By GCSE, all the smallest gaps for 2019 were again in London: Westminster o.5 months, Redbridge 2.7 months, Ealing 4.6 months, Barnet 5.6 months and so on. Once more, these are excellent outcomes next to those of Blackpool, Knowsley and Plymouth, all of which have disadvantage gaps of more than two years by the time their school student have completed Year 11. Two questions come straight to  mind: one, will London’s relative success in these educational outcomes continue?; two, what should be done to help disadvantaged children in other parts of England fall less far behind their more fortunate peers?

Read the full report, compiled by the Education Policy Institute in partnership with the Fair Education Alliance and Unbound Philanthropy, here.

OnLondon.co.uk exists to provide fair and thorough coverage of the UK’s capital city. It depends greatly on donations from readers. Give £5 a month or £50 a year and you will receive the On London Extra Thursday email, which rounds up London news, views and information from a wide range of sources. Click here to donate via Donorbox or contact davehillonlondon@gmail.com. Thanks.

 

 

 

 

 

Categories: News
Tags: Camden, Croydon, education, Kensington & Chelsea, Lewisham, Newham, poverty, schools, Tower Hamlets, Westminster