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Talk About London podcast: After the borough elections, with Karen Alcock

She heads a leading built environment consultancy and has long prior experience as a senior borough councillor, so she knows what she's on about
Dave Hill

Karen Alcock was for 12 years a Hackney councillor and for five of them the borough’s deputy mayor under Jules Pipe, nowadays Sir Sadiq Khan’s deputy mayor for planning. She founding Kanda Consulting in 2017 and, as its managing director, has built it into formidable company in its field, specialising in advising clients from the world of development and placemaking, primarily in the capital. Good knowledge and intelligence about London government is important to that work. That, together with her experience as a London politician, made Karen a compelling choice as a post-borough elections Talk About London guest.

She gave London Society chair Leanne Tritton and I revealing insights into what London’s droves of brand new borough councillors will have discovered about their powers and responsibilities since getting elected – not least that they can’t get started right away. New leaders, mayors and cabinet members, of whom there are also many, “will need to spend some time getting to know their officers,” she said, “that’s the key thing.” Those council officers, local government’s civil servants, will have their work cut out in order to “get people ready to make decisions,” she added.

That process can be very slow, especially if newcomers want pending decisions left over from previous administrations of a different political colour revised or reviewed. Meanwhile, the line-ups of planning committees, for example, will have changed and their meetings postponed. And before you know it, the summer holidays will be here, followed by the party conference season and it will be 2027 before you know it. Karen also talked about the Enfield New Town plan, the likelihood of more interventions in planning decisions by City Hall and much more. Watch and learn below.

 

For more from my YouTube channel see here and for all On London‘s podcast collaborations with The London Society, see here.

Follow Dave Hill on Bluesky and at LinkedIn. Image from website of London Councils.

OnLondon.co.uk is funded by sales of publisher and editor Dave Hill’s twice-weekly newsletter On London Extra. To start receiving it, become a paying subscriber to Dave’s personal Substack. Thanks.

Categories: Analysis
Tags: Borough elections 2026, Enfield Council, The London Society

All change at London Councils as new chair and executive confirmed

The line-up of the cross-party body that represents all of the capital's local authorities reflects the city's new political map
Dave Hill

London Councils, the cross-party collective of the capital’s 33 local authorities, has announced its new chair and an executive committee line-up that reflects the vastly more variegated pattern of political leadership across the capital since the borough elections of 7 May.

Confirming what On London learned prior to his confirmation in the post, Stephen Cowan, leader of Hammersmith & Fulham Council, has been elected chair of the organisation, which plays a vital role in making the case for London local government to national government with a unified voice.

Cowan’s securing of the position reflects the fact that Labour is still the biggest party in London local government, despite losing many seats and its majorities in more than half the boroughs it had controlled since 2022. He succeeds fellow Labour councillor Claire Holland, who had to step down because her party lost control of Lambeth Council.

His deputy chair is also a Labour borough leader – Kam Rai, who has remained the leader of Redbridge, defying some expectations that it would go to No Overall Control. Both Cowan and Rai also have roles as London Councils “executive members”. Cowan will be responsible for finance and devolution, and Rai for growth, economy, skills and employment.

Politicians from three other parties will be vice chairs for the four-year term just begun. They are the Conservative Elizabeth Campbell, who has remained leader of Kensington & Chelsea, the Green Party’s Zoë Garbett, brand new to the job of Mayor of Hackney, and Liberal Democrat Gareth Roberts, who is continuing as leader of Richmond. He is also a member of the London Assembly, as was Garbett until she resigned after winning the Hackney mayoralty. The fourth vice chair is Chris Hayward, de facto leader of the City of London Corporation.

Three of the seven other executive member posts are held by Labour council leaders, Anthony Okereke of Greenwich, Una O’Halloran of Islington, and Shantanu Rajawat of Hounslow, bringing Labour’s representation up to five out of nine. There are three Conservatives in committee roles: Paul Osborn, leader of Harrow, Paul Swaddle, leader of Westminster and Croydon Mayor Jason Perry. The line-up is completed by a single Green, the Mayor of Lewisham, Liam Shrivastava. Reform UK is not represented because it won control of only one council, Havering, and therefore does not constitute a London Councils group.

Cowan has led Hammersmith & Fulham since Labour surprised many by capturing the council from a high-profile Conservative administration in 2014. The party retained control with ease in May, losing just two seats to the Tories and securing a majority of 26 amid Labour’s many reverses elsewhere. His administrations have been characterised by close management of council finances, an economic development strategy and what he calls an “entrepreneurial municipal government” approach.

Responding to his election and formation of the executive committee following negotiations between the party groups, Cowan said: “Londoners face enormous challenges. They have a right to expect all elected representatives of London local government, from across the different political parties, to work together to find the solutions that rise to those challenges. Today, that was exactly what all of us determined to do.”

Follow Dave Hill on Bluesky and at LinkedIn. Photo from Hammersmith & Fulham Council.

OnLondon.co.uk is funded by sales of publisher and editor Dave Hill’s twice-weekly newsletter On London Extra. To start receiving it, become a paying subscriber to Dave’s personal Substack. Thanks.

Categories: Analysis
Tags: local government, London Councils, Stephen Cowan

Ten Green Belt sites in London to be earmarked for new housing development

The capital's Deputy Mayor for Planning, Jules Pipe, outlined the proposal in a speech to specialist barristers
Charles Wright

Sir Sadiq Khan’s forthcoming draft new London Plan, the development blueprint for the capital for the next two decades, will identify some 10 areas of Green Belt land to be released for new housing, his deputy mayor for planning Jules Pipe said yesterday.

Speaking at this year’s London planning conference organised by leading planning barristers Landmark Chambers, Pipe (pictured) confirmed the Mayor’s significant policy shift away from unqualified protection of the Green Belt, which had been flagged in the initial consultation document for the new London Plan, issued last year.

With the first draft of the Plan scheduled to be released for public consultation next month, running through to October, the deputy mayor did not disclose the locations for potential Green Belt release. But Enfield’s Crews Hill area, already proposed for a 21,000 home New Town, was a “good example” of an appropriate site, Pipe told On London.

“We need to find space for 880,000 homes over the next 10 years, and it’s impossible to achieve that solely by redeveloping existing sites,” he said. “There isn’t enough brownfield land left to do that.”

To “minimise” loss of Green Belt land, developments should be relatively dense – “five to six storeys” – and close to existing transport hubs, he added, with Crews Hill fitting the bill, particularly if its commuter rail link into Moorgate, nationalised last month, was taken into the Transport for London Overground network. Mayor Khan told the London Assembly last week that, following meetings with ministers, he was confident the TfL takeover would be confirmed “sooner rather than later”.

The Crews Hill plan looks set to be a first test of the Mayor’s new approach, even ahead of the adoption of the new London Plan, which will face a potentially hard-fought public examination next year before going to Whitehall for approval perhaps not before 2028. Enfield’s new Conservative minority administration, formed thanks to support on the Green Belt issue from the five-strong Green Party group of councillors, has already withdrawn council backing, and this week 10 Downing Street took delivery of more than 4,000 letters from Enfield residents opposing the scheme.

But Sir Keir Starmer’s direct endorsement of the proposal earlier this month makes it increasingly likely that the site could be incorporated into a Mayoral Development Corporation, which would take over planning powers from the council. Discussions on the way forward were “continuing”, Pipe told On London. “We are not in a war with the boroughs, but we need more homes.”

Might a compromise solution come forward? Prior to the borough elections on 7 May, Enfield’s own new Local Plan, devised under the previous, Labour, administration, had been heading towards adoption envisioning 9,000 homes being built on Green Belt land in the borough. Boroughs’ Local Plans have to be in broad conformity with the Mayor’s London Plan. If the new Enfield leadership wants to go back to the drawing board, the time lag could see it subject to Khan’s new Green Belt policies, rather than his current ones.

Earlier this week, the government inspector examining Enfield’s Local Plan gave qualified support to some measure of Green Belt release, prompting new council leader Alessandro Georgiou to say on X that his conclusions would be reviewed. “This administration will continue to try and do its best to protect our fantastic Green Belt,” he said.

Follow Charles Wright on Bluesky. Photo from Greater London Authority.

OnLondon.co.uk is funded by sales of publisher and editor Dave Hill’s twice-weekly newsletter On London Extra. If you don’t already receive it, become a paying subscriber to Dave’s personal Substack or follow any Support link on this website.

Categories: News
Tags: Enfield Council, Green Belt, housing, Jules Pipe

Oxford Street: ‘Rows’, realities and rising hopes for Marble Arch

Despite some foreground opposition, progress is being made towards more than one major change in the area
Dave Hill

In the headlines, rows, rage and vows to resist. In the real world, continuing progress towards the realisation of Sir Sadiq Khan’s plans for pedestrianisation on Oxford Street – and a bit more besides.

As On London has reported, the new leader of Westminster Council, Paul Swaddle, has had to abandon seeking a judicial review of the decision to go ahead with converting the section of the street between Great Portland Street and Orchard Street into a pedestrianised area. Apart from anything else, that course of action had always looked difficult because of the short period of time available.

Swaddle has said he will continue to “explore every legal avenue” that might (or might not) exist for impeding the scheme’s progress, and media organisations have obligingly reported his disparagements and accusations aimed at City Hall. But while this fighting talk keeps the “row” story going, behind the headlines Westminster is co-operating as Transport for London sets about closing what it calls the “Oxford Street West” stretch of Oxford Street to traffic by the end of the summer.

The Oxford Street Development Corporation (OSDC), the mayoral body set up to take control of the street and its immediate surrounding area, is pleased to have received the council’s approval for “enabling works” to go ahead, allowing it to make “changes to a number of streets in the area surrounding the extents of the TfL Oxford Street West proposals”. In other words, to undertake alterations to such as signage, road markings, kerbs and so on to facilitate the pedestrianisation on roads still under Westminster’s control.

That “enabling works” permission, granted on 5 June, followed February’s decision by Westminster, in that case made prior to the change of council administration from Labour to Conservative on 7 May, to approve TfL “undertaking works comprising changes to bus stops and supporting infrastructure in the area surrounding the extents of the TfL Oxford Street West (OSW) proposals”. This was described as being in anticipation of TfL formally approving those proposals, which it did.

The board of the OSDC is due meet on Thursday afternoon. It will be “invited to note” that its membership has changed to reflect the borough elections outcomes in both Westminster and next door Camden, which is also affected, in a much smaller way, by the project. Swaddle has been appointed to the board by Mayor Khan to represent Westminster, as has Swaddle’s Camden counterpart Sagal Abdi-Wali, who has taken the helm at Camden. It will be interesting to see who attends.

The main item of business on the agenda at this point is the approval of members of the corporation’s planning committee, which is to be chaired by board member Margaret Casely-Hayford. The property sector has been anticipating the big change coming to “the nation’s high street”, including in the form of a seminar held earlier this month by the Westminster Property Association. It began with an address by OSDC chair Scott Parsons.

Meanwhile, progress is being made in another part of the OSDC’s domain further west, at Marble Arch. No one is breathing a word in public, but there is considerable confidence behind the scenes that the go-ahead will be given to a long-gestating plan for rescuing the historic monument from the worst of the roundabout environment to which it has been subjected since Park Lane was turned into a dual carriageway in the early 1960s.

In 2019, public realm designers Publica produced proposals for, in its words, “repositioning Marble Arch as a safe, inclusive and democratic public space”. Backed by Portman Estate and the Marble Arch business improvement district, it envisaged reclaiming and enlarging the rather scruffy square in which the monument stands as “an expansive civic space” that would effectively lop the top end off Park Lane to make way for a public realm peninsula connecting to the south side of Oxford Street. Getting into Hyde Park on foot would mean crossing just one road instead of several.

The Marble Arch itself has recently been released from a protective box while cleaning and restoration took place. Designed by John Nash in 1827 and originally positioned in front of Buckingham Palace, it was moved to its current site in 1851. At that time it formed a grand entrance to Hyde Park, but was later severed from it. The Publica proposals aim to salvage and breathe new life into a part of the West End that has been degraded and neglected for decades. Work on the details is understood to be continuing.

For more on the story of Marble Arch and the vision for improving it, listen to the Marble Arch episode of The London Society’s London Explained series from 2024, which was researched, written and presented by Dave Hill.

OnLondon.co.uk is funded by sales of publisher and editor Dave Hill’s twice-weekly newsletter On London Extra. To start receiving it, become a paying subscriber to Dave’s personal Substack. Thanks.

Categories: News
Tags: Oxford Street, transport, Transport for London

Dave Hill: Are we getting road safety wrong?

The Vision Zero strategy numbers aren't going in the right direction. Plus rebuilding the West End and more
Dave Hill

Below is the start of the lead piece from the latest edition of the On London Extra newsletter, published on Substack. It links to the rest at the end. Sales of On London Extra finance the whole of this website. A free trial is available.

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Rage about roads is always with us and we are in the midst of a few outbreaks. Some are more confected than others, but claims that Transport for London has engaged in a “cover-up” over road safety statistics indirectly highlight infrequently asked questions about the city’s road safety policies.

As usual, all the media attention has been on cyclists – the “cover-up” accusation is that TfL has made much of a reduction in the number of people killed while riding bikes in order to divert attention from an increase in the number injured. As always, the well-connected cyclist lobby says the solution to the problem is yet more special lanes for bicycles.

But what if that is wrong? And what if the entire Vision Zero action plan, TfL’s strategy for eliminating deaths and serious injuries from London’s transport network, has been significantly flawed?

Read the full piece on Substack.

Categories: Comment
Tags: pedestrians, road safety, Transport for London

Hammersmith & Fulham leader Stephen Cowan set to become new London Councils chair

The leader of the inner west London borough has won the backing of his Labour colleagues, putting him in poll position to head the influential cross-party body
Tim Donovan

Stephen Cowan, Labour leader of Hammersmith & Fulham Council, is set to become the next chair of London Councils, the organisation representing all 33 of the capital’s local authorities.

He has secured the Labour nomination for the post ahead of Ealing leader Peter Mason and now needs to come top in a first-past-the-post vote of all his fellow leaders at the London Councils annual general meeting, due to take place on Tuesday.

Cowan is poised to take the helm because Labour still runs more councils in London than any other party, having majorities or leading minority administrations in 12, even though it no longer controls the majority of them following many losses at last month’s borough elections.

Heading up London Councils is an important role, with responsibility for speaking up for London and lobbying national government for more investment.

Cowan has led Hammersmith & Fulham for 12 years and has a reputation as a maverick and independent thinker. He has been the driving force behind a partnership with Imperial College to transform White City into a life sciences hub, with start-ups drawn to low-rent lab and office space close to some of the country’s top scientists.

The White City innovation district is a model and inspiration for some of the thinking in the London Growth Plan , a prospectus for economic improvement for the capital compiled by City Hall and London Councils, published last year.

Mayoral agency the Old Oak and Park Royal Development Corporation has just signed a partnership with Imperial to help regenerate the area around the proposed new High Speed 2 (HS2) Old Oak Common station.

In an opinion piece for On London published in March, Cowan explained what he called the “entrepreneurial municipal government” style he has pursued – a way of his council moving beyond passive administration to actively shaping its local economy.

“In simple terms, it meant using every lever a council has – planning, land, partnerships, convening powers – to that end and being bold with the powers available to us to create the conditions for growth and its benefits,” he wrote.

Cowan will succeed Claire Holland, who had to bow out as London Councils chair after Labour, under her leadership, lost control of Lambeth Council to the Greens. Holland has been regarded as a visible and effective chair, making the case for financial stability from multi-year government settlements and lobbying for more help to tackle the crises of temporary accommodation and social care funding.

There had been some tensions with Sir Sadiq Khan, with Holland pushing for more consultation and involvement in major decisions in the capital.

In recent years, Cowan has had his own issues with the Mayor. Khan disagreed with Cowan’s suggestion that a toll should be introduced to pay for fixing Hammersmith Bridge bridge, which has been closed to cars since 2019.

Hammersmith & Fulham has also made public in the past its wish for an ambitious 50 per cent of the roughly 2,500 homes to be built on the part of huge Earls Court development that falls into the borough to be affordable, indirectly putting pressure on the Mayor. Transport for London, which owns much of the site, is part of a joint venture behind the project and Khan chairs the TfL board. The Mayor also has powers to “call-in” large development plans if they fall short of his policy requirements.

As the capital’s political map was transformed last month, the level of knowledge and experience in London’s Town Halls took a hit. Two Labour leaders, Richard Olszewski in Camden and Peray Ahmet in Haringey, lost their seats and many boroughs have seen large influxes of novice councillors, particularly from the Green party, which now controls three boroughs and leads minority administrations in three others.

Reform UK took control of Havering, its first local government win in Greater London, though it is led by Keith Prince, an experienced recent defector from the Conservatives who is also a member of the London Assembly and led Redbridge Council as a Tory from 2009 until 2014.

With the Tories strengthening their positions in the boroughs in May, winning back Westminster from Labour and running minority administrations in Wandsworth and Enfield, there may be more political tension than before at London Councils, which seeks to speak with one cross-party voice on matters of London wide importance.

With the Liberal Democrats controlling three boroughs, there are now four London Councils party groups negotiating over executive roles on the cross-party body, each with responsibility for a specific policy area, though it is understood that engagement between them has been productive so far.

Tim Donovan is the former political editor of BBC London and now a trustee of Centre for London and political adviser to Kanda Consulting. Follow him at LinkedIn.

OnLondon.co.uk is funded by sales of publisher and editor Dave Hill’s twice-weekly newsletter On London Extra. To receive it, become a paying subscriber to Dave’s personal Substack. Thanks.

Categories: News
Tags: Hammersmith & Fulham, London Councils, Stephen Cowan

Hannah Milne: The West End’s food community can help London thrive

By working together to offer more, restaurants can help each other and make entire neighbourhoods more appealing
Hannah Milne

In May, the West End’s food community came together across Regent Street and St James’s to provide a series of workshops, masterclasses and dining experiences as part of the Crown Estate’s Future of Food Festival. Some of the area’s most innovative chefs, restaurants, producers and venues joined forces to welcome the public and celebrate the creativity and ambition shaping London’s food and drink scene.

By drawing in around 84 per cent more visitors than on an average weekend day, the festival was a reminder that in today’s challenging hospitality market restaurants succeed not in isolation but as part of a wider ecosystem. It created a shared platform for hospitality businesses to collaborate, helping them all to reach new audiences, attract additional visitors and gain from the collective pull of the West End.

A good restaurant will always need the fundamentals: great food, an innovative menu, a memorable atmosphere and the right team to deliver it. But when people choose where to eat or drink, they are often choosing a destination as much as a venue. Visitors are drawn by familiarity, convenience and the promise that there will be more to enjoy before and after their meal. That is why hospitality works best as part of a broader mix. A single restaurant can bring in customers, but a complementary group of restaurants, pubs, cafés and bars creates something more compelling.

In the West End, this curated approach is proving to be a recipe for success. Heddon Street is a great example. Just off Regent Street, this small but perfectly formed u-shaped side street brings together a vibrant mix of chef-led restaurants, pubs and bars. Each is helped by being part of the whole: established names benefit from proximity to neighbours with fresh ideas, while newer restaurants gain visibility from being in a recognised location. Take the rise of Fallow as an example: once a pop-up on Heddon Street, now a celebrated staple fixture in St James’s Market with a new sister restaurant in Canary Wharf.

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Heddon Street exemplifies how hospitality acts as the glue of destinations, supporting the evening economy and adding different experiences for the huge variety of visitors to the West End. Regent Street’s retail offer draws shoppers in and Heddon Street gives them reasons to stay, return and experience the area in different ways.

These destinations do not come together by accident. Heddon Street’s success reflects years of careful curation and long-term stewardship. While individual restaurants understandably focus on their own businesses, our responsibility as the Crown Estate is to shape places that work as a collective, where businesses complement one another and and give people reasons to visit time and again.

This role extends beyond just choosing the right restaurant. Creating thriving hospitality destinations means understanding how different uses interact, how visitors and users move through a place and how businesses can strengthen each other. It means considering the right balance of restaurants, shops, offices, cultural venues, public spaces and hospitality venues to give places the energy they need to succeed, while also benefitting and respecting local residents.

This philosophy is central to how the Crown Estate approaches our London portfolio. Across Regent Street and St James’s, we see hospitality not as a standalone sector but as an essential ingredient in the success of the wider destination. Food and drink help bring people together, support the experience of workers and visitors, extend dwell time and contribute to the character that makes places memorable.

That approach is becoming increasingly important as hospitality operators face changing consumer behaviours, rising costs and heightened expectations. In this environment, landlords can and should act as value-added partners, helping to create the conditions in which businesses are more visible, better connected and more resilient. The right restaurants in the right places, supported by the right neighbours and a shared sense of purpose, do much more than serve meals. They help the evolution of the successful city districts London needs to thrive.

Hannah Milne is the Crown Estate’s managing director, real estate. Top photo from Crown Estate.

OnLondon.co.uk is funded by sales of publisher and editor Dave Hill’s twice-weekly newsletter On London Extra. To start receiving it, become a paying subscriber to Dave’s personal Substack. Thanks.

Categories: Culture
Tags: West End

Transport for London claims progress against fare evasion

More people have been checked, given penalty fines and prosecuted, although the overall evasion rate last year was unchanged
Dave Hill

Transport for London has released figures showing an increase in the number of passengers caught and fined for using public transport without having the right ticket or paying the correct fare.

The figures say that during the financial year 2025/26, 69,001 penalty fares were issued, representing a nine per cent increase on the previous twelve months.

These arose from 6.9 million checks being conducted on contactless payment cards, an increase of just over 50 per cent compared with the previous year. This included 3.3 million bus passengers, up by 400,000. A total of £5.4 million was brought in from people who weren’t traveling on a valid card, up by 142 per cent.

Fare evasion also led to 14,406 criminal convictions in the year to March 2026, up by 955 compared with 2024/25. Around £1.9 million in revenue is lost through fare evasion, TfL says.

Another statistic highlighted by TfL is a rise in the number of “irregularity reports” submitted to its appeals and prosecution department by its fare enforcement teams. It is then decided whether a criminal prosecution of the fare evader should be pursued on top of the penalty fare. The number of reports submitted has gone up by 18.7 per cent to 21,533, TfL says.

Separately, TfL says its enforcement officers reported 4,428 individuals for “possible prosecution” in 2025/26, for what it calls “blatant fare evasion, such as gate-pushing” where no attempt is made to pay.

In its press release, the transport body says the “current evasion rate in London is 3.5 per cent, down from 3.9 per cent in 2022/23”. However, a written answer from City Hall to a question by London Assembly member Keith Prince, asked last September, said the rate for 2024/25 “was calculated at 3.5 per cent” – the same as for the latest annual figure.

There has therefore been a 0.4 per cent fall in the evasion rate since 2022/23, though the decline levelled off in 2025/26, according to TfL’s calculations. The rate between April and December 2024 was once put by TfL at a slightly lower 3.4 per cent. In the same City Hall answer, the rate in 2023/24 was put 3.8 per cent.

Fare evasion and attempts to reduce it have been a feature of London’s public transport system for decades. In 2011, the then-Mayor Boris Johnson launched an initiative against what he called a “parasitic scourge” and TfL announced a “crackdown” involving plain clothes ticket inspectors.

In the 1980s, TfL’s predecessor organisation, London Transport, ran an advertising campaign against fare evasion, which said that more than 10,000 people had been prosecuted for it over a two-year period relating to buses alone. The campaign highlighted violence by passengers against bus conductors, who were responsible for collecting fares on board.

Transport for London launched a fare evasion strategy in April 2025 with the aim of reducing the evasion rate to 1.5 per cent or less by 2030/31. Detailed TfL data for 2025/26 are in the TfL table below.

Screenshot 2026 06 10 at 17.18.40

Siwan Hayward, TfL’s Director of security, policing and enforcement, said: “The overwhelming majority of customers pay the correct fare, and it’s unfair that a minority avoid paying. That’s why we are strengthening our capability to detect and deter fare evasion, as shown by the significant increases in enforcement activity across our network – from more customer ticket checks to more officers on the ground and higher levels of revenue recovered.”

OnLondon.co.uk is funded by sales of publisher and editor Dave Hill’s twice-weekly newsletter On London Extra. To start receiving it, become a paying subscriber to Dave’s personal Substack. Thanks.

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