Arrival result of Enfield reintroduction scheme, started last year as part of natural flood defence project
A baby beaver has been photographed in London for the first time in 400 years, 18 months after an initiative began to reintroduce the species to the capital.
Enfield council began London’s beaver reintroduction programme last year as part of a wider rewilding and natural flood-management project.
Continue reading...The unequal battle between major developers and cash-strapped councils means the reach of town hall enforcement officers is declining
The decision by the Royal Borough of Greenwich to say enough is enough and order the demolition of 204 homes at the Mast Quay development in south-east London casts a spotlight on one of the most unequal battles in the public realm – between major developers and town hall planners.
And it is one that often enrages the public. Greenwich’s gambit has cheered community groups who say they are feeling increasingly powerless to challenge, even with the help of the planning system, the might of developers.
Continue reading...When it comes to investigating police shootings, what all sides agree on is it takes is too long
The Metropolitan police’s firearms command is seen as prestigious to serve in, but Louise Casey’s damning report into Britain’s largest force published in March found it had become dogged by cultural issues.
Some of its virtues can slide into vices. It is close knit, offering strong support for colleagues in trouble, which can turn into an insularity. It’s members volunteer to face extreme danger, rarely open fire, and some can appear to sneer at those who question them, viewing it as doubting their professionalism.
Continue reading...Official tour leaders complain that freelance guides with large groups and voice amplifiers are making their job impossible
They’re changing the guard at Buckingham Palace – but these days Christopher Robin would have trouble making out anything Alice says to him. Official Blue Badge guides working in London say a new wave of freelance tour guides at major tourist sights are deafening them and their guests by using megaphones and portable voice amplifiers.
The Institute for Tourist Guiding (ITG) says its members are increasingly concerned about the unofficial guides who have begun operating this summer around Buckingham Palace, the Tower of London and the Houses of Parliament.
Continue reading...Che Lovelace paintings in St James’s church are first permanent art commission to honour Quobna Ottobah Cugoano
A permanent artwork to commemorate the 250th anniversary of the baptism of Quobna Ottobah Cugoano, one of Britain’s most important abolitionists, has been unveiled at a church in central London.
The paintings by the Trinidad-based artist Che Lovelace, displayed at St James’s church, Piccadilly, are the first permanent art commission to commemorate Cugoano, a significant but largely forgotten figure in the history of Black Britain.
Continue reading...Scotland Yard says it will take ‘two or more years to root out those who are corrupting policing’
Scotland Yard has said it will take years to root out rogue officers serving in the capital as “the size of a small police force” is suspended or on restricted duties.
Britain’s biggest force revealed that 201 officers were suspended and 860 were on restricted duties, equivalent to the size of Warwickshire or Wiltshire police forces. There are 34,000 police officers in the Metropolitan police.
100 officers have been sacked for gross misconduct in the past year, up by 66% on the normal rate.
201 officers are suspended, up from 69 in September last year.
275 are awaiting a gross misconduct hearing, a significant proportion of which involved alleged violence against women and girls, compared with 136 last year.
The number of reports from the public and officers of alleged misconduct has doubled.
Continue reading...Prints symbolising British summertime appear on fashion week catwalk alongside modernised version of brand’s staple product
The scene before the biggest show of London fashion week was quintessentially British: an orderly queue for tea, coffee and eccles cake. Britishness, along with trenchcoats and checked scarves, is what Burberry stands for. This is surely the only catwalk show where Hollywood action hero Jason Statham, acclaimed choreographer Wayne MacGregor and Arsenal striker Bukayo Saka can be found rubbing shoulders in the front row.
The first look on to the catwalk was a trenchcoat. The trench is a Burberry staple – but this had a notably slimmer cut, an elegant dropped-waist silhouette, and was black rather than beige. There were more trenchcoats to follow: some sleeveless, some leather, all of them sleek and minimal.
Continue reading...Three years after unprecedented inquest ruling, absence of other cases has left a gap for pollution sceptics to exploit
Rosamund Adoo-Kissi-Debrah reserves a withering eye roll for people who question the impact that air pollution has on the health of children living in London. It helps her to shrug off the increasingly politicised debate over what needs to be done to improve the capital’s air quality.
Adoo-Kissi-Debrah fought a calm and determined campaign for seven years to make sure air pollution was included on her daughter Ella’s death certificate, and in December 2020 a second inquest ruled that air pollution contributed to Ella’s death from asthma in 2013.
Continue reading...Lambeth council says measures will include new security, a crowd management system and a command centre
Brixton Academy can reopen once the venue has met 77 “extensive and robust” conditions “designed to promote public safety”, Lambeth council said.
The conditions include stronger doors, new crowd management systems, more detailed risk assessments, a new ticketing system, a centralised control and command centre and new security and management.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Alfie Meadows underwent brain surgery after being struck by officer at tuition fees demonstration
The Metropolitan police have apologised and agreed to pay a six-figure settlement to a man who needed emergency brain surgery after being hit by an officer’s baton during the 2010 university tuition fees protests.
Alfie Meadows, then a 20-year-old philosophy student at Middlesex University, sustained a brain injury after he was struck on the head during demonstrations against the tripling of tuition fees. He needed more than 100 staples in his head and was left with a large scar.
Continue reading...National Theatre and Royal Ballet among 21 groups to receive grants from new fund
Vogue World will donate £2m to London-based arts organisations through a newly established fund, Condé Nast has announced.
The star-studded event at London’s Theatre Royal Drury Lane on Thursday night was masterminded by the Vogue editor-in-chief, Anna Wintour, and the Bafta- and Olivier-winning director Stephen Daldry. Its aim was to celebrate London’s heritage as a cultural powerhouse and to raise money for the UK’s cash-strapped performing arts scene.
Continue reading...The 30-year-old, now awarded damages by the Met police, talks about how a photo made her a target for hate and how she hopes to move on
There is one thing that Patsy Stevenson can’t stand when people see the image of her being pinned down on the ground by police on the night of the Sarah Everard vigil: them saying that she looked good.
“Some people were like, ‘Oh, you look so great’, or ‘Your hair looks amazing in that picture’,” she says, after learning that the Metropolitan police have settled the claim that she and Dania al-Obeid, who was also at the vigil, brought against them. “But that was a really traumatic event for me and I don’t think people always take into consideration that I’m not a picture, I’m a person.”
Continue reading...Apology and ‘substantial’ payouts to Patsy Stevenson and Dania al-Obeid mark major climbdown after years of legal battles
Scotland Yard has apologised and paid “substantial damages” to two women arrested during the vigil for Sarah Everard, in a major climbdown following years of legal battles over the policing of the event.
In a move that the new Metropolitan police commissioner, Mark Rowley, will hope draws a line under one of the darkest periods of the Met’s recent history, the force acknowledged that it was “understandable” that Patsy Stevenson and Dania Al-Obeid had wanted to attend a candlelit vigil at Clapham Common because they felt women had been “badly let down”.
Continue reading...Museum agrees to care for stelae dating from second half of first millennium BC until it is safe to return them
The V&A is to look after four ancient carved funerary stones that were found by police in a shop in east London in a historic agreement with Yemen.
The stelae, which date from the second half of the first millennium BC, come from necropoli that have been looted in recent years.
Continue reading...Former soldier, who escaped Wandsworth prison on Wednesday, recaptured in west London
Like much of the prison estate, there is no question that Wandsworth is a troubled institution.
Independent inspections have also made the point that conditions improved when prisoner numbers were reduced.
Continue reading...London Wildlife Trust asks volunteers to seek out endangered beetles’ strongholds
They were celebrated as “ye country comets” by the poet Andrew Marvell but glowworms are defying light pollution to still shine their lights in the city of London.
Now volunteers and enthusiasts are being sought to count and save the much-celebrated but declining beetles, whose females emit a remarkable bright green bioluminescent beam to attract males.
Continue reading...IOPC apologises ‘unreservedly’ to Marcia Rigg, whose brother Sean died after being restrained in Brixton
The police watchdog has apologised “unreservedly” to the sister of a black man who died in police custody in London 15 years ago.
The Independent Office for Police Conduct apologised to Marcia Rigg, whose brother Sean died after losing consciousness at Brixton police station, for delays and police failings. She said she hoped that no other family would have to endure her family’s “never-ending trauma”.
Continue reading...The suspect, 19, has been held on suspicion of two counts of grievous bodily harm after two men were stabbed in Clapham on 13 August
A 19-year-old man has been arrested in connection with a homophobic attack outside a nightclub in south London in which two men were stabbed, police have said.
Two men were taken to hospital after the incident in Clapham on 13 August. They have since been discharged.
Continue reading...Damp and mould so bad one cancer patient had to sleep on floor after ceiling collapsed, say residents
Hundreds of residents on a south London housing estate are demanding action from their council landlord, which they claim is ignoring urgent repairs needed on their homes.
Residents of the Tulse Hill estate say they have been left dealing with widespread issues of damp and mould that are so bad that in one case a cancer patient had to sleep on the floor for months after his ceiling collapsed twice.
Continue reading...Nathan Gilbert, of Enfield, changed the account details of customers and fraudulently issued passbooks
A former teller at a London branch of Nationwide has been jailed for more than two years for his part in a £130,000 bank fraud.
Nathan Gilbert, 26, of Enfield, north London, who was said to have abused his position of trust at the bank, pleaded guilty at Southwark crown court to committing fraud and was sentenced earlier this year.
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