Countdown to ULEZ

Last-minute legal advice and a tank joyride in central

Aug 25, 2023

Morning — just a roundup for you today as the Spy jets off abroad. It might be holiday season, but it’s likely busy in City Hall at the moment — in a few days Sadiq Khan’s ultra-low emissions zone (ULEZ) is coming into force across all of Greater London. After months of attempts to thwart the expansion, opponents are making an extra bit of noise in the final few days — that and more in your Friday briefing below.

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What we’ve spied

🏳️‍🌈 Just a week after the homophobic attack in Clapham, two more men have been assaulted in south London. On Sunday Michael Smith and his boyfriend Nat Asabere were waiting for a bus on Brixton Road after spending the day at Black Pride when they were punched by a man multiple times. Both men were treated in hospital and one needed stitches. Police are now appealing for information, alongside their ongoing investigation into the Clapham attacker, who’s still at large. See last week’s Spy for further reading on the recent rise in homophobic attacks in the capital.

🎭 A few controversies have hit London’s drama scene this week. The Other Palace theatre, just off the West End, is facing heat for allegedly making staff write a paragraph justifying why they shouldn’t be fired — a so-called ‘fire and rehire scheme’. The letter was sent to front-of-house staff by management ahead of Heather: The Musical ending its run there on September 3, though some staff say they’d even been kept in the dark about the show coming to a close. Meanwhile, a London drama school is facing accusations of racism by actor Shaniqua Okwok. She says that while she was studying at the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama in north London she was told during an exercise to “embrace her trauma” and act like a slave in chains.

🦠 Some concern for a new variant of Covid detected in London. The UK Health Security Agency confirmed last Friday that the BA.2.86 variant had been found in genetic sequencing from the capital — and notably the cases weren’t linked to international travel, suggesting a degree of community transmission. There’s a lot scientists don’t know about BA.2.86 — whether it’s more infectious or more deadly — but cases are being detected in other countries like Israel, Denmark and the US, putting scientists on alert globally.

🚗 This time next week ULEZ will be in force across all of London, and there’s been one last gasp of opposition in the runup. At the highest level there’s prime minister Rishi Sunak, who it was revealed on Wednesday had sought legal advice on whether he could overrule Sadiq Khan on the expansion, which is set for August 29 onwards. But, according to the Telegraph, lawyers warned the government that such a move would be rejected by the courts, as Downing Street couldn’t make a convincing case Khan’s strategy is “inconsistent with national policies”. Separately one of Khan’s scientific advisers has been in the firing line amid reports she’d pressured academics over a study that suggested ULEZ had a relatively small effect on air pollution. Internal emails seem to show Shirley Rodrigues, Khan’s deputy mayor for the environment, telling an academic at Imperial College that the study was “misleading” and calling on them to “set the record straight”. Some of the final bits of ULEZ opposition have been slightly more silly though — like the protestors who drove a tank through central London this week. The stunt made the point that, because the tank was built before 1965, it could qualify for the “classic car” ULEZ exemption and avoid the £12.50 a day charge for polluting vehicles. Khan is sticking to his own guns though, and this week saw another leg of his new outer London bus network, the Superloop, come online, in an effort to improve transport in new ULEZ areas.

👮 Another rogue Met officer has been sentenced for rape. This week Adam Provan was jailed for 16 years for multiple rape offences, and one of his victims, Lauren Taylor, has told the BBC of her ordeal — she was just 16 at the time. It seems it’s another situation of missed chances for the Met, with the Times counting eight opportunities at which Provan could have been stopped, including after he raped a Met colleague. Related: it’s been reported police are investigating further allegations against former Met officer, serial rapist David Carrick, who was convicted of 85 rapes and serious assaults earlier this year.

🚑 One last thing on the Met — the force has been successful in its bid to stop responding to mental health callouts. From October 31 the Met will start implementing a new scheme that aims to stop officers being diverted from crime fighting to do work health staff are better trained for, in the eyes of commissioner Sir Mark Rowley at least. See this previous Spy from a couple weeks back for more info.

🏨 A historic London club with links to the Indian independence movement is shutting down. The India Club was founded on the Strand in 1951 by prominent figures figures including India’s first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru with the aim of furthering “Indo-British friendship”. Its owners have now announced it will stop trading on September 17 and the site will become a hotel.

🚲 It looks like the Boris bike is dying, with new data showing use is at a 10-year low. TfL published figures this week showing 4.9m journeys were made on Santander Cycles between January to July this year, down 33% on the 7.3m in the same period last year. Usage is now at 2013 levels — which is a bit of a damning sign because there were fewer bikes and docking stations back then.

🚏 London bus drivers do in fact like it when you say hello as you get on, according to a new survey. A recent pilot in Hammersmith run by researchers from the University of Sussex, TfL and a company called Neighbourly Lab saw stickers put on buses to encourage people to say hello or thanks to the driver. It boosted greetings from passengers and afterwards researchers surveyed 77 drivers, who said the extra hellos meaningful.

🔒 There’s a sense of unease in an affluent west London neighbourhood hit by a spate of thefts. Shopowners around Chiswick High Road have been telling the Times how local independent stores and chain brands alike have been hit by a wave of pickpocketing, burglary and shoplifters. One women’s fashion shop nearby has started “operating a locked door policy”.

🥗 Foodies are lamenting the closure of Le Gavorche in Mayfair. Chef Michel Roux Jr has announced the two-Michelin-starred restaurant will be running its last service in January next year, after 56 years.

🏢 A bit of nerves about the future of WeWork’s London empire. Landlords in the UK are reportedly exposed to £3.1bn in leases to the workspace company, much of that tied up in central London. WeWork is the capital’s biggest private tenant, with around 3m sq ft of space that could fill the Shard three times over. That includes a 300,000 sq ft building on the Southbank as well as 1 Poultry in the City. But WeWork has started shedding leases as of late as it’s hit by the rise of working from home, and the company is currently looking to sell two of its major offices in London — 99 Victoria Street and 51 Eastcheap.

🧑‍⚖️ Finally, a particularly strange case in London’s legal quarter: a businessman has been found guilty of planting fake bombs at Gray’s Inn in 2021. Jonathan Nuttall had recruited a group of men to leave packages that resembled explosive devices in the area over a “grudge”. This week he was found guilty of various offences in connection with the incident.