Heat rules will mean ‘extra six days off’ for Londoners
Plus: cash for car park homes, the closure of a proper Piccadilly dive, and the man who bought the wrong London bridge
Afternoon — buried in the Labour government’s recently announced reforms to employment rights is a potential change that could have big implications for working in London. The government has said it’s now looking at how it can “modernise health and safety guidance with reference to extreme temperatures” — a nod to growing calls to bring in a maximum temperature limit in workplaces. Many think it should be 30C — a figure that London hits roughly six times a year. How the capital could become too hot to work leads your round-up below.
Plus: cash for car park homes, the closure of a proper Piccadilly dive, and the man who bought the wrong London bridge.
In case you missed it: on Saturday we published our deep dive into the Met Police’s facial recognition programme, which has now scanned more than 1,000,000 faces across London. Police use of Live Facial Recognition in the capital has surged this year, to the alarm of campaigners, who fear mission creep and a lack of oversight.
What we’ve spied
🥵 Business owners might be cold on the idea of a maximum temperature limit at work, but there’s perhaps an upside for Londoners: around six extra days off a year. Last week the Telegraph reported that the Labour government is considering new rules which would give workers the right to clock off if their workplaces are too hot — a prospect described as a “disaster” by some businesses, who see it as more red tape. There’s already a legal minimum temperature in the UK, but the Trade Union Congress and the Fabian Society have been calling for a maximum workplace temperature of 30C, or 27C for strenuous work. It’s especially pertinent to the capital’s businesses and workers, because London is typically much hotter than the rest of the UK due to the urban island effect. In the past decade, the city has seen around six days a year above 30C, and that’s only expected to become more frequent due to climate change. In theory, air con can keep London’s workplaces compliant with the rules, as the limit would apply to indoor temperatures. But City Hall’s recent review into London’s climate resilience found that many buildings in the city weren’t designed for temperatures that hot. For instance, the South West London NHS Integrated Care Board told the review: “The majority of trust estates air conditioning systems are over 10 years old and designed to cope with temperatures up to 30C”. Another NHS trust in the capital recalled the summer of 2022, “when indoor temperatures were over 30 degrees throughout the night, putting patients and staff under tremendous strain”. Research by the Resolution Foundation in 2023 also found that around 40% of offices in London’s least deprived areas have air con, but only 22% have it in London’s most deprived areas.
💰 Sadiq Khan is in his “admin error” era, after it was revealed the mayor’s office made some pretty big mistakes over his declaration of free Taylor Swift tickets — at a time when he’s accused of pulling strings for the pop star. Originally, Khan said he’d received six tickets worth a total of £1,164 from the Football Association to attend Swift’s concert in London on August 15. But it emerged on Friday that he’d understated the value — the tickets were actually worth around £3,000 — and they were paid for by a private events company, not the FA. He also declared the tickets 10 days late. Khan shared a box at the Swift concert with members of family as well as City Hall staff and representatives of the private events company. It’s quite the administrative fumble, given Khan and the home secretary have been accused of interfering with operational policing by pressing the Met Police to provide Swift with a blue-light escort for her London concerts. Khan has denied this, and a spokesperson said the issues with his gift declaration were down to an “administrative error”. Whoops. More on freebies: it's been revealed London borough councillors are accepting VIP tickets to park festivals.
🗺 FROM THE BOROUGHS 🗺️ Several London councils are together getting more than £12m to fund the building of 1,400 new homes on neglected land — old car parks, empty buildings and former industrial sites. The cash was announced by prime minister Sir Keir Starmer last week and is being handed directly to some councils across the UK to help them pay for clearing so-called brownfield sites. Camden is receiving the most cash in London — £3.3m to make way for 234 homes — followed by Haringey (£2.7m for 225 homes) and Newham (£1.7m for 350 homes). Barking & Dagenham, Barnet, Croydon and Hackney are also getting some of the money.
Elsewhere: the schools crisis in Hackney is ramping up, after the council launched a consultation on closing six primary schools amid falling pupil numbers. In Havering, a group of residents have launched legal action against the council over its failure to sort out the landfill on Launders Lane that keeps catching fire. Labour have lost a seat to the Conservatives on Greenwich council after a by-election campaign that focused on police station closures in London. And a plan to build a ‘new town’ of 2,000 homes on the banks of the Thames has been submitted to Barking & Dagenham council.
🚇 Tube workers are set to strike next month in an ongoing dispute about pay and conditions. As things currently stand, ASLEF, the drivers union, has called for two 24-hour strikes on November 7 and 12, while the RMT has told its members to walk out on different days between November 1 and 8. However, TfL is still in talks with both unions, and they might be able to reach an agreement before then. Aside from full blown industrial action, several Tube drivers are also planning ‘go-slow protests’, in an attempt to get TfL to fix the screeching sounds of their trains, which often surpass legal noise limits. More transport: one of the new Piccadilly line trains was vandalised on its way to a depot in west London; TfL has hired two firms to further explore expanding the Bakerloo line past Elephant and Castle; and Sabrina Bahsoon, aka Tube Girl, has apparently been given a warning by TfL for creating paid partnership videos on the Underground.
🍺 A 200-year-old pub in central London may be forced to change its opening hours after a single local resident complained of “murmuring” and “occasional bouts” of laughter coming from patrons. The Globe pub in Westminster currently closes at midnight, but it has now been suggested that its closing time be pulled back to 11pm as part of a licensing review. Amongst the evidence submitted by the lone complainant was people singing ‘Happy Birthday’ at 12.01am and people lingering outside at 11.54pm. Documents submitted include a WhatsApp message from the manager to the complainant saying: “It not even 12[am], this is getting excessive now, we are moving them on they are also not making noise.” Related: Tiger Tiger, a club in Piccadilly has announced it’s closing, to be replaced by a 507-room hotel. Commiserations have flooded in despite the club’s quite shady reputation, not improved by the fact it once sent customers to hospital after mistakenly serving cleaning substance instead of salt with tequila shots.
👮 The Met Police is under investigation after a pregnant woman and her unborn child were killed in a collision with an unmarked police car in south London. The Independent Office for Police Conduct launched its investigation on Friday, following the collision in Eltham at about 6.15pm on Thursday. One witness claims the woman’s car flipped three times after being hit by an unmarked police car driving on the wrong side of the road.
🔍 And finally, we leave you with:
A phone snatched being arrested seconds after stealing a phone near St Paul’s (X)
A new home for the MSG Sphere that was blocked in Stratford (X)
An unromantic view of London (TikTok)
Inside Peckham’s conker contest (Guardian)
A painful cinnamon bun price (Reddit)
An Elizabeth line simulator (TikTok)
West Croydon remade in Roblox (TikTok)