Is south London on the cusp of a Tube expansion?
As a Labour government looks more likely, speculation grows over what they'll fund in London
Morning — there’s a big question facing whoever wins the London mayoral election: what to do with the heap of Tube plans TfL has drawn up, but doesn’t have the cash for. The projects — extending lines like the Bakerloo and the DLR — would be great for south Londoners, who have far fewer connections to the Underground than their counterparts in the north. Well, over the past week, there have been a few clues as to what we can and can’t expect in the near future, via a campaign pledge from Sadiq Khan and comments from his allies at the top of the Labour Party. That’s after your round-up below.
Plus: a doomsday mega poll, multiple community spaces saved, and London Pret toilet codes.
By the way: we’re going to tweak our Spy publication schedule slightly over the next few weeks. We’ve always aimed to send both a chunky London round-up and a chunky London feature altogether on a Sunday. But, as today’s rather late Monday sendout proves (oops), we’re finding one can sometimes hold up the other. So we’re going to trial sending out our features separately, so you reliably have a London round-up to tuck into on a Sunday morning. Watch your inboxes!
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What we’ve spied
🗳️ The Conservatives are facing a near-total wipeout in London at the next general election, according to a recent mega poll. The seat-by-seat forecast, conducted by YouGov and published by the Times on Wednesday, garnered much attention for its headline finding that Rishi Sunak is on course for a worse result than Sir John Major at the 1997 election. But zoom in on the prediction for London and the results are particularly existential for the Tories. The party is forecast to win just 5 of the 75 constituencies up for grabs in the capital, down from the 20 it currently holds, with traditional blue strongholds flipping to Labour, like Chelsea and Fulham as well as the Cities of London and Westminster. The Liberal Democrats are also expected to make gains, taking Wimbledon as well as Carshalton and Wallington from the Conservatives. All in all, YouGov predicts Labour will gain 13 seats, meaning the party will end up controlling 65 of the 75 London’s constituencies. Statistical health warning: YouGov’s forecast is based on current polling, and the Conservatives may improve their ratings by the autumn, when the election is currently expected to take place. But the methodology the pollster uses was pretty accurate at the 2019 and 2017 general elections.
🧺 Celebration in the East End, with news a much-loved community laundrette has been saved. The Boundary Estate Community Laundrette suddenly closed in February after its landlord, Tower Hamlets council, had proposed hiking its rent from £2,000 to £12,500 — perhaps on par with other high street premises in Shoreditch, but a shock to volunteers and regulars, who have long prized the laundrette’s communal vibes. Locals fighting to save the laundrette have spoken of the importance of the spot for lonely or elderly people who pop in for a cup of tea while they wait for their washing, and of one tale of romance blooming when a couple first met over its tumble driers. It now appears the council has had an abrupt change of heart, with the laundrette now re-opening and Tower Hamlets mayor Lutfur Rahman saying he is “working on a long-term solution to ensure this valuable community asset can stay open”.
🛍️ Also being saved: Stratford Market Village, an indoor market that had abruptly told traders to vacate the premises earlier in the year. Newham council has stepped in and taken on the lease of the market, which pre-dates the nearby Westfield shopping centre but had been plunged into uncertainty when its private owners went into administration in January. More than 60 traders, from Caribbean takeaways to phone repair shops, had been caught up in the shutdown, but they’re now celebrating the deal. "We are absolutely ecstatic about the market reopening,” cafe owners Angie and Ali Akbas told the BBC.
🚇 FYI: the Tube strikes that were planned for today and also May 4 have been called off. Aslef, the union that represents Tube drivers, said on Thursday its concerns had been “successfully resolved … without the need for strikes”, after reaching a deal with TfL. Placating the union are reportedly agreements that TfL disbands its ‘train modernisation’ team, the reinstatement of annual refresher training for drivers, the establishment of a new team for dealing with anti-social behaviour on the Night Tube and the installation of new cab-security locks.
😬 A history of ‘racist’ replies to online reviews has now caught up with one London restaurant. Users on Reddit were the first to spot multiple offensive comments left on reviews for Ci Tua Osteria Romana, an Italian restaurant in Notting Hill. One example included a response to a three-star rating from an Indian diner, with the restaurant’s account posting: “I understand that moving from tandoori chicken to real cuisine can have a surprising effect… but perhaps there is too much curry left under your palate to appreciate our unique dishes of Roman cuisine”. A bizarre saga then ensued, with the restaurant claiming on its Instagram that it had actually been hacked for the past year. The story eventually made its way into the Daily Mail, which reported Cia Tua’s owner had now apologised to the diner — 26-year-old climate change expert Malavika Prasanna — and fired a member of staff who had been responsible for managing the restaurant’s social media pages. Elsewhere in London restaurant controversy: Ping Pong, a dim sum franchise in London, has come under fire for banning tipping but then adding a 15% ‘brand fee’ to bills. Also: apparently lunchtime queues for this salad shop in Bank are wild at the moment.
🚨 A man and a woman have been arrested after body parts were found in a park in south London. Police had been called to Rowdown Fields in Croydon on Tuesday morning after human remains were discovered. On Saturday a 44-year-old man and 48-year-old woman were taken into custody in connection with the death. The victim has yet to be identified and it’s unclear how long the body parts had been in the park, but a post-mortem examination is now taking place.
🏘️ Cries of betrayal out in northwest London, after a borough council that ‘pledged’ to stop high rises says it’s unable to stop plans for more high rises. Some locals in Harrow are now campaigning against what they call the Tesco Towers, ten flat blocks up to 13 storeys that have been proposed on the site of a Tesco superstore on Station Road. The scheme is officially called Greenmead Place and is being developed by housing association Notting Hill Genesis (NHG), and it’s expected to create 504 homes. Opponents have now collected 2,500 signatures on a petition against the plans, and are particularly peeved off with the Conservative-run Harrow council, which they say has gone back on a 2022 campaign promise to ban new high-rise tower blocks in the borough. The council disagrees that it’s broken a promise, with councillor Marilyn Ashton, chair of Harrow planning committee, saying they had only pledged to ‘protect the suburbs’, and that the council was unable to stop NHG building on its own land. Related: some NIMBY vs YIMBY discourse over a blocked plan to build flats in south London.
📱 If you come for the king, you best not mizz – a new challenger for Mizzy’s crown as London’s most notorious prankster has emerged. Dubbed ‘Miss Mizzy’ by the press, the woman has been caught on camera going around London punching strangers, with footage posted on Snapchat. Clips show the woman hitting victims on the Tube or in supermarkets. It’s a bit unclear whether the ‘prankster’ is still at large — the Mail had initially reported a woman was arrested at Victoria station, but the Met later clarified this was unrelated to the assaults, and the British Transport Police are still appealing for information. For the record, though Mizzy did some questionable stuff, like those home invasion videos, as far we know he never punched a stranger…
🔍 And finally, we leave you with:
The entry codes for a selection of Pret toilets in London (according to this guy): Bond Street (3011), New Oxford Street (1144), Kensington (3456), Notting Hill (4569), Somerset House (3150), Charring Cross (2367), Dean Street (5879)
Jeremy Vine’s April Fool’s prank in Hyde Park, and the backlash
One of the Met’s live facial recognition vans out in the wild
An in-depth look at hunger, homelessness and gang grooming at a London academy
The re-opening of the Tipperary, London’s ‘oldest Irish pub’
Just how far off is a south London Tube expansion?
It wasn’t a no, but not a definite yes either. On Wednesday Rachel Reeves, quite possibly the UK’s next chancellor, joined Sadiq Khan on the mayoral campaign trail, where she was asked a question with big implications for south London. Would a Labour government greenlight the plans TfL has drawn up to extend the Tube south of the Thames, but doesn’t have the cash for? Reeves didn’t let herself be drawn: “I've always been clear, I will not make any commitments without being able to say where the money's going to come from.”
South London is hard done when it comes to the Tube, with just 31 stations on the network. There are more than 230 on the northern side of the river. But whoever wins the mayoral election next month has, on paper, several ready-made plans they could pick off the shelf to start addressing the capital’s north-south rail imbalance. Proposals to extend the Bakerloo line to Lewisham and the DLR to Thamesmead are pretty far along. Money is the only problem, after TfL got battered financially by the pandemic and then faced tough love in the government’s rescue deals.
But the very real prospect of Labour winning the next general election is leading to speculation that may change. For a while now, the party has been vocally criticising the government’s approach to funding transport in London. Sir Keir Starmer told the government in 2022 it needed to “step up and put in place a long-term sustainable agreement” with TfL. In the time since Starmer and especially Reeves have become increasingly reluctant to make big spending commitments, but recently Khan has been hinting more money could be coming London’s way. Last month he pledged he’d recruit 1,300 more police officers, but only if Labour wins the keys to No 10. And then, last week, he made a surprise transport pledge too.
On Tuesday, the mayor announced he’d introduce ‘Bakerloop’, a bus-based expansion to the Bakerloo line, if he gets re-elected on May 2. Its route will mirror the proposed Tube extension of the Bakerloo line, running from Elephant and Castle to Lewisham, stopping off at Burgess Park, Old Kent Road and New Cross Gate along the way. Like the Superloop services Khan has been introducing in outer London, the buses will be ‘express’, making fewer stops. And also like the Superloop, the buses will have swish branding: a brown Bakerloo-style colour scheme, and even similar moquette patterned seating to that seen on the trains.
The Bakerloo line is well and truly the Underground’s ugly duckling at the moment. The line’s 52-year-old trains are ancient in transport terms — just last month a report found that Bakerloo was “at risk of critical failure” if the old stock wasn’t replaced soon. But there are also more ambitious hopes for Bakerloo too. The line only makes it as far as Zone 1 in the south, a rarity for the Underground. For decades many have put forward ideas to make Bakerloo could go further — 26 separate extension proposals, by some counts. Things culminated in 2019 though, when TfL put a proper plan together, selecting the route to Lewisham, and potentially a further extension to Hayes later down the line. Public consultations had found large majorities in support, though a few were miffed places like Camberwell or Peckham missed out. Construction was pencilled in to start in 2023.
Today though, the whole plan is on ice due to a lack of funding — roughly £10bn is needed to get spades in the ground. The proposed route is at least protected from being built on, after the Department for Transport legally safeguarded the corridor of land needed in 2021. But TfL finance chiefs have been blunt, going on record to say they don’t expect the Bakerloo extension to be built within the next decade.
So Khan’s Bakerloop is a bit of a stopgap — a fact he acknowledges, and he’s said he’ll still pushing for a Tube extension too. But the temporary nature of his plan has led to a mixed response. Those who have long campaigned for a Bakerloo extension have at least been positive, including Southwark council, which has led the Back the Bakerloo coalition alongside Lambeth council for some years. Reacting to Khan’s announcement this week, Kieron Williams, leader of Southwark Council said: “It’s yet another investment in our community from the Labour Mayor of London. We’re already working with Sadiq to upgrade Elephant and Castle station and to deliver thousands of new jobs and truly affordable homes along the Old Kent Road. This new express service will keep all of this work moving forward at pace.”
Others have been less kind, dubbing Bakerloop a marketing ploy and a glorified rail replacement service. Victor Chamberlain, the Liberal Democrat leader on Southwark council, said: “Labour are trying to pull the wool over people’s eyes with flashy gimmicks, but everyone can see that it’s just a distraction from the mayor’s failure to deliver the Bakerloo Line extension. Only in Labour-run London would we see a bus replacement service before the train was even built”. And, of course, Susan Hall, Khan’s Conservative rival for City Hall, bashed the plan too: “This Blunderloop is yet another Superflop from Sadiq Khan. Instead of delivering the much needed Bakerloo line extension, Sadiq Khan has decided to settle for a bus.”
But it was only a day after the Bakerloop announcement that Khan was brushing shoulders with Reeves, on a visit to King’s Cross on Wednesday. They were meant to be announcing Khan’s new London growth plan together, with the promise of 150,000 ‘high-quality, well-paid’ jobs for the capital by 2028. But it was a reporter from MyLondon who snuck in a question on Tube projects to Reeves — not just funding for the Bakerloo and DLR extensions, but also more for stops for the Elizabeth line too. Her full reply was: "I've always been clear, I will not make any commitments without being able to say where the money's going to come from. The Government made that mistake in the mini-Budget which crashed the economy, and risk doing so again with their £46 billion unfunded plans on National Insurance”. There was only the mildest of mild hints she might cough up the cash: "Of course I want to see the investment in infrastructure our country needs to grow, after 14 years of mismanagement. But we have to always show where the money is going to come from, and we need to grow the economy to be able to release funds for crucial infrastructure investment.”
Khan has since sought to reign in speculation over the timing of extending Bakerloo, as he defended his bus plans later in the week. "Even if we got the green light soon after a Labour government was elected, it would take some years for the Bakerloo line [extension] to be built,” he said. The fuzziness of the timeline is a marked contrast to the early days of the Bakerloo extension plans, when TfL had even said it might have opened by 2030. Instead, it seems there are a few elections to wait for before south Londoners hear something more concrete.