The £300,000 London cheese heist
Plus: why Tube and bus fares are set to rise, a Lime bike ban averted, and Waltham Forest's tribute to The Shining
Morning — a true horror story for one London cheese specialist this past Halloween week. The iconic Neal’s Yard Dairy, which first opened in the capital in 1979, has revealed it’s been scammed out of 22 tonnes of cheddar. And police have now made one arrest in connection with the “sophisticated fraud”. The £300,000 London cheese heist leads your round-up below.
Plus: why Tube and bus fares are set to rise, a Lime bike ban averted, and Waltham Forest’s tribute to The Shining.
In case you missed it: on Saturday we published an investigation into a west London council that’s been shutting libraries, youth centres — and now a local theatre:
What we've spied
🧀 A man has been arrested after 950 wheels of cheddar worth up to £300,000 were stolen from Neal's Yard Dairy in Borough Market. News of the heist first broke on October 25, when the iconic cheese specialist issued a statement that said fraudsters posing as legitimate wholesalers for a French retailer had made off with 22 tonnes of cheddar. Neal's Yard described the theft as "sophisticated fraud", with the cheese being delivered to the fake buyers before the scam was discovered. They also said Neal's Yard would be footing the bill for the theft, having decided to honour its commitment to the original producers of the cheese: Hafod Welsh Organic Cheddar, Westcombe Cheddar, and Pitchfork Cheddar. Then, this Wednesday, the Met Police said it had arrested a 63-year-old man on suspicion of fraud by false representation and handling stolen goods. The man was questioned by police at a south London police station, then later bailed pending further inquiries. Neal's Yard owner Sarah Stewart said the business had seen "overwhelming" support since the theft, including from the likes of celeb chef Jamie Oliver, who took to Instagram to rally around the business. "Clearly British people love their cheese but we have had a lot of really incredible people getting in touch," said Stewart. As for the 950 wheels of cheese: suppliers to the company caught up in the scam reckon it's probably been spirited away to Russia or the Middle East.
💨 The government has awarded compensation to the family of a nine-year-old girl who died from air pollution near her south London home. In February 2013 Ella Kissi-Debrah, who lived 25 metres away from the busy South Circular Road in Lewisham, suffered a fatal asthma attack. A coroner would later rule a failure to reduce pollution levels to legal limits had contributed to her death — the first time a person in the UK was officially recognised to have died from air pollution. Ella’s mother, Rosamund Adoo-Kissi-Debrah, would go on to become a prominent air quality campigner, including voicing her support for the expansion of London’s ultra-low emissions zone. This past week she reached a settlement with the Department the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), the Department for Transport and the Department of Health, which Adoo-Kissi-Debrah had sued for compensation for personal injury arising from the illness and premature death of her daughter. Speaking afterwards, Adoo-Kissi-Debrah said: “Although this isn’t going to bring Ella back, we finally accept this is an acknowledgement of what happened to her, and it puts the issue of air pollution firmly on the map — that it is a public health crisis.”
🚇 Sadiq Khan has been told he has to hike Tube and bus fares as a condition of the £485m deal awarded to TfL in last week’s Budget. Transport secretary Louise Hague has written to the mayor saying she expects him to raise fares by nearly five percent next year, in line with other rail hikes announced by chancellor Rachel Reeves in her Budget on Wednesday. Khan has frozen fares several times since he entered City Hall, most recently announcing in January a partial freeze until March 2025. Nonetheless, reacting to the Budget, Khan said it was “fantastic” that TfL was getting £485m towards its capital renewal programme, which will be used to bolster train stocks on the Piccadilly and Elizabeth lines. Khan also revealed London was getting an extra £100m to build affordable homes. The Budget also saw Reeves commit to bringing HS2 all the way to Euston, quashing concerns the high speed rail line was only going to come as far as Old Oak Common in west London due to funding problems. However, the Budget didn’t commit any cash to extending the DLR or Bakerloo line, two big projects that TfL has drawn up but doesn’t yet have the money for. More London transport: the RMT union called off its Tube strike action following talks over pay, while TfL has announced it wants to power the Underground using solar farms.
🏚️ Rough sleeping in London has hit another record high. This summer 4,780 people were counted sleeping rough across the capital, a rise of 18% on the previous summer and the highest figure since records began a decade ago. The statistics, which are published by London’s Combined Homelessness and Information Network, or CHAIN, also found almost half — 2,343 — were sleeping rough for the first time. Related: London councils have welcomed extra cash announced in the Budget to help them fund their growing temporary accommodation bills.
🚲 A London borough that threatened to ban Lime bikes has now reached a deal with the company. Brent council had previously threatened Lime with expulsion from the borough if it didn't meet a list of requests by October 31 to tackle bikes being "inconsiderately parked and abandoned". Under a new agreement Lime must now remove poorly-parked bikes within two hours of them being reported, and will temporarily reduce the number of bikes in Brent from 700 to 500. Related: Wayne Ting, the CEO of Lime, sat down for a lengthy interview with the Times this week.
🦠 The UK's first case of a new strain of mpox was detected in London. The UK Health Security Agency announced the case on Wednesday, which involved a person who had been travelling back from Africa on an overnight flight on October 21. However, the HSA said there was no evidence of community transmission from the patient, who is now being treated at the Royal Free Hospital in London.
🍺 The Dogstar in Brixton is closing for good, having been caught up in the collapse of London pub chain Antic. According to Brixton Buzz, administrators have been unable to find a buyer for the bar and club, after it was put up for sale along with several other boozers in the capital owned by the troubled pub collective Antic. For more on the collapse of Antic, see our recent investigation:
🔍 And finally, we leave you with:
Calls from linguists to map London’s endangered languages (Guardian)
The two parrots that went missing from London zoo (Guardian)
A seal spotted near Canary Wharf (TikTok)
Perhaps the best London-themed Halloween costume: ‘severe delays' (Reddit)
'My luxury London barge was £200k cheaper than a flat' (Times £)
What if London was a country (TikTok)
A petition to save an elite gym in east London gym (Change.org)
The Prince Charles Cinema’s plans to screen The Muppets Christmas Carol every day in December (Prince Charles Cinema)
Moorgate being creepy (TikTok)