The future of Canary Wharf: garden skyscrapers?
Plus: a chain of pubs in the capital goes bust, a big climate report, and the mysterious fireworks on London’s bridges.
Morning — Canary Wharf’s skyline may soon look very different. More and more companies are moving away from the London corporate hub, meaning more and more of its office skyscrapers need tenants. But maybe there’s another way forward — in the past week, a big plan has been proposed for HSBC Tower, which is soon saying goodbye to its namesake. The possible future of Canary Wharf leads your round-up below.
Plus: a chain of pubs in the capital goes bust, a big climate report, and the mysterious fireworks on London’s bridges.
In case you missed it: on Thursday we published writer Lucy Carter’s excellent look at what it’s really like when London’s restaurants and cafs go viral. Lucy’s conversation with one restaurant about their run-in with food influencer EatingWithTodd was a particular highlight — a snippet below:
After Tod’s video, we had a queue every single day we were open. It didn’t end. For 11 weeks, we were obliterated, battered, broken; every week we thought, ‘today it will be a little bit calmer’, but at five on the dot there were already 60-70 people outside. The only time it stopped was when we had to go out and say there was nothing left.
PS: Apologies for the late round-up — we were celebrating a Spy birthday over the weekend 🎂
What we've spied
🏢 Finally, a big answer to the big question of what to do with the empty offices in London's skyline: rip them out. On Thursday, the Canary Wharf Group (CWG) unveiled eye-catching plans for HSBC Tower once the bank leaves the skyscraper, which will see chunks of the facade carved out to make way for new terraces — pictured above. HSBC Tower contains only offices at the moment across its 42-storeys, but it would be converted to a mixed-use building under the plans, gaining apartments as well as new leisure facilities and a public viewing gallery. The plans have been drawn up by US architecture firm Kohn Pedersen Fox and the development is being managed by CWG on behalf of the tower's owners, the Qatar Investment Authority. HSBC is moving out of the building by 2027 and into a smaller headquarters near St Paul's, reflecting the move to remote working at the bank. HSBC isn't the only company physically leaving Canary Wharf — JP Morgan went in 2021, law firm Clifford Chance is planning to go later this year, and ratings agency Moody is considering it — prompting quite a lot of soul-searching about the future of the London financial district. Right now the plans for HSBC Tower are still in the early stage, but CWG says it's now working towards submitting a planning application to the local borough council, Tower Hamlets.
🍺 London pub group Antic has gone into administration, putting the future of 13 much-loved locals in doubt. The pubs and bars will keep operating while the administration takes place, but they may later change hands or close entirely depending on the eventual bankruptcy deal. Antic isn't your typical pub chain — the group styled itself as a 'collective', offering member pubs independent legal arrangements that let them operate at a greater arms length to HQ than, say, Wetherspoons. The full list of at-risk pubs are: Dogstar (Brixton), Gremio de Brixton, Balham Bowls Club, East Dulwich Tavern, Tooting Tram & Social, The Sun (Camberwell), Antelope (Tooting), Clapton Hart, The Elephant & Castle Pub, Hagen & Hyde (Balham), Graveney & Meadow (Tooting), Red Lion (Leytonstone), Coopers (Crystal Palace). For more on the state of London's pubs, here's our recent Spy investigation on the fall of the indie boozer.
🔥 An official review of London's resilience to climate change has been published, but it was one idea in the report's 168 pages — a 'driveway tax' — that got the most attention. The London Climate Resilience Review was published on Wednesday, having been commissioned by City Hall in the wake of the 40C heatwave in 2022 that brought wildfires and the risk of drought to the capital. The review's chair, Emma Howard Boyd, called for a "reset moment" as she published her findings, which focused on how the capital needs to prepare for severe floods and extreme heat. It’s the issue of flooding that’s led to this idea of a ‘driveway tax’ — Boyd's report recommends introducing a new charge for Londoners who concrete over their gardens, because it reduces the amount of ground that can absorb heavy rainfall. The idea has drawn reactions like "If our front drives aren’t safe from Sadiq Khan, nothing else is" in the Telegraph, but the report stresses it's necessary to protect Londoners from the "lethal" risks of flooding. Other key bits from the report: a new Thames Barrier is needed by 2070 to deal with rising sea levels, London needs a new reservoir to reduce the risk of droughts, and City Hall should draw up a "heat plan" to protect vulnerable residents from the risk of heatwaves. The report comes only a few weeks after officials from across London's emergency services participated in a training exercise simulating an extreme heatwave.
🚗 Though Sadiq Khan accepted all of the climate review's recommendations for City Hall, the mayor's been fighting a separate battle over his green credentials. Khan was grilled by his recent rival for mayor, Conservative Susan Hall, at a meeting on Thursday about plans to remove the congestion charge exemption for electric vehicles. After pressing Khan about how much the new charges were expected to raise for TfL — Khan said he didn't know — Hall said: “I think it just shows that it’s not about clean air, it’s about making money, and I’m surprised that you don’t know how much money". Khan defended the move, stressing the congestion zone is ultimately intended to reduce traffic levels, while also pointing out that more than 20,000 public charging points have now been installed across the capital. But others aside from Hall are unimpressed by the EV policy change — Oliver Lord, who heads up the Clean Cities campaign, recently called the move "puzzling".
🚨 Police have issued a fresh appeal for information about the drive-by shooting in Dalston, as their investigation nears the two-month mark without a single arrest. The Met Police has released three new photos of the motorcyclist who fired into Evin restaurant on Kingsland Road on May 29, injuring three men and a nine-year-old girl who were sitting outside. Tragically, the Met's appeal, circulated on Wednesday, includes a statement from the girl's parents, who say:
We are devastated about what has happened, our daughter remains stable but in a critical condition. She only went there for ice cream and now we do not know if we will ever get our daughter back to being the smart, funny girl that she was before and whether she will be able to ever speak or move properly again.
Detectives are calling for anyone who recognises the motorcycle or the rider to contact police immediately. They've also once again said they are investigating a potential link between the shooting and "Turkish-originating organised criminal networks", amid unofficial reports it may have involved a feud between rival gangs the Tottenham Turks and the Hackney Bombacilar. Related: the Times published a feature this week on how a barber school in Haringey is trying to "save north London from heroin wars".
🗺️ FROM THE BOROUGHS 🗺️ The closure of an art deco cinema — and a lack of public cash to save it — has led to claims Bromley is becoming a "cultural wasteland". Picturehouse group recently announced it's closing its cinema on Bromley High Street, raising alarm among residents, 4,700 of which have signed a petition to save it, as well as councillors, who discussed their options at a meeting last week. But the leader of the Conservative-run, south east borough, cllr Colin Smith, had bad news: "There is nothing specific the council can do to prevent the closure", he told councillors, rebuffing calls to turn the building into a cultural arts centre because Bromley council is forecast to bankrupt by 2028. Eek.
More wastelands in Southwark, where parks across the borough were gutted of play equipment last week following an accident at a playground. Two children were hospitalised last month when a climbing frame collapsed, despite the council carrying inspections just weeks before and finding no risks. No word yet on when the equipment is being reinstalled.
Meanwhile, Hammersmith council has unveiled grand plans to revitalise its borough town centre by burying its flyover road in a tunnel. The elevated roadway is seen by some as an ugly legacy of 1960s thinking, but it would be turned into a fly-under under the council scheme, which is also proposing the construction of 2,800 new homes.
Finally, a damning verdict from the UK's information regulator of Hackney council's cybersecurity arrangements before the notorious hack in October 2020, which ground many services across the borough to a halt. "Clear and avoidable" errors were highlighted by the Information Commissioner's investigation, like a lack of security software on some devices or a failure to change insecure passwords.
👨⚖️ A man has appeared in court charged with the murder of two men who lived together in west London. Yostin Andres Mosquera appeared at the Old Bailey on Wednesday accused of murdering Albert Alfonso, 62, and Paul Longworth, 71, whose remains were found in suitcases at Bristol's Clifton suspension bridge earlier this month. Alfonso and Longworth had previously been in a relationship but still lived together at a flat in Shepherd's Bush. While the Met Police has said so far its investigation did not point to a homophobic motive, the murder has been classified as a hate crime under national guidelines. "Officers have worked with the pan-London LGBTQ+ Independent Advisory Group (IAG) since the identity of the two victims and their sexuality was established," said deputy assistant commissioner Andy Valentine. Mosquera, a 34-year-old Colombian national, will next appear in court for a plea hearing in October.
☕ Thousands of London office workers cried out in agony on Thursday, upon the announcement Pret is ending its five-a-day coffee subscription. The chain had previously offered the daily 'free drinks' for £30 a month, but from September Club Pret subscribers will now be enrolled in a £5 a month plan for half-price coffees, rising to £10 a month next March. "A huge mistake" is how some Pret loyalists have reacted, but the chain, which only just returned to profitability for the first time since the pandemic, says "it's time for a rethink" of the service, which first launched four years ago. The golden age of Club Pret was arguably already over — in March the chain cracked down on Londoners sharing their subscriptions with friends.
🔍 And finally, we leave you with:
An England fan doing bumps on the top of scaffolding in Leicester Square
The restoration of an Edwardian drinking fountain near Blackfriars
TfL releasing a podcast to explain the new Overground line names
The battle to save a social club "at the heart of London's Little Italy"
A project where researchers are putting trackers on homeless people in London
Concerns about the safety of platforms on the Elizabeth line