LDN Weekly – Issue 253 – 1 February 2023 - Revolting Times
REVOLTING TIMES
“There is certainly a feeling in the air today, as workers strike across the capital, that this Winter of Discontent will turn into a Cruel Summer, a period when industrial action and political unrest will be very much the norm."
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LCA Managing Director, Insight and LDN Editor Jenna Goldberg We hope you enjoy this edition and if you don't already, do follow us on Twitter and Instagram. You can also visit our website for more information on LCA’s team, services, and clients. Oh and a technical note: If you like hearing from us, make sure to add ldn@londoncommunications.co.uk to your contacts or ‘safe sender’ list – this will help ensure our news bulletin lands in your inbox.  WORKERS REVOLTToday has been the UK’s biggest strike day for a decade, with further disruption likely in the weeks to come. Train drivers, teachers, civil servants, lecturers, bus drivers and security guards all took industrial action today, causing widespread disruption for many, as workers continue to feel the squeeze of the cost of living crisis. The National Education Union has announced that teachers will go on strike again on dates throughout February and March and there are more rail and bus strikes scheduled to take place this Friday. So far this week, firefighters have voted in favour of industrial action, as have ambulance workers and Environment Agency staff while staff at the British Museum are also set to go on strike during the February half term. As for the Tube, at the end of 2022, RMT union members voted for more industrial action, though strike dates are yet to be announced. BUILDING SAFETY LATESTHousing Secretary Michael Gove’s latest iteration of a cladding contract has struck a better tone with housebuilders – though it is accompanied by serious consequences for those who refuse to sign it. Developers have six weeks to sign the contract, which will commit them to fire safety remediation works – estimated to total around £2bn – on buildings 11 metres or above in height that they have built or refurbished over the past 30 years. This means that together with the Building Safety Levy, the industry is paying an estimated £5bn to make their buildings safe. Legislation will also introduce a Responsible Actors Scheme (RAS) to block developers who have not signed the contract or who have failed to comply with its terms from carrying out development. While Barratt and Persimmon have announced that they are likely to sign the contract and the Home Builders Federation (HBF) has said that the “contract better reflects the principles of the pledge”, the industry has widely urged the Government to target foreign builders and cladding providers, rather than “repeatedly take the easy option to target UK companies”. The announcement comes after Gove, speaking about the Grenfell Tower fire, admitted that “faulty and ambiguous” Government guidance “allowed unscrupulous people to exploit a broken system in a way that led to tragedy”. LONDON PLANNING ROUNDUP
PEOPLE NEWS
 SPOTLIGHT ON SADIQLast Thursday, Sadiq Khan was a guest on Steven Bartlett’s Diary of a CEO podcast where the two discussed Khan’s childhood, career to date and motivations. While he carefully avoided questions on his regrets as Mayor, he did acknowledge the safety concerns for women and girls in the capital and highlighted his hardest moments in office. If a profile-raising exercise on one of the UK’s most popular podcasts was not enough to signal that his re-election campaign is well underway, Khan’s speech at the London Labour Conference certainly did the job. In the address, Khan claimed the “Tories are polluting our politics, they’re polluting our rivers and they’re polluting our reputation across the world”. He went on to criticise the requirement for photo ID at the 2024 Mayoral election, insisting it was a Conservative effort to marginalise certain groups of voters. Then, appearing in front of the Levelling Up, Housing and Communities Select Committee, Khan branded the Government’s levelling up policy as “an unmitigated disaster” and one that adds “little value to London communities”. He emphasised that London was losing out on levelling up funding and inequality in the capital is just as bad as the rest of the country, if not worse. A very busy week indeed, and we haven’t touched on the ULEZ yet… TRANSPORT UPDATEThe Mayor has once again come under criticism over his plans for the expansion of London’s Ultra-Low Emission Zone (ULEZ), although this time it is ‘friendly fire’ from Labour local authorities. A number have expressed concerns about the plans, arguing that there should have been a longer lead-in time for the expansion and an improved scrappage scheme for Londoners with non-compliant vehicles. In response, the GLA has said that the expansion of the ULEZ will not be delayed, while on Monday a new £110m scrappage scheme was launched. WHERE DOES IT END?Meanwhile, the Chancellor has said that HS2 will terminate at Euston following reports that existing plans would be altered so that the line would instead end at the future Old Oak Common station in West London. Jeremy Hunt made the comments following reports, first published by The Sun, that HS2 bosses were considering making major changes to the plans in a bid to reduce costs. The bill now stands at over £100bn, up from the £33bn that was originally forecast. The proposals have already undergone significant change, with the proposed eastern leg connecting East Midlands Parkway (outside Nottingham) to Leeds scrapped in 2021 to reduce costs. THAMES VISION 2050The Port of London Authority (PLA) has begun a master planning exercise to capture the growth opportunities along the Thames - already home to the UK’s largest port and busiest inland waterway –and provide clarity in decision-making processes. Last year, a river development framework (Thames Vision 2050) was launched to set out future priorities for the river around three themes: Trading Thames, Destination Thames and Natural Thames. Through the newly announced master planning process, the PLA hopes to identify opportunities for trade, travel, sport and nature along the Thames, and “pick out the existing operations and potential options for development around trading and destination activities, and further improvements to the natural environment” across the 22 boroughs and councils that the river covers. In the initial phase of development, the PLA expects to work with Bexley, Newham and councils in the Thames Gateway. Masterplan development will be advanced at local level over the next 18 months and a river wide consultation will take place once the overall masterplan has been developed. LGBT+ HISTORY MONTHToday marks the beginning of LGBT+ History Month, which this year has the theme #BehindTheLens, celebrating the contributions of LGBT+ people to cinema and film. There’s plenty going on across the capital. South London’s Cinema Museum is hosting five evenings of films, the curator of King’s Cross’ Queer Britain museum is holding a talk on the first year of the museum, and Royal Museums Greenwich and the Museum of London are holding a number of events throughout the month. For those of our readers who work in the built environment, we recommend that you mark the month by taking a look at the London Property Alliance’s Diversifying Real Estate Guidebook: Sexuality. 
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