Tag: Press Release

• London’s Night Czar unites leaders and decision makers from across the capital as she calls for more support for high streets after 6pm
• These businesses were hit hardest by the impact of the pandemic, and are now suffering with the cost of living crisis
• Research shows the number of people working evenings and nights was falling ahead of the impact of the cost of living crisis

London’s Night Czar, Amy Lamé, will today call for urgent support to help the capital’s high streets after 6pm as she brings together leaders and decision makers from across the city to help plan for the future of the capital’s life at night.

London’s 6pm – 6am industries suffered greatly from the impact of the pandemic and restrictions, and now the spiralling cost of living and business costs are putting more businesses under threat.

Today the Night Czar used a speech at the London At Night Conference to urge Government to support these vital businesses with cuts in VAT for hospitality businesses, extending the 50 per cent business rate relief for retail, culture, leisure, and hospitality sectors for a further year and greater support for SME’s with energy costs to enable them to help drive London’s economic recovery.

It comes following new research published in January 2023 showing that the number of Londoners working evenings and nights had fallen to 1.4m before the cost of living and energy bills crisis hit. The hospitality sector, where more than half of workers typically work evenings and nights, has seen a 27 per cent fall in those working during these hours in the last five years.*

The London at Night conference, at Woolwich Works and supported by the Royal Borough of Greenwich, will recognise recent challenges and change, plan to harness future opportunities and unlock the potential of London’s high streets at night, and draw on expert insights from the all aspects of life at night, from transport and infrastructure, to culture and communities, and safety and sustainability. The conference will see leaders and decision makers from across London look at all aspects of the capital at night and consider what more can be done to support businesses and create a fair, diverse and sustainable 24-hour city.

There will be keynote speeches from the Night Czar and Cllr Anthony Okereke, Leader of Greenwich Council. Panel discussions with feature contributions from Nick Bowes, Centre for London, Ojay McDonald, Association of Town and City Management, Victoria Hills, Royal Town Planning Institute, Charlie Dark, Run Dem Crew, Rosie Ferguson, House of St Barnabas, and Emily Robinson, London Sport.

The Mayor remains determined to do all he can to make London a fair, inclusive and sustainable 24-hour city. This includes creating three Night Time Enterprise Zones, a £500,000 programme helping to boost Bromley, Woolwich and Vauxhall after dark, introducing the first-of-its-kind Women’s Night Safety Charter, which has been signed by more than 1,000 councils, businesses and venues to prioritise women’s safety at night, producing world-leading guidance for councils to develop Night Time Strategies and offering evidence and insight through the Night Time Data Observatory to help decision making. The Culture and Community Spaces at Risk programme is also providing dedicated advice and guidance for the most at risk night time spaces, including grassroots live music and LGBTQI+ venues.

Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, said: “Our night time businesses are hugely important to London’s economic recovery and have had an incredibly tough couple of years as a direct result of the pandemic and are now struggling with the cost of living crisis. It is vital that Government steps forward and provides the support needed to ensure that our high streets at night can help drive forward our economic recovery. I’m proud that London has taken the lead in creating opportunities for local businesses and high streets to flourish after 6pm with initiatives such as my Night Time Enterprise Zones and am committed to doing all I can to help all aspects of our nightlife flourish as we build a better and more prosperous London for everyone.

London Night Czar, Amy Lamé, said: “The prosperity of London’s night time businesses and industries has never been more crucial than right now. Our 6pm to 6am businesses face a monumental challenge and urgent Government support is essential to ensuring that these businesses can play the necessary key roles in driving forward London’s economic and social recovery. I am so proud to host the first London at Night Conference and to bring together leaders from the across the capital as we put life at night is at the heart of our all plans to build a fair, inclusive and sustainable 24-hour city.”

• Insufficient Government funding for London’s frontline public services means the Mayor is having to increase council tax to fill the gap  
• Proposed council tax increase will help the police to continue reducing crime and ensure vital transport services are protected   
• Budget reflects the government’s funding conditions for Transport for London, including a proposed fare rise of 5.9 per cent on 5 March 2023 – the same as national rail fares 

The Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, has today set out his plans to protect and improve London’s vital public services by increasing council tax to help fill the funding gap left by the Government for policing, transport and the London Fire Brigade.

Publishing his draft budget for the Greater London Authority Group, the Mayor will announce that, as expected by Government, he’s planning to increase council tax by £15 for an average ‘Band D’ property in 2023-24 to specifically invest more in policing. This will raise an additional £29.3 million, which will go directly to the Metropolitan Police Service to fund 500 additional Police Community Support Officers (PCSOs) to work in local neighbourhoods disproportionately impacted by crime.

The additional police funding by the Mayor will increase the number of PCSOs in London by around 50 per cent – taking the total number of PCSOs in the capital to more than 1,500 and reversing a decade of falling PCSO numbers caused by Government austerity. These Sadiq-funded extra PCSOs will serve as a visible police presence to help reduce crime further, make London safer and rebuild community relations and public trust in the police.

The new Commissioner has set out how the Met needs an additional £827m a year to have the same real-terms per-head budget as in 2010-11. After a decade of austerity, Ministers are still refusing to provide the full investment in policing London desperately needs. According to the Home Office’s own review, Government funding for the Met’s capital city policing duties is currently short by £159m.  Over the last six years, the Mayor has had to step in to fill the gap as much as possible by investing record amounts from City Hall to support the police. This has enabled the Met to put 1,300 more officers on the streets, expand neighbourhood policing and has helped elevate police officer numbers to the highest level in history. Overall, violent crime in London is now falling, bucking the national trend. But the level of violence remains too high and the Mayor is determined to use his budget to continue making progress by investing more in the police as well as programmes to tackle the complex causes of crime.

The Mayor has managed to protect transport services for Londoners by navigating TfL through the financial crisis caused by the pandemic. However, TfL has been left with a significant funding gap and, on top of further stretching savings targets, City Hall is required to raise over £500m a year from new sources as a condition of the emergency government funding deal – with Ministers explicitly proposing that the Mayor does so by raising council tax. This means that, as previously announced, the Mayor has been left with no viable alternative but to plan to increase council tax by £20 next year for transport, as approved by the Government, to ensure services are protected and that London can maintain a world-class transport network.

An additional £3.55 will also go to the London Fire Brigade to ensure it can continue to respond quickly to major fires and make the changes needed after the Grenfell Tower Inquiry.

This means that the Mayor is proposing to increase his share of council tax bills for an average ‘Band D’ property by £3.21 a month (£38.55 a year) from April. An average household will pay £434.14 a year. Almost half of London households are in Bands A to C and will therefore pay a lower amount of council tax.

The Government set strict conditions in the recent emergency funding agreement with TfL so the Mayor is indicating the fares on TfL services will have to increase by 5.9 per cent on 5 March 2023 – in line with the Government’s increase to national rail fares.

The Mayor froze TfL fares for five years from 2016 to 2021, saving Londoners hundreds of pounds each year and helping to encourage public transport use. If the Mayor had chosen not to freeze fares set by TfL and instead increased them in line with inflation, they would have risen by 12 per cent between 2017 and 2020 inclusive. Had there been no fares freeze, this would have meant that a Pay As You Go bus fare in 2023 would be £1.90 (rather than £1.75) and a Zone 1-6 peak Tube fare would be £6.50 (rather than £5.60).

The Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, said: “The last thing I want to do is increase council tax at a time when many household budgets are stretched, but the Government’s refusal to provide the funding our city needs means I’ve been left with no viable alternative but to help plug the gap by raising council tax by £3.21 a month. This will ensure we can protect and further improve our vital frontline public services, including the police, transport and the London Fire Brigade.

“Bearing down on violent crime and making our city safer for everyone remains my number one priority. The extra funding for the police will go directly towards putting an additional 500 Police Community Support Officers into neighbourhoods across London. This will help us to build on the progress we’re making to reduce violent crime in London.

“I froze TfL fares for five years from 2016 to make transport more affordable for millions of Londoners. But my hands have been tied since the pandemic by the strict conditions set by the Government in the recent emergency funding agreement for TfL, which means fares have to be increase in London by the same amount as national rail fares – 5.9 per cent.

“This is a challenging time for our city, with a Government that is not fully funding our public services, but I’m determined to step up so that we can continue building a greener, safer and fairer London for everyone.”

The overall level of fares set by TfL are proposed to increase by an average of 5.9 per cent, with a slightly larger rise for Tube Pay As You Go fares within Zone 1, which will increase by 30p. This is in order to keep costs as low as possible for Londoners travelling from outside Zone 1 into the centre for work, and for those using public transport in outer London – where car use tends to be higher – as journeys solely within Zone 1 are more likely to be made for tourism or leisure.

In addition, the Mayor has confirmed that the temporary travel time restrictions on 60+ Oyster and Older Person’s Freedom Passes, introduced due to Government conditions, will have to become permanent from today, Wednesday, 18 January. TfL were also having to consider a proposal to increase the age of eligibility for the 60+ concession on a phased basis so that the start date of eligibility would increase incrementally by around six months every year. Today the Mayor has confirmed funding from City Hall will be used prevent this change and protect the concession for Londoners over 60. These changes to the London concessions will still mean that the offering in London remains more generous than that available to older people across England, as well as for under 18’s.

·      New analysis shows overall housing completions under Sadiq Khan stand at over 36,000 homes a year on average, 10,000 more per year than his predecessor

·      The Mayor has also smashed records for council and affordable homebuilding, with 18,722 affordable homes started last year alone and more council homes than at any time since the 1970s

·      The percentage of affordable housing on the planning applications approved by Sadiq Khan has doubled, rising from 22 per cent during the last year of Boris Johnson’s term to 43 per cent this year

New City Hall analysis of official Government figures has revealed that more new homes have been delivered per year in London under Sadiq Khan than any previous Mayor of London. An average of more than 36,000 homes per year have been delivered since Sadiq became Mayor in 2016. This is more than 10,000 more than his predecessor, who averaged 26,000 a year.

This success on overall housebuilding has come alongside record-breaking delivery of council and other affordable homes. Affordable homebuilding is at the highest level since City Hall records began in 2002/3. Council home building is also at its highest level since the 1970s, with more than 5,000 new council homes started in London last year – more than the rest of the country combined.

Previous analysis of planning data has shown that the percentage of affordable housing has doubled on the planning applications approved by Sadiq, rising from 22 per cent during the last year of the previous Mayor’s term in 2016 to 43 per cent this year.

The Mayor announced the new findings at a “topping out” ceremony at Royal Albert Wharf in the Royal Docks this morning. Royal Albert Wharf will deliver more than 1,850 homes, of which over 40 per cent overall will be affordable, with the percentage of affordable housing increasing with each phase of development. The development hosting today’s ceremony has 50 per cent affordable housing, and the next phase of the development will deliver 76 per cent affordable housing. This major development is part of the wider regeneration of the Royal Docks area which is forecast to see over 30,000 new homes and 42,500 jobs created over the next 20 years.

Despite the huge progress being made on housing in London, the Mayor is pressing Ministers to back him to do even more to build the homes the capital needs. Recent research commissioned by City Hall revealed that London would require an additional £4.4bn annually to deliver the number of affordable homes that London needs – equivalent to more than six times the funding settlement London currently receives.

The spiralling cost of energy, wages, construction materials and financing, all threaten to make this gap even greater – the cost of construction materials increased by 17 per cent in the last year alone.

The Mayor of London Sadiq Khan said: “Since I was elected Mayor we’ve made considerable progress in building the homes Londoners need. We have seen higher housing completions than any previous Mayor, record-breaking levels of affordable homebuilding and work started on more new council homes than at any time since the 1970s.

“Royal Albert Wharf in East London is a shining example of the scale of our ambition, with over 1,850 homes set to be built, and the most recent development phases at or above 50 per cent affordable housing. This project demonstrates the sort of action we are taking to help build a better, fairer London for everyone.

“The sheer scale of the housing crisis in London means it will still take time to turn around, but Brexit and the rising cost of construction are also threatening to hamper our progress on homebuilding. Ministers must now respond to the housing crisis with the urgency it deserves and provide the funding and investment necessary to build the volume and quality of homes our capital needs.”

Geeta Nanda OBE, G15 Chair and Chief Executive of MTVH, said: “Not-for-profit housing associations are working hard to build the affordable homes Londoners desperately need. In the first two quarters of this year, despite the unprecedented challenges facing the construction sector and providers, we started building 1,950 affordable homes in London, and completed a further 2,800 new genuinely affordable homes in the city. However, to continue delivering the homes that are needed, we need to see further action from government, in coordination with the Mayor and partners like the G15. Alongside increasing funding for the building of new affordable homes, we need to tackle the skills gap in the industry, and to ensure the planning system issupporting sustainable development.”

Rokhsana Fiaz OBE, Mayor of Newham and Co-chair of the Royal Docks Enterprise Zone Board, said: “I am delighted with the fantastic progress being made at Royal Albert Wharf, which is an exciting new community at the forefront of the transformation of the Royal Docks.

“The completion of this latest phase will provide much needed affordable homes for local residents, as well as new leisure facilities and green space. I remain committed to working hard with our development partners, like Notting Hill Genesis, to ensure more genuinely affordable homes are built in our borough, so the achievement of these latest milestones is very exciting!”

Ben Tucker, Senior Site Manager, Telford Homes, said: “The regeneration of the Royal Docks is transforming the area into a global hub for business and creativity. Alongside our joint ventures partners, we’re pleased to be contributing to this transformation with quality housing, alongside significant contributions to the public realm and green infrastructure, bringing a unique sense of community and fresh way of living to this vibrant area of London.

• New funds to support the Met’s targeted policing action to tackle London drugs gangs inflicting misery and driving violence in communities
• City Hall funding will help prevent the cycle of reoffending by supporting people into treatment and recovery
• Analysis shows London is the highest exporter for County Lines in the UK with more than half of all teenage murders in capital linked to gangs

More than £7million will be spent tackling drugs supply lines that are inextricably linked to violence across the country under fresh proposals announced by the Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, today.

Despite progress being made, with numbers of homicides, teenage homicides, knife crimes with injury, gun crimes and burglaries in London all lower in 2022 than in 2016, the Mayor is clear that violence is still much too high and the loss of one young life to violence is always one too many. That is why Sadiq has renewed his commitment to tackling one of the major drivers of violence in cities nationwide – the prevalence of criminal drug gangs.

The new fund will see a new intensive and whole system approach to tackling drug misuse, with enhanced links into treatment and recovery services combined with funding to support the Met Commissioner’s drive to use precision and data to ensure targeted police operations against violent drug gangs.

The investment will bring together partners including the police, local councils and health services to improve communication between treatment providers and courts, prisons, and hospitals with the aim of cutting drug-related crime and breaking the cycle of misuse and reoffending.

The fresh approach comes amid rising concern and evidence that criminal gangs in London are exploiting the cost-of-living crisis to recruit young Londoners and expand their county lines networks across the UK.

Every week the Met arrests and charges around 11 suspects linked to drugs lines that run nationally and within London and analysis of the County Line Intelligence Collection Matrix (CLICM) data shows London as the highest exporter area for County Lines in the UK accounting for over 25% of the national total.¹

Research by the Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime and the Met revealed that despite a reduction in homicides last year, gang-related violence still accounts for a significant proportion of the most serious violence in London, with more than half of shootings, and more than 50 per cent of all teenage homicides in London over the past three years linked to gangs.²

The funding, proposed in the Mayor’s draft budget for 2023/4, will enable the Met to precisely target the most dangerous criminals who cause the greatest harm while doing more to help those recover from drug addictions and misuse.

With millions of Londoners impacted by the cost-of-living crisis and low-income families in the capital being hit hardest as food and energy bills soar, the Mayor is concerned that there is now a real risk of all these factors combining and contributing to the reduction of violent crime being reversed. Sadiq is determined to offer young Londoners at risk of being exploited by criminal gangs a way out.

Targeted support from the Mayor’s London Gang Exit programme is already helping hundreds of young people across all London boroughs leave or reduce their involvement in criminal gangs and City Hall’s Rescue and Response Programme has trained more than 1,000 social workers and other frontline organisations to spot the hidden signs of exploitation in vulnerable young women and girls involved in county lines activity and provide the support they need to escape exploitation.

But more action is needed and the Mayor’s new proposed £7million investment will strengthen the Met’s ability to go after the worst offenders whilst improving pathways into treatment and recovery services to reduce drug-related offending.

The Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, said: “There is an undeniable link between county lines drug gangs and violence and that’s why I’ve proposed additional funding that will enable the Met to accelerate its work targeting the most dangerous criminals while helping to break the cycle of reoffending and safeguarding our most vulnerable young Londoners from exploitation.

“This is not just a London problem. Without in any way excusing criminality, the cost-of-living crisis is engulfing the entire country. Food and energy bills continue to soar. Too many young people are seeing their opportunities diminish. Without strong leadership, action and intervention I’m concerned that we are now at real risk of seeing the reductions of violent crime we’ve achieved in London being reversed and the menace of County Lines gangs growing nationally.

“The Met and City Hall’s work to tackle county lines drugs gangs has already resulted in dangerous offenders being arrested and hundreds more vulnerable young Londoners being safeguarded, but we must do more. Violence, like poverty, is not inevitable and this new proposed investment will work to tackle the underlying drivers behind serious violence. This in turn will help us break the cycle of reoffending and build a better, safer London for all.”

Cllr Jas Athwal, London Councils’ Executive member for Community Safety and Violence Against Women and Girls, said: “The toxic impact of violent drug-related crime on London’s communities, and especially our youngest residents, is severe and long-lasting. London boroughs fully support this renewed effort to address this. We will be working alongside the Met Police, Mayor, treatment and recovery services, the voluntary sector and other partners, building on the success of borough work as part of the Rescue and Response Programme.

“Boroughs play a crucial role in safeguarding young people and their families, engaging communities and bringing together housing, employment and recovery support locally in a holistic way, and will continue to work collaboratively with local partners to engage and support young people at risk of exploitation.”