It’s not as though nobody knew: the unmet need for low rent housing gets cumulatively worse with each new #LondonPlan (on GLA’s own figures)
Just Space
@justspace7.bsky.social
community and activist groups supporting each other on London planning, housing, environment. Just moved from X. Working to make London a caring city. JustSpace.org.uk
London is changing, and we want Londoners to help shape its future. @MayorofLondon has published the new draft #LondonPlan for a fairer, greener, and more prosperous city over the next two decades. Have your say in the consultation until 15th October 👇 london.gov.uk/programmes-s...
London boroughs to have their own affordable housing targets
The current city-wide affordable housing threshold would be replaced with borough-specific goals.
bbc.co.uk
Imagine if a woman president spent most her time raving and crying about an election she lost 6 years ago. Emotional. Unstable. Hysterical. Unfit to lead.
Mamdani left soccer field lights on all night…..the lights usually go off at 10pm. They set a camera up and guess what they saw?? Residents playing soccer with their friends ALL NIGHT. One man said how much he loved it because his friends work late and can’t get to the field before 10pm.
The bike-lane index is high today, folks. Make sure to keep your kids inside or in a car and report invasive bike lanes to your provincial authorities.
The scandal of rip-off rents is reaching new heights. The only way to stop landlords treating their tenants as cash cows is for the government to put in place rent controls so ordinary people can keep money in their pockets. Rent controls. Now. www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home...
Asking rents reach record highs across Britain, new data from Rightmove shows
Competition between tenants remains significantly lower than at its peak, with the average rental home now receiving 10 inquiries
independent.co.uk
Sadiq Khan has published a draft London Plan to boost affordable housing, growth and jobs. It proposes up to 558,000 homes by 2037, limited Green Belt release, planning reforms and support for future industries. Public consultation runs until 15 October 2026, before final adoption.
Mayor's draft London PLan for Consultation released 16 July at www.london.gov.uk/programmes-s...
london.gov.uk
Rethinking fair use of public space. Three former parking spaces, previously the privilege of three car owners. Now, each spot accommodates at least ten bicycle owners. And there is even room for a picnic table.
The draft new London Plan will be launched on Thursday 16th. By invitation only. Citizens will get only a download with slides to peruse at home. Lucky members of NLA will get a session with the Deputy Mayor + Q&A a week later.
Meta is contaminating public water supplies with deadly bacteria. Cupriavidus gilardii is resistant to multiple antibiotic agents (even Carbapenems) and can cause fatal human infections.
Meta data center water discharges suspended after contaminating the city's reclamation water supply with bacterium — system offline for months for cleaning, closed-loop cooling system purge spread rar...
The city has revoked the Meta contractor's discharge privileges.
tomshardware.com
In positive news, was just reading about an island in Chile that installed open water solar panels and a bunch of tuna and salmon moved in underneath them because the vibrations of diesel energy had ceased. :) The world could be so good if people were just smarter everywhere.
I see a lot of posts about car drivers being unsafe to bikes so let’s give a quick shout out to the drivers that go out of their way to create safety for bikes. Pulling wide around us, (smartly) waving us through, exaggerating observations so we know they see us. It’s appreciated.
This woman contracted polio as a child about two years before a vaccine became available and spent much of her life in and out of an iron lung to survive. I truly can't fathom anti-vaxxers who seem happy to resurrect these diseases. people.com/the-last-us-...
Last U.S. Polio Survivor in an Iron Lung Dies After the Machine Started to Break Down and They Couldn’t Find Anyone to Repair It
Martha Ann Lillard, the last U.S. polio patient who used an iron lung to survive, died of long COVID at age 78.
people.com
If you want to know more, do check out @transportaction.bsky.social and its campaign for transparency and alternatives transportactionnetwork.org.uk/campaign/low...
Lower Thames Crossing
Lower Thames Crossing This page contains all our information on the Lower Thames Crossing (LTC) and possible alternatives: Taking all the cash The Lower Thames Crossing 'smart' motorway is the enemy o...
transportactionnetwork.org.uk
There are about 25,000 schools in England, so today's promise of 5,000 miles of new safe routes by 2035 means...do the math. Actually you don't even need to bother. That 5,000 figure and the 10,000 new crossings are just "intentions", not even actual targets in the plan.
Prof. Ian Walker@ianwalker.bsky.social · 2mo agoI shall watch this with interest. There's no way to get 60% of kids actively travelling to school without disrupting current patterns of car-based mobility. This includes making all urban streets safer, not just those right outside schools www.theguardian.com/politics/202...
Wondering why it was too hot to sleep last night? Today's @thecccuk.bsky.social report shows carbon emissions from UK surface transport grew significantly in 2025, the only sector to do so. As the biggest sector, transport is particularly responsible for #climate breakdown.
Of course unions look out for their members but it defies belief that they chose *this week* to lobby for more North Sea oil drilling. They should be lobbying for super-generous retraining terms.
The Mayor of London will publish his draft London Plan for consultation on Friday 16th July, just as UK holidays begin. Our alternative has been out for weeks JustSpace.org.uk/CaringCity
Caring City
The Just Space Alternative Plan for a caring city has been created by many Londoners working in small groups and larger discussions. There is a printed version and a PDF version which you can downl…
justspace.org.uk
🏠 Housing systems across the world are at a turning point. As governments scramble for solutions to the global housing crisis. Everyone has the right to a safe, secure and affordable home. Embedding the right to housing in UK law has never been more important.
‘Affordability crisis’: How the Western housing crisis spiralled | Housing | Al Jazeera
Rising rents and prices outpacing wages provoke global debate: Is housing a basic right or an investment asset?
aljazeera.com
The Dutch infrastructure authority completed a systematic assessment in 2023 identifying 420 kilometres of barriers oriented within 45 degrees of south-facing, suitable for bifacial #solarpanel installation without structural modification or planning procedures beyond normal road authority approval
"Mischaracterised by university leaders as financial ‘saving’, austerity is in truth vandalism. It ravages decades of training, accrued and accredited knowledge, and publicly funded research."
UK Universities in Crisis? Time to Transform Higher Ed Finance
by Rob Hawkes and Scott Ferguson Universities in the UK are in crisis. Job cuts in the sector are reaching ‘cataclysmic’ levels, with an estimated 10,000 already lost and many more at risk. Just da…
moneyontheleft.org
Our members meeting had a preview of our report on how threats of council estate demolition will grow if government sustains its ludicrous housing targets and boroughs try to placate them. Crucial to stop this at or before planning stage. We are on this with EstateWatch.London
One of my least favourite things is when councils paint a bike lane which suddenly ends to make space for a parking spot and then continues after that. So much of the cycle infrastructure in the UK seems designed by people who hate cyclists and have not been on a bike since they were 3.
Across Gobi Desert, autonomous tracked robots are transporting & installing solar panels with minimal human intervention, doubling installation efficiency. The energy transition isn't just about building more solar. It's increasingly about automating the process of building the whole infrastructure.