Dear Londoners — Welcome to Monday. Though the weather today may be overcast, there are encouraging signs of spring: the nights are growing shorter, and I've seen patches of crocuses and snowdrops pushing their way through the wet earth. What's also been heartening is seeing your spirited debates in the comments of our bus chaos story from last week:
If you fancy weighing in on whether cycle lanes are a red herring or not, please make your way to our comment section post haste to join in the fun.
As for today, we headed to the beloved Brixton tube news stand that went viral after Financial Times food critic Jay Rayner revealed that it'd been forced to leave after a rent rise from TfL to speak to co-owner and operator Pritesh Patel. Read the details of how much money the transport authority was asking for, as well as what Pritesh had to say about the desperate situation he's been left in: “I'm open to anywhere and anything... I just need to work."
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What’s next for the Brixton kiosk?
Topline: Brixton News, the beloved newspaper and magazine kiosk at Brixton tube station, will close for good this Friday after TfL tripled their rent demands. “I couldn’t afford that. It’s impossible,” says Pritesh Patel. He and his brother Piyush have sold a vast array of newspapers and magazines there for 36 years, and are one of London’s last classic newsagents. In promotional materials for the retail unit, TfL envisages the site as a coffee shop.
Background: The ousting was co-ordinated by TfL’s commercial property development company, Places for London. This little-known company was founded in 2015 to maximise profits from TfL’s property holdings, rather than simply just selling these assets off as it did before — the rationale being to reinvest those profits into improving London’s transport network.
In January 2025, a representative from Places for London contacted Pritesh to inform him that they would not be renewing his lease. Their plans were to incorporate the adjoining office unit into the kiosk into a new, larger unit, and to triple the annual rent from £40,000 — what Pritesh pays currently — to £120,000.
With fine margins on print already, Pritesh would have had to change the business to even think about the increase. “We're a newspaper kiosk,” he says. “But we like being a newspaper kiosk.”
How’s it all going? Not so well. Though Pritesh hands over the keys on Friday, the retail unit is only listed as “under offer” on Places for London’s website — at the reduced price of £85,000 p/a. A Places for London spokesperson said that they have received multiple bids, and aim to complete the paperwork for their chosen vendor over the coming weeks and months.
A loss for print: Few, if any, newsagents in south London hold the same variety of publications as Pritesh, who stocks everything from highbrow literary criticism through to underground fashion magazines. “God I’ll miss it,” wrote Jay Rayner in an Instagram post last week. Since then, many previously unaware customers have popped in to say their goodbyes. “We talk to our customers, so you build up a relationship,” Pritesh says. He’s now compiling a photo collage of his most longstanding customers — almost all of whom will be deprived of easy access to print come this time next week.
What have Places for London said?: When Places for London told Pritesh last year that they would not be renewing the lease, he had just spent the past two years securing planning permission to refurbish the unit. Places for London compensated him an undisclosed amount to cover his sunk costs, which were at least £40,000.
A Places for London spokesperson said: “at Brixton, we have the opportunity to increase the size of the retail unit currently occupied by the newsstand, and asked Pritesh in January 2024 if he’d be interested in the larger space. He decided not to stay, and we wish him all the best in his future endeavours.”
And what are those future endeavours?: Pritesh isn’t sure. “I will find work because I need to work,” he says. “I'm open to anywhere and anything. I have no problems with doing physical, office, anything. I just need to work.”
UCKG found by Fundraising Regulator to be exploiting donors
Back in January last year, the Londoner published an investigation into the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God (UCKG), whose members you might’ve seen trying to collect money outside tube stations. We spoke to former members who compared the church to a cult, attested it conducted conversion therapy on gay members and said they were pressured to donate huge sums of money to the church.
Over a year after our story, the government fundraising regulator has ruled that the church has repeatedly broken the rules. It comes after a complaint was logged by the sister of a former member, who was vulnerable but pressured into donating vast sums to the church. It's the second time the regulator has concluded the organisation was breaching the law, though there’s no sign yet of any fines or other repercussions. The UCKG accepted the regulator’s findings but said it does not “agree with all aspects” of the investigation.
The 9,000 page planning debacle
More planning absurdity: developer Linea Properties (not to be confused with Linea Homes, of shuttering pubs fame) spent years designing the project for Shoreditch Works, a massive new development of homes and commercial spaces in east London. In an effort to meet all the rules outlined by Hackney council, City Hall and central government, their final application ended up stretching to some 9,084 pages, just under eight times as long as War and Peace.
Yet last week, the project was rejected by the council’s planning team for not having a high enough “level of detail”. Among other reasons, the planners argued that the development would not get enough natural light due to the shadows cast by other parts of the same development.
As 78% of locals polled for the new regeneration project were in favour, this caused a public outcry. Last Wednesday, a committee of local councillors held a six hour meeting (lasting until midnight) before eventually opposing their own planning officers decision — only for the committee chair to rule that they actually don’t have the authority to approve the scheme and defer the decision to a later date.
Quick hits
- Several weeks ago, MyLondon predicted that this week would see a snow storm that would leave the capital buried under 70 inches of snow (complete with clickbait headline). Lo and behold, it didn’t materialise. Shout out to London Minute’s Michael Macleod for spotting this one.
- TfL is trialling a new bus stop design with “better lighting and seating, priority spaces” and CCTV.
- More of the West End could be pedestrianised, according to plans from Westminster council and the Crown Estate which envisage a public plaza near Piccadilly Circus and St James’ Park.
- Angry leaseholders in a north London estate were advised to seek “anger management” when they made complaints about slow repairs, reports the Islington Tribune.
Know more about the above stories? Or have any tips about anything else? Let us know using the anonymous form below or email our editor.
In case you missed it…
- For our weekend read, we profiled Cycling Mikey — one of the capital’s most divisive figures — who uses his helmet camera to capture drivers breaking the rules and get them fined. Among his victims are footballers, movie directors and celebrity chefs. But what drives him?
- TfL has lost a quarter of its bus passengers in the last decade. What went wrong? Can we escape the doom loop? And why is Putney High Street to blame? Read our Thursday explainer to find out.
- The sudden return of London's disappearing orchestra, a debate over the National Gallery's masterpiece and child-murdering tsars at the opera. Check out Wednesday’s culture edition.
Wining and dining
With endless offerings and non-stop openings, we all know that deciding where to eat and drink in the capital can be fraught. We want to make it easy — so every week we’ll give you our insider guide to the city’s best spots.
One perfect meal: Kilburn isn’t exactly known as a dining destination. But for my money, that results in some of the most slept-on restaurants in the capital. If by some chance you’re planning a trip to the north west’s deepest darkest reaches, then consider Kaipiras, a Brazilian boteco with ice cold beer, cheap caipirinhas and huge platters of delicious salty meat and fish; or Czech-Slovak restaurant Bohemia House (both former features in this newsletter).
But today’s highlight is Vijay, an unassuming white tablecloth Indian restaurant just off the Kilburn High Road. The interiors are pared down, with simple artworks and exposed wood adorning the walls and ceiling, but this isn’t your typical neighbourhood Indian. Vijay was the first South Indian restaurant to arrive in the capital — opening back in 1964 — and, as a result is adept at creating near-perfect vegetarian and fish curries. Pro tip: always get the sticky-sweet, slow cooked chilli paneer (the best iteration of the dish I’ve had in London) and the Kadai curry. — Andrew
One perfect drink: The area around King’s Cross is blessed with an unusually high number of great pubs: the King Charles I, the Dolphin, the Skinner’s Arms, the soon-to-be-resurrected McGlynn’s. Add to that list the handsomely signed Queen’s Head, its etched bay window protruding onto the street like a ship’s prow. Inside, it’s a reliably buzzy venue often packed with locals, tourists, students, office workers and those who’ve blessedly turned up too early for their train; the kind of place where the bar staff treat you as a regular even if it’s your first time there. Add to this tiled walls, dark wood and art nouveau light fittings that look like they’ve been snatched from a Parisian bistro, and you have a pretty much perfect boozer. Oh, and did we add that a pint of pilsner is about £5.90? Bliss. — Hannah
Our favourite reads
Can cheap oysters save the restaurant economy? — Jane Gleeson, Financial Times
Whether on social media or — gasp — in real life, you may have noticed your local eateries offering suspiciously economical bivalves. Can you really turn a profit selling £1 oysters? And why are so many London restaurants now attempting to do so? In this fascinating piece from the Financial Times magazine, marketer Jane Gleeson shucks open the financial reasoning behind the capital’s latest food trend.
Cambridge’s return of 100 Benin bronzes puts British Museum on the spot — Barnaby Phillips, Observer
In light of Cambridge University’s decision to return over 100 Benin bronzes to Nigeria, Barnaby Phillips explores how the British Museum may be feeling the heat. The latter has over 900 such statues, which comprise brass, bronze and ivory carvings looted in their thousands by the British military in 1897, and frequently face calls to repatriate them. The conversation is made thornier by disputes in Nigeria over ownership and how the statues should be displayed, and speaks to a wider discussion over whether objects in the British Museum taken during the colonial era should be returned to the countries they were taken from.
To Do List
- For fans of that scene in the Richard Curtis rom-com About Time — where the loving couple meet in a restaurant in pitch black darkness — the Cutty Sark in Greenwich is hosting its own “in the dark” event, which gives you the opportunity to spend the day before Valentine’s day blindfolded in the bowels of the historic ship-cum-museum listening to 30 “world class” musicians performing.
- Dream of a night at the museum? Though it isn’t quite an entire evening, this week the Science Museum is open until 9.15pm on Wednesday to show off its latest exhibition about the future of food. Alongside the normal exhibits, your free ticket will also give you the chance to speak to scientists designing the technology that’s reshaping what goes on our plates, and how it gets there.
- Tate Britain’s retrospective on pioneering female war photographer Lee Miller is leaving the gallery this week, so make sure to get down if you haven’t yet (and read our culture edition on it first). And if you’re looking for more, Miller’s son Anthony Penrose is giving Tuesday’s free Gresham College lecture about his mother’s work documenting the horrors of the Holocaust.
From the archive
It’s easy to look at our high streets filled with American chains and think it was an inevitability. But in this 1981 segment from Newsround shows, a young John Craven tours Oxford Street pondering whether Burger King and McDonalds will be able to conquer the capital’s streets.
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