Dear Londoners — You did it! You beat the heatwave (maybe with some help from our cool spaces piece or, more likely, with the aid of an industrial fan). Your reward is proper June weather: a glorious, breezy 25°C. But before you flee from your desk for a lunchtime stroll in temperatures actually bearable to humankind, why not enjoy the fruits of our Monday briefing?
Today, we've got an update on al fresco dining in Soho, the chaos in Hampstead, a great air-conditioned pub choice and why there's copious amounts of sewage (an lots of E. coli) floating around the Thames near Fulham. Enjoy!
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“For far too long, our city has been shackled by the whims of joyless NIMBYs”: Khan restores al fresco to Soho
Continental scenes shall soon return to the streets of Soho, with mayor Sadiq Khan now planning to use his new planning powers to reinstate al fresco dining. For a few glorious months in 2020 and 2021, Soho bars and restaurants were allowed to seat people outside.
But local residents’ group the Soho Society put a stop to it, and made it their mission to lobby Westminster council to prevent al fresco from ever returning. As The Londoner reported back in May, those objections amount to the view that Soho has become too noisy and disruptive for those who live there.
Now, the mayor has set a date for reintroducing outside dining.
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