Dear Londoners — Welcome to your first Monday briefing of 2026! The sky is blue and cloudless, the frost has transformed the streets and the capital looks, it has to be said, splendid. Let's call it an auspicious start to the year. We hope you're emerging from your festive cocoon well rested and full of chocolate (personally, I'm down the 1p chocolate coins; a devastating state of affairs). But the city never stops, and neither do we: in today's edition, we have the low-down on beef between billionaire developer Asif Aziz and a south London council, the bizarre Wicked promo in the mayor's NYE fireworks display and what, exactly, 'polygamous working' means. Enjoy!
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Big story: Collapsing windows and millions in unpaid debts: The fight over Asif Aziz’s new south London developments
Top line: Plans for a new development by the billionaire developer Asif Aziz in south London has sparked a local civil war, as councillors claim he has refused to pay the millions his company owes after a serious safety incident.
Context: Aziz and his company Criterion Capital have been repeated staples in Londoner coverage in the last year: from the fears they were planning to evict the Prince Charles Cinema to our investigation into his closure of dozens of pubs across the capital. The sheer number of headlines linked to Aziz, if nothing else, is a testament to just how influential he and his development firms are in the city.
The problems in Colliers Wood: One of Criterion Capital’s biggest developments south of the river is the 19-storey Britannia Point building in Colliers Wood, built in 2017. Just five years later however, a window pane fell out of the highrise building and smashed into the street below. Later investigations found another 69 windows in the high rise needed replacing. Luckily, nobody was harmed in the incident, but Merton council were forced to erect safety scaffolding at the bottom of the building at a cost of £3m; money a local councillor told the BBC Criterion has never paid back.
It doesn’t end there: In the year after the window collapse, private renters in Britannia Point reportedly faced a litany of other issues, including broken lifts and being left without water for a month.
The new fight: Despite those disputes, the firm has been trying to develop more of the land around Britannia Point. It has now submitted newly revised plans to build three new multi-storey developments in the land around Britannia Point, including a 16-storey apart-hotel and a 14-storey co-living building. Criterion says the new plans, a revision of ones rejected last year, “improved the design, scale and led to an increase to the height of the proposed residential building in order to increase the amount of affordable housing”. But the changes have done little to calm the anger from local councillors.
A councillor speaks out: Councillor Stuart Neaverson, speaking on behalf of the Labour group that controls Merton Council, told the BBC: “It's incredibly frustrating that Criterion are trying to build three new towers in Colliers Wood when they can't even take care of the one they have. How can the community have any faith in what they are saying? Instead, they should pay back Merton council the £3m they owe after the council was forced to step in and make the current tower safe when a window pane fell out and smashed on the pavement below.”
Your news briefing
🗳️ Even when the rest of the country turns against Labour, the party has usually been able to rely on votes across inner London’s councils. But, with May’s elections looming, that may no longer be the case. Politics Home spoke to Labour insiders who are warning of losing swathes of seats to the Greens and Liberal Democrats.
🎆 Those of you watching the capital’s famous New Year fireworks display may have been a little surprised to see footage from the recently released Wicked sequel, appearing midway through a montage of major UK achievements in the last year — leading to fevered speculation on Reddit over whether it was an ad. Well, it turns out the movie’s inclusion was part of a “unique event partnership with Universal Pictures”, who made the film, according to City Hall. We’re looking into what that “partnership” exactly entailed, and how much it may have been worth…
🚇 TfL are now spending £11m a year on its attempts to crack down on a “spike” in graffiti on the underground, according to commissioner Andy Lord. Over the weekend, Lord told a London Assembly meeting that the money was being spent on “a combination of proactive investigation and prevention, as well as cleaning”. Read our piece on the man cleaning graffiti off Westminster’s walls here.
Peter Carlyon
🤖 On the subject of graffiti — most Londoners will no doubt have seen a growing obsession on social media with the idea that London is in the midst of a crime wave. That’s despite the fact the city has actually seen reductions in the rate of violent crime. Well, new research by Dr Mark J Hill of King’s College London has found the number of social media posts promoting the anti-London narrative, often from AI bot accounts, has skyrocketed.
🚨 Barnet council has prosecuted an ex-employee for what it has dubbed “polygamous working”. Sally Bodom was working as a business support officer for the council, while at the same time working full-time in Croydon council’s housing department, where she had been employed since 2016. The full details of the case were covered by the trade publication Local Government Lawyer.
Quick hits: six firefighters are in hospital after a crash in Farringdon; the BBC have done a guide on the biggest London transport changes in 2026; keep an eye out for half naked Tube riders this weekend taking part in London’s annual no-trousers Tube ride.
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…
- Across the city, there are dozens of historic shops, selling everything from umbrellas to herbal remedies. But how do they stay afloat in a city of sky high rents and constant change? Over the weekend, Peter Carlyon tried to find out.
- On Christmas Eve, Hannah explored the yuletide celebrations at one of London’s most beloved museums: Dennis Severs’ House. Severs, an American migrant to London, spent most of the 1980s and 90s turning his home in Spitalfields into a repository of the life of the fictitious Jervises, a family of Huguenot silk weavers.
One perfect pub
One perfect drink: There’s many reasons to distrust pub chains: years of overpriced beer and underwhelming, catalogue-ready interiors has left me with some serious trust issues. But there are exceptions: Remarkable Pubs runs just over a dozen historic local pubs in the capital, identifiable thanks to their beautiful restored wooden interiors and their predilection for delicious Czech lager, Litovel. A personal favourite is the Shakespeare, a handsome, mosaic-floored boozer sitting on a backstreet in Stoke Newington, and is usually a quieter and more intimate pick than the other pubs in the area.
Our favourite reads
The Bat Woman of North London: ‘It’s Like Tuning In to Another World’ — Amelia Nirenberg, New York Times
The New York Times went on patrol with Cindy Blaney, a senior ranger in Highgate Wood who oversees the park’s bat population. What follows is a feature that’s equal parts a fascinating insight into the colony of oft-maligned animals living in a small corner of London, and a rare dive into the motivations of a normal person who has taken on the responsibility to keep them safe.
Inside Winter Wonderland, London’s festive licence to print money — Olivia Surgury, The Times
Though the festive season may be over, we’d be remiss not to recommend this long read about the internal machinations of Winter Wonderland. The UK’s largest Christmas funfair employs more than 5,000 people, attracts 3.5 million visitors each year and makes tens of millions each year, but has new overseas owners and is potentially facing down a hefty increase its tax bill.
To Do List
- Grab the end of David Eldridge’s slightly bleak yet devastatingly beautiful production End before it finishes its run at the National Theatre on 17 January. Clive Owen and Saskia Reeves star as a middle aged London couple coping with Owen’s imminent death from terminal cancer, and how to properly mark the end of their lives together. Tickets here.
- There's nowhere better to be in January than firmly ensconced in the warmth of the cinema. And now the BFI are launching a new season dedicated to the iconic movie director David Lynch, including quizzes, documentaries and screenings of Eraserhead, Mulholland Drive and his other classic films. Our tip? An ultra-rare showing of companion film Twin Peaks: The Missing Pieces. Details here.
From the archive
Not feeling quite cold enough? In 1950, tens of thousands of Londoners flocked to Hampstead Heath to watch the capital’s first ski jumping competition. Watch the newsreel footage of how they put together the 18m slope, including importing 45 tonnes of snow from Norway.
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