London

https://www.hackneycitizen.co.uk/2026/03/11/extreme-heat-london-plan-air-conditioning/

Signs put up by Brent Council threaten residents with a prison sentence of up to five years or an unlimited fine if they are caught feeding birds.

Broadwick Live, the team behind Printworks and Drumsheds, has announced what sounds like a wildly ambitious series of summer shows at a space called Open-Air, a new outdoor location at Greenwich venue Magazine.

Taking place at Trafalgar Square in Central London on Saturday, March 28th, the event will form part of the larger Together Against The Far Right demonstration. Performing for R3 Soundsystem will be Ben UFO, Benji B, Tash LC, Shygirl with Club Shy, GIDEÖN with Jessie Ware, L-Vis 1990, DJ Paulette, Body Movement DJs and more.

Running out of a tiny kiosk in Clerkenwell, Exmouth Cultural Kiosk is a secondhand bookstore and self-publishing project that sells books for as little as £2.

Transport for London is planning to power parts of the Underground directly from nuclear fusion — aka the sun — through a number of new solar farms that could be built in the future.

Five years ago, in the depths of the Covid pandemic, a frenzied “race for space” propelled London’s residential property market. City dwellers were falling over themselves to swap one beds in town for detached houses in the ‘burbs with gardens, home studies — and room to breathe. Now London is facing a new property stampede. But this time, remarkably, and against virtually all expert predictions during those work-from-home years of 2020 and 2021, it is office space that is in hottest demand — and worryingly short supply.

Coverage of Asif Aziz’s Criterion Capital went mainstream this week, with news outlets across the political spectrum covering the mass evictions that London Centric has been reporting on for weeks. There’s increasing political pressure, from central government down to the mayor of London’s office and local councils to get a grip on the issue.

BAFTA-nominated film-maker, artist, and ‘speculative futurist’ Liam Young is the man responsible for the exhibition. Called In Other Worlds, this will be Young’s first major solo show in the UK. He’ll be collaborating with artists working in the mediums of TV, film and graphic novels, as well as scientists, musicians and costume designers. Creators behind the likes of Westworld, Fallout, Blue Eye Samurai, Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, The Handmaid’s Tale and Andor are all contributing works to the mega exhibit.

A man in his 20s has been arrested as part of a police investigation into the viral “school wars” trend, which encourages pupils to engage in violence.

Route 286, which runs from Greenwich town centre to Queen Mary Hospital in Sidcup via Eltham, will be converted to double-decker buses when a new contract with Go-Ahead London begins on July 11.

Londoners with B negative blood types are being urged to donate after the NHS warned that supplies are low, putting increased pressure on medical services.

City Hall will have a specific policy dedicated to the building of new data centres in the upcoming London Plan, officials have confirmed, following concerns about their immense power and water usage.

The announcement on 2 March 2026 that BrewDog is shutting nine of its London pubs with immediate effect (Soho, Camden Road, Chancery Lane, Clerkenwell, Ealing, Hammersmith, Seething Lane, Tower Bridge, Wandsworth), amid a massive nationwide wind-down, conjures mixed feelings.

On Friday a dozen schoolchildren were kept at home for their own safety in just one year group at a school in Merton. In Haringey, teachers increased their usual patrols outside at kicking-out time. In Forest Hill, a boys’ school cancelled its after-school clubs and warned children that if they were spotted at Lewisham Shopping Centre, they’d be expelled. Schools across the capital have been finishing early.

The Anglesea Arms has seen an application to demolish the whole building with the owner claiming the site is in too poor a condition after it was closed in early 2025 then squatted.

To mark five years since Sarah Everard was killed, a vigil is being held in Clapham to remember her and the lives of all women and girls who have been taken through violence. The gathering is happening at 6.30pm on Tues 3rd March at the bandstand in Clapham Common.

Detentions at several London schools will be cancelled amid fears children are being encouraged to fight rival pupils on social media.

Engineers are looking into hyperloop technology, which isn’t something from Star Trek, but instead could be a very real mode of transport that would make land travel as fast as flying. The European Hyperloop Center Veendam in the Netherlands, where the research is taking place, said one day travellers could reach Paris from London in just 20 minutes.

Buses, taxis and cyclists will be banned from western section of Oxford Street from summer 2026

A canalside park in northwest London has received a swanky £2.5 million glow-up, and it’s just reopened to the public after five years of consultations and works. Queens Park Canalside is now back in action with a fresh makeover which includes improved lighting, wheelchair and pushchair ramps, wildlife habitats and a new public mural.

London bookshops shortlisted for The British Book Awards 2026 Independent Bookshop of the Year * Backstory, Balham * Bàrd Books, Bow * BookBar, Islington and Chelsea * Burley Fisher Books, Dalston * Saucy Books, Ladbroke Grove * South Kensington Books, South Kensington * The Common Press, Shoreditch * The Paper Cat Children’s Bookshop, Herne Hill * Village Books, Dulwich

The London Local Elections take place on Thursday 7 May 2026. Here’s what’s happening, and why it matters.

Aziz’s Criterion Capital appears to have halted the mass eviction amid political pressure from Sadiq Khan, after we revealed the company’s intention to make vast numbers of private tenants homeless just before renters gain new rights at the start of May.

London Centric has learned that in the coming weeks the Aziz family’s Criterion Capital business intends to remove hundreds of Londoners – including some marking the month of Ramadan – from their homes. These mass “no-fault” evictions of private tenants, which sources say are planned to be finished before the government’s Renters’ Rights Act comes into effect, are taking place on an unprecedented scale.

A charity is lodging an appeal against the High Court’s decision to throw out its legal challenge over trans access to single-sex facilities at Hampstead Heath’s swimming ponds.

Note to mods: I normally don’t editorialise headlines, but I have in this case because it’s definitely not true!