London politics
fromwww.bbc.com
19 hours agoLondon housebuilding rates fall by 84% in a decade
Private-sector housebuilding in London fell 84% since 2015, far below the capital's requirement of roughly 88,000 new homes per year.
When the new Sydney Fish Market flung open its doors for the first time on Monday morning, one regular clientele was notably absent. There were no seagulls. And, by extension, no poo. I've been waiting 50 years for this, one man carrying several shopping bags told me as he exited the shiny new building. I couldn't bring friends here from Europe to sit out there [at the old market] with the birds and the shit.
Work to fix hospitals built using unsafe concrete will not be completed in time to meet the government's target, a new report has warned. Seven hospitals built using Raac, or reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete, were prioritised for remedial work last year, with the government setting a deadline of 2030. The new buildings are now expected to open in 2032 and 2033 - but some are already facing pressure to meet the revised timetable, the National Audit Office (NAO) said.
At the corner of High Park Avenue and Annette Street in Toronto, a church slated to be transformed into condominiums has been sitting partially complete for several years. Construction on the 70-unit condo project began in 2019, but there has been no progress since 2023. "We all knew that something was wrong because you'd just drive by and no one's working, right? Nothing's happening," said Phil Earnshaw, who paid a $280,000 deposit in 2018 for a two-bedroom unit.