Four weeks this morning, GM will have achieved its long-held ambition of integrated public transport by uniting bus and tram in a single payment system. People will be able to make journeys using a combination of both and never pay more than the daily cap. Rail added from 2026.

The VAT driven tsunami from private to state schools in London may have been slightly over stated “The total number of applications made for secondary school places in London this year was 87,512, a decrease of 3.1% compared to last year”

FT (£) “The latest planning figures show housing supply is at critical crisis levels,” said Neil Jefferson of the Home Builders Federation.” Piffle. Supply is governed by builders, not by permission flow - which is also governed by builders. ft.com/content/646149… via @ft

I full understand that there are necessary vehicles on Londons roads and there always will be. This statistic however is shocking: “The total number of vehicles seen being driven in London on an average day has increased from 1.97m to 2.1m in the year to September 2024”.

All restaurants should have a QR code on the table to allow you to pay your bill and leave when you want to. The process of trying to flag down a waiter, then wait for your bill, then wait for the card machine is torture.

For example, the 🇬🇧 has 7m fewer homes than 🇫🇷 w/ the same population At £200k/house, that's a staggering *£1.4tn* in missing investment: ~55% of UK GDP Delivering this could significantly reduce the gap btwn the UK & G7 countries (chart from Giles Wilkes's excellent IfG paper)

Revealed: how Sadiq Khan's Ulez expansion cut road pollution in every outer London borough | The Standard standard.co.uk/news/transport…

Housing fact! Dublin (which in this definition has a population of 1.5m) builds 30% more homes per year than Greater Manchester (which in this definition has a population of 2.9m).

The fact that Londoners have less money than average after housing costs is intuitive, obvious even. But it explains much of the rage at quality of life. The UK's most vocal area is full of folk who are "well off" pre-tax, but find they can barely get by. bloomberg.com/news/articles/…

The latest ONS housing data came out today. It showed that rents in London continued to soar. They're now roughly 40% higher than pre-pandemic. For young people in the capital, this is a nightmare. gov.uk/government/sta…

Contrary to popular belief, London has fewer than 200 kilometres of separated cycle lanes amongst approximately 15,000 kilometres of road. That's only 1.3%. Contrary to popular belief, it's not cyclists or cycle lanes holding you up; it's other drivers.

Our latest report looks at five 'anti-supply measures' that are a major bottleneck on urban housebuilding and the 1.5m new home target - a quick thread below on what they are, why they're a problem, and how to fix them:

Huge thanks to everyone who joined our packed UKREiiF programme this week, and special thanks to our sponsors Barratt Homes, Kanda Consulting and Arcadis UK. Great to be joined by Jules Pipe and Claire Holland to hear about how all levels of London government are working

Opportunity is all around you Unless you live in the UK, where a Head of Finance job at the Cabinet Office earns you the equivalent salary of a Panda Express store manager

Guardian reports Khan sought tourist tax and rebuffed by Treasury Crazy. 1) Just about every developed nation and cities/towns around the world have it. Minimal impact on visitors 2) Mad centralisation of power in Whitehall that a Mayor can't do it. A common local power abroad

Where to begin?

“The acid test for this Spending Review is whether the Government’s rhetoric on growth is matched with the investment needed to kickstart the economy. “The Chancellor has delivered some welcome additional spending on infrastructure, transport and skills. But it looks like London

Radio 4 just did an excellent report on the wealth inequality between the Boomer generation (mine) & the twenty somethings (2 of my kids.) These really are staggering. This is a key point & it explains so much about what is going wrong in the UK. 40 years ago, when I bought my

Irrespective of whether it is a good idea or not, it seems nuts that the Mayor of London can't even pedestrianise a street without permission from the Deputy Prime Minister. Let's make devolution substantive! Centre for Cities bbc.co.uk/news/articles/…

Tom Forth Tim Leunig Centre for Cities Even pedestrianising a small side street requires the local authority to seek permission from the Secretary of State for Transport. And altering pedestrianised hours requires an extensive consultation and stakeholder engagement process, and very often an inquiry.