Clerkenwell clubbers relieved by news of loos plan for Farringdon Station

Katerina Stankovic

Clerkenwell clubbers will be relieved to hear that new lavatories are being built at Farringdon Station, following MP Emily Thornberry’s campaigning.

They are part of the massive £16 billion Crossrail renovations.

The station is next to bars, pubs and clubs, and is a popular station for students to use on nights out, which is the exact reason why a lot of the Islington students are upset.

Tobi Oduyoye, a student living in Islington said: “I think that having lavatories at Farringdon Station would be a great idea. Coming out of a nearby nightclub nearby at four in the morning, you see a lot of people urinating and throwing up in the streets. Building lavatories in Farringdon Station would be really useful, and would really help in cleaning up the streets of Islington.”

Ms Thornberry, MP for Islington South and Finsbury, told Parliament: “Crossrail is currently building a huge new station at Farringdon, which we will welcome. However, will the minister join me in urging Crossrail to build some lavatories at Farringdon station?”

In a controversial speech she used the swear word p*** during Transport Questions in the Commons.

Ms Thornberry made her point and showed how passionately she felt about the lack of lavatories and how much it concerned the public.

She added: “The lavatories could be used not just by passengers but by people coming out of clubs at three in the morning. Residents have had to deal with massive disruption during the station upgrade and having these lavatories would be a bit of payback.”

The lack of lavatories at Farringdon Station has also had an effect on businesses nearby.

Sasha Lewis, who works in Ember, a bar right outside Farringdon Station said: “I would say that building lavatories at Farringdon Station would definitely be beneficial.

“We get a lot of people walking in to use our lavatories; some of them are polite enough to ask, however we get a lot of tramps and drunken people coming in. And especially since Farringdon Station is such a big connection, and since they are already renovating it, it would be a pity not to build some lavatories, as they are quite essential.”

The lack of lavatories at Farringdon Station has also affected families travelling with children who are often more desperate than adults to find a loo.

Georgia Keane, mother from Angel says: “I have two children, one a newborn and the other a toddler, and anyone with children will tell you that it is impossible to go anywhere without one of them needing the toilet every five minutes.

“And with a newborn, changing them is essential. I think that building a toilet at Farringdon Station would be so helpful to a lot of people, especially parents with children who are on the move constantly.”

Transport Minister Theresa Villiers said: “The redevelopment of Farringdon station involves Crossrail and Thameslink. It’s going to be an exceptionally important and busy station.

“There will be toilet facilities. It is intended those facilities will be provided at the London Underground aspect as part of the Thameslink upgrade, so Crossrail passengers are likely to have access to facilities nearby.”

St John Street flooding continues after water main burst

Katerina Stankovic

Roads surrounding St John Street, Islington, were still closed today off because of a flood caused by a large underground water main bursting over a week ago.

The burst happened on Saturday June 25 at 10:45am causing the tarmac to crack and the whole road to flood and leaving behind heaps of debris after it dried up. Witnesses said that the water flowed several feet high for 45 minutes.

Families boarded up their houses to protect them from flooding, but two basement flats were flooded.
A Thames Water spokesman said: “We were carrying out planned repairs in the area when the main pipe burst.
It has now been repaired, although we expect it to be at least a week before the road is rebuilt over the top of it.”

A sign at the site says that the road will be ready for use by July 12, but walking down the road, anyone can see that there isn’t much hope of them meeting the deadline.

A builder working on the site said: “We don’t know when the road will be finished. Since the pipe that broke was such an old water main, they keep bursting. Every time we fix one pipe, another one bursts. We can’t rebuild the road while the pipes keep bursting.”

The road affected is a busy road as well as a bus route, and its closure is stopping a lot of people from getting to and from Angel.

Paula Hearst, 73, said: “I always do my shopping at Sainsbury’s in Angel and always take the 153 bus from Goswell Road to Chapel Market, but because of the workings I now have to take two different buses and it takes me three times longer to get there.”

The stops affected include St John Street/Goswell Road, Rosebery Avenue/Sadlers Wells, Friend Street/Sadlers Wells and Spencer Street/City University. Buses are diverted and are subject to delays until July 11. Check the TFL website for a list of diversions.

Hackademics at City University London in demand as News of the World phone-hacking scandal erupts

Peter Newlands

Journalism experts from City University London have been in high demand across the national media to offer opinions and information on the News of the World phone-hacking scandal.

Two former journalists for News International, the parent company of the News of the World, The Sun and The Times, appeared on national broadcast media today offering insight into the controversy.

The story took on a shock turn this week when it emerged that the voicemail messages of the murdered schoolgirl Milly Dowler had been listened to and deleted, giving false hope to the her family that she was alive.

Previously it had been thought it was merely the mobile phones of politicians and celebrities who had been hacked into, but the discovery that they had accessed the voicemails of a child who at the time was missing has ignited calls for a public inquiry into the sordid episode.

The news broke at a time when the Department for Culture, Media and Sport is considering whether to allow News International, the parent company of the News of the World, to submit a takeover bid of BSkyB, the company that owns Sky Television, including Sky News.

James Anslow, a lecturer at City who worked at News International for over 30 years, much of it at the News of the World, gave his perspective on Sky News’s programme Boulton and Co.

He said: “It’s a massive story that is going to run and run and will probably result in a completely new way of regulating the press in Britain.”

Professor George Brock, head of the Journalism department and a former managing editor of The Times, contributed to an item on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme alongside the BBC’s business editor Robert Peston on Wednesday morning.

He told the programme that the scale of the scandal will have serious consequences: “It’s a tipping point for journalism. People are now realising that there is more house cleaning to be done, it’s a bigger job than it looked like.

“It’s damaging News International, it’s damaging the other papers, It’s as bad as it gets. In order to get everything back on an even keel, some quite senior people are going to have to leave.”

Other members of City’s journalism department have been involved in the phone hacking investigation. Heather Brooke, a visiting lecturer working with the Guardian, was instrumental in the Freedom of Information requests that led to many of the details being revealed.

Anslow praised the work of the university’s staff. He said: “It says a lot about the reputation of City University London’s journalism department that it s lecturers are in demand for their authoritative take on media matters like this.”

Historic Northampton Square bandstand reopens

Olivia Cripps

The refurbished Northampton Square bandstand re-opening is taking place this week, with a musical performance and speeches planned.

The bandstand will be formally reopened with welcome speeches by City University Vice Chancellor, Professor Paul Curran and Councillor Phil Kelly, The Worshipful Mayor of Islington.

The official ribbon cutting will also be followed by musical performances; The Hampstead Quartet and Somethin’ Else Ensemble jazz band are both groups of City University’s musical alumni.

Matthew Shipton, communications manager at City University London, welcomed the re-opening: “The bandstand is a focal point for the local community and we hope its refurbishment will mean the Square can again become a popular venue for local community events.”

Students have been following the progress of the revamp, with construction workers working everyday to improve the area. Refurbishment on the bandstand started back in April and will finish this week as planned, re-opening on 9 July. Residents of Islington are expected to attend, along with students from the university.

The Square has been used as a musical stage in the past as a result of group ‘Bandstand Busk’ encouraging and organising acts to perform at unused bandstands across London.

They formed in 2008 and have gathered a strong fan-base since then, acquiring over 2,000 followers on Twitter and their own website with videos of each act. Northampton Square has proved to be popular location with performances from aspiring artists such as Emmy the Great, Caitlin Rose and Wildbeasts.

Northampton Square was built in the early 19th Century but it wasn’t until 1885 that William Compton, the 4th Marquis of Northampton, created the garden and shelter, which is now known as the bandstand. He is said to have built it for his daughter Lady Margaret and opened it to the public in 1885 and it is now the only remaining bandstand in a London square.

The opening is from 2 – 4pm on Saturday 9th July at Northampton Square.

Barts hospital rejects dangerous medical equipment

Peter Newlands
The NHS trust responsible for St. Bart’s hospital rejects almost one fifth of new equipment because it fails basic safety guidelines, a BBC investigation has revealed.
Specialists who inspect equipment to ensure it meets the high safety standards required of surgical forceps, scalpels, clamps and other instruments routinely reject deliveries due to shoddy workmanship that could cause serious injury or infection to patients.
According to an investigation by the BBC’s Panorama programme, there have been cases where surgeons’ gloves have been punctured or torn, which would enable bacteria to easily transfer into the patient causing infection and post-surgery complications.
Tom Brophy, the lead technologist at Barts and The London Trust, told the programme that he was so concerned at the amount of equipment that fails safety checks he felt required to speak out. He revealed he had on occasion rejected entire batches of surgical tools that did not meet the standards fit for operations.
Since 2001, Barts and the London trust has rejected between 13 and 18 per cent of the instruments it receives from suppliers. The amount of time required to check so many instruments can slow down safe equipment reaching the theatres. Brophy said he is always concerned with getting good tools into the hands of the surgeons: “The need to use [the instruments] is so great; we’ve got to get them in service. We don’t want to delay operations.”
He added that some tools, which are earmarked for use in life-saving surgery, arrive at the hospital with dangerous sharp edges, metal burrs that can splinter during operations and rust on areas that would be inserted into patients. Suppliers have also tried to sell used equipment to the hospitals claiming that it is brand new, Brophy said. Used instruments could have trapped body tissue or fluid, a likely cause of MRSA infections.
“I’ve had equipment turning up that was sold to us ‘new’ but had obvious signs of use like marks and scratches, and its lustre had diminished. Once I received a batch that had dried blood all over the equipment. That was a one-off but it was a large scale one-off,” he said.
Worryingly, the same companies who supply the trust also sell equipment to the over 180 other trusts around the UK and Brophy said that rejected instruments had been sold to other hospitals.
He said: “On more than occasion a supplier has rung me up and said that the instrument you rejected, I passed it onto another hospital and they accepted it. Of course they’re going to accept it, because they haven’t checked.”
An NHS surgeon, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told the BBC investigation: “You look at your glove, which has been torn by a rough edge of an instrument, and you think, have I just cut that patient’s bowel with this?
“If we filled in a form for every time an instrument failed, we would spend the morning operating and the afternoon doing paperwork.”
The Medicines and Health Care Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) requires all of the 916 licensed suppliers of surgical equipment in the UK to be registered with them, however quality control is still the responsibility of the companies themselves.
The MHRA said it has “no evidence that non-compliant instruments are being supplied to the NHS.
“We have requested information relating to the defective surgical instruments, however, Panorama have not been forthcoming in providing the details. The MHRA takes all allegations of non-compliance extremely seriously, and where we receive evidence we will take appropriate action.”

Raver makes it to the spotlight as director

Nuzhat Ahmed
Tom Cordell started off his career in the 1990s filming raves on his handheld camera, but now he is up for a top award with London Utopia, his entry for the Open City London festival.
London Utopia is a documentary film, telling the story of the architecture of some of London’s finest buildings, including two of Islington’s Landmarks. This documentary could land Cordell for best emerging director
Mr Cordell said: “The film looks at what I call the ‘social architecture’ of London from the 1930s to the 1980s.”
The film begins by focusing on Finsbury health centre in Pine Street and Bevin court in Cruikshank, Islington – both designed by the pioneering modernist Berthold Lubetken.
London Utopia grew out of his passion for modernist architecture, which he feels has been vilified over the past 35 years.
The young director has always been drawn to the excitement of London’s post-war landscape; concrete and brick texture, unadorned clean lines, neon glow and its dark shadows.
“It uses the buildings as a symbol of the ideas of the society of that time, and the aim to create a fairer, more equal society. The Finsbury Health Centre, for example, was the prototype for the NHS.”
This documentary outlines the love and fascination the filmmaker has for the city he grew up in, meeting the architects who designed it, and reuniting them with the buildings they created.
“I used to film drum ‘n’ bass raves when I was about 19,” he said. “Around 1997, digital cameras came onto the market that meant you could suddenly go and film things at a very low cost.
Mr Cordell was discovered by a BBC producer who saw his videos and offered him some work. He went on to make music videos for a host of UK Garage acts, including the Dreem Team, as well as working as a researcher and assistant producer in TV.
“I worked on loads of crime documentaries before this film,” he added.
The filmmaker has spent a year of his life spending a lot of time with murderers and drug dealers, so this documentary was a change in gear for the young director.
This would be the first feature-length work for the 33-year-old – who started off his career as a teenage raver.
“I had once thought that popular taste would catch up with urban building of the 50’s 60’s and 70’s, it’s now under attack major symbols of that time are being destroyed-often with gruesome delight on the part of wreckers. We urgently need to defend what is left before it is all gone.”
“My early research took me back to the destruction of the Second World War and the plans drawn up then to rebuild the city.”
The young director began to contact the people who tried to change the city, and his narrative thread continued to shift around as the filming went on.
“What I found was that the power of the buildings came from the vision they were meant to serve – and that it’s this vision that so polarises opinion, said Cornell. “They symbolise an attempt to build a fair, open society, and their existence frightens people who have rejected these values,” he added
This film is an attempt to understand both why Mr Cordell is so drawn to these cityscapes and also why some hate them so much.

New Jamie Oliver restaurant upsets traders at the Angel

Yanina Iskhakova

Islington restaurants are worried by the opening of TV chef Jamie Oliver’s new Islington restaurant.

The huge Jamie’s Italian opens in the Angel Building this summer and can seat 200.

Established eateries claim it is unfair competition.

It is the latest in a chain of 18 restaurants owned by TV’s “Naked Chef”.

One owner of an Italian restaurant in Chapel Market who wanted to remain anonymous feels that his restaurant is at risk because of Jamie’s Italian.

He said: “The prices at Jamie’s are really low. I’ve eaten there and although the food was not outrageous, it’s better than most restaurant chains. The restaurant will certainly affect our business, if not destroy it completely.”

The lease contract is set for 25 years and the application included a 12.30am drinks licence and permission to show films.

However, even though some restaurants might be negatively affected by the opening, Jamie’s Italian will also create up to 100 new jobs.

But Not all local restaurants are worried about the new arrival. Filiz Dolen, 32, waitress at the Angel Inn said: “Workers cannot go there wearing their work clothes and eat in relaxed atmosphere but they can here.

“Our food is cheaper and we have our regular customers. We also open early in the morning, so maybe we are going to affect them instead.”

Luca, 24, proud owner of the Renaissance Bar & Restaurant, just a few metres down the St John’s Street, sees the opening as rather positive for his business. He said: “I think that the people wanting to eat at Jamie’s Italian won’t find a place there. It will be fully booked until November or December so they might come to my place instead and discover the true flavours of Italy.”

Cancer Research UK moves to Angel

Hush Kerai
Cancer Research UK has moved its main offices into the recently refurbished Angel Building in Islington.
The Charity moved its existing London-based staff into one building. “It was the culmination of a thorough six-month selection process,” said Jo Sefton, Cancer Research UK PR officer.
Mr Sefton said: “The move has enabled Cancer Research UK to save over 20% on its future property operating costs.”
He added: “The move has helped to release capital funds for the cutting edge new research facility Cancer Research UK are developing. We negotiated a competitive lease, including a rent free period and the developers (Derwent London) generously contributed towards the costs of necessary refurbishments.”
Mr Sefton wants to reiterate to anyone who had donated to Cancer Research UK that no donations were used to finances the move. He said: “For every pound we receive, excluding retail, 80 pence is available to spend on our work to beat cancer. Our work is funded entirely by the public and no money earmarked for research was diverted to fund the charity’s move.”
The Angel building was redeveloped with energy saving ventilation and lighting features, which resulted in it winning the 2011 Refurbished and Recycled workspace award.
The £72m project now includes 250,000 sq ft of office space spread out over six floors, eight passenger lifts, a full height atrium which houses a kitchen and a business lounge, as well as a 360 degree view terrace roof.
It also features exclusively commissioned artwork from contemporary artists such as Ian Mcchesney and Terista Fernandez.
Other tenants confirmed at the Angel building are management companies NG Bailey, Sage and restaurant Jamie’s Italian. Office space on the third floor and space in the south retail section is still available.
For more information visit http://www.angelbuilding.com

Poland welcomes unique City University journalism experiment

John Stammers
Twenty one students from City University have just taken part in a unique social-media journalism experiment to find out if Poland is ready to host the Euro Championships next year.
The students, who all study journalism at City, were recruited by leading Polish newspaper Gazeta Wyborcza. Their mission, appropriately named Misja21, used various kinds of media channels to explore how modern media is consumed; they blogged, tweeted, facebooked, photographed and videoed- using a blog set up and promoted by the paper.
Grzegorz Piechota, a senior editor at Gazeta, described the mission as a bit like having a look at yourself in the mirror. He told the students that the paper did not know what to expect a lot of the time, maybe the students from London might see Poland in a different way.
The students were flown to Warsaw on the 18th June by Gazeta and were each given an £800 budget to pay for transport, accommodation and other living expenses. Four cities in Poland, which shares the tournament with Ukraine, will be hosting matches. All 21 students were sent to investigate a different city taking into account transport, language barriers, differences in food and culture and whether perceptions about stereotypes of Poles are true. The chosen destinations included the four host cities; Warsaw, Poznań, Gdańsk and Wrocław.
After a workshop at the head office in Warsaw they made their way to the various destinations where they met with their “shadow”, a journalist from the local Gazeta who would track their progress and write a daily article about the mission. The paper set up various meetings for the students, including interviews with the city mayors, and they also conducted a survey in each city of the top and bottom five things to see and do. The students would visit all 10. The paper also set various themes for each student to explore, such as transport; language barriers, cuisine and stereotypes.
Gazeta succeeded in creating a media buzz about the mission by promoting it in on the website and in the national and each individual local edition of the paper. Along the way the students became local celebrities with photographers from Gazeta taking pictures and videos everywhere they went as well as some students giving interviews for German and Polish TV and radio; some even got recognised in bars and on the street.
Professor George Brock, head of journalism at City, said: “It is a unique chance for 21 of our best students to do some hands-on reporting in a foreign country, the kind of chance they are not likely to have again until well into their journalistic careers.”
Each city varied in size and tourist friendly sites and therefore each student encountered different experiences in the various cities, with lots of stories being uncovered along the way. Camilla Mills, 23, went to Białystok and broke a story which made it into the national Gazeta about the Zoo in the city mistreating the animals. Saad Noor, 20, who visited Wrocław received some racist comments which triggered national debates online, and Petter Larson, 24, who travelled to Katowice gathered lots of interest with his continuously humorous posts, including a song made up with his room mates.
Kamilla Nyegaard-Larsen, 23, went to Łódź. She said: “It’s been a week of contrasts for me, it’s been a lot of old buildings, trams and buses but there’s also been so many modern things.
“Polish people are very very warm and friendly. I was surprised as I thought they were going to be a but more shut inside themselves and not as willing to talk to strangers.”
Christopher Dodd, 20, who went to Lublin, described the Polish people as: “Brilliant. In One word”
“The stereotypes I had were proved wrong. I often saw Poles as shy and inward people but from the people of Lublin I met they were very outgoing, very friendly; so it’s sort of quashed my perceptions.”
Misja21 found that although there is still a lot of construction to be completed, Poland is on the way to being ready for the tournament next year. It also changed many of the students’ thoughts on the country, some are still there now exploring and others are planning to go back. The students also gained invaluable journalism and life experience with the paper benefitting from their many stories.
The blog became the fourth most read on a Polish platform with 264 thousand blogs on; the Facebook group got over 1,800 likes; videos on the Youtube channel generally got near 1,00 views but one received over 80,000 views. Eight four per cent of the mission’s followers were between 18-24, which may be down to the Polish-English language barrier though- with the younger generation in Poland speaking more English. These media channels received a lot of instant comment and debate, but Gazeta received no direct emails about the mission, suggesting a shift in how audiences interact with the media.
It was a revolutionary style of journalism and an interesting social experiment. Gazeta prides itself on its free speech forums and although this meant some controversial views at times, Professor Brock described the events as they happened as fragmentary, off-the-cuff, personal, occasionally naive, raw and unedited.

Bike theft tweeted

Olivia Cripps
Channel 4 and BBC film director James Jones caused a stir on Twitter early this morning after posting a picture of two men stealing his bike from outside a pub in Islington.
Jones, who has directed many of the popular Dispatches series on Channel 4, posted the picture with the tweet: “These guys just stole my bike from outside a pub in Islington. He laughed as he cycled off.” The photo shows the two men attempting to break the bike lock outside the Alwyne Castle on St Pauls Road, Islington.
The photograph was taken by someone in the pub who witnessed the theft, opting to photograph the thieves rather than take them on; as one tweeter said: “There are two of them. And they’re big men. Well done whoever took the pic. Now they can be identified.”
Jones has also enlisted the help of his high-profile friend, Channel 4’s Jon Snow, to spread the word about his stolen bike, tweeting: “@jonsnowC4: Jon, these people just stole my bike in north London. You were right. I’m devastated.” Mr Snow’s reply was swift: “I’m so very sorry: beautiful bike.”
Jones explains on the social-networking site that he saw the thieves from a distance and ran after them, before reporting it to the police and handing over the photograph.
James Jones’ most recent Dispatches ‘Landlords from Hell’ is on Channel 4 tonight at 8pm.