Docklands Archives - Page 31 of 37

April 27, 2022April 27, 2022

Isle Of Dogs: How Freeweaver Saori Studio runs mindful and productive classes

Craft Central-based maker will also be participating in workshops for London Craft Week in May

Erna Janine of Freeweaver Saori Studio – image James Perrin

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BY LAURA ENFIELD

Decompressing after a hard day at work used to be about sweating at the gym or partying in bars.

But, post-pandemic, people have been seeking out gentler ways of relaxing – sitting at a loom, for example.

Freeweaver Saori Studio at Craft Central is fast becoming a haven for those who want to embrace a slower pace of life, even if only for a few hours.

“Half my students are fashion students and the other half come for the mindful aspect of it,” said Erna Janine, owner of the Isle Of Dogs-based business.

“Stressed out businessmen from Canary Wharf want to do something relaxing that’s totally off the grid with no screens.

“It’s rhythmical and a mindful way of gathering your thoughts while doing something with your hands to create a simple piece of cloth.”

Erna will be hosting two workshops during London Craft Week (May 9-15) – one to introduce the technique of Saori weaving and the other showing how to integrate the cloth it produces into existing items of clothing.

Erna at her loom in Craft Central – image James Perrin

She is also reinventing the pinstripe for the event and the finished result will be on display at Craft Central in Westferry Road.

The 45-year-old, who grew up in Holland, discovered the Japanese technique of Saori seven years ago.

Instead of following a rigid repeating pattern like traditional weaving, the freestyle method encourages weavers to use their creativity to create totally unique pieces of cloth every time they weave. For Erna, it was a revelation.

“Weaving is in my family, “ she said. “I always felt an affinity with it through my maternal grandmother, who made all her own clothes and wore traditional costume. Weaving was also part of the curriculum at my schools.

“When I was 18 I got an apprenticeship in Iceland to be part of a weaving workshop in the remote highlands for a few years, then I did a textile degree in Iceland.

“It has just always been part of my life. But that was very formal with mega big looms that took days to even set up.

“When I found this Japanese way of weaving, I found myself as a contemporary weaver.”

Woven cloth can be used to men clothes – image James Perrin

Erna travelled to Japan to study Saori – invented by Misao Jo 50 years ago as a reaction to the country’s technological boom.

“There was this throwback where people started questioning their relationship with technology,” said Erna.

“She was one of the people who made a stance against it by weaving her own clothes in a way that you could see they were handmade.

“She was 99 when I met her and died aged 104, as something of a cult figure in Japan.

“She said the human being was full of creativity and playfulness and that should be visible in the things we surround ourselves with. They should be based on the innovation around us, but also the joy of making things.

“I thought she captured that so well in the design of her equipment, which allows everyone to express themselves uniquely.

“With a traditional weave, you follow instructions, but this is the opposite. It’s about fun, making something new and trying things out. It is a vehicle for creativity.

“I immediately loved it and found it very liberating because I had spent so many hours at school weaving samples and, if a small mistake showed, the cloth would be cut off and thrown away.”

Erna said Saori was much more welcoming for beginners and she knew straight away she wanted to teach it.

“I could be a regular weaver in London and make scarves, but you can only make so many,” she said. “It’s so much more interesting to teach people how to make these simple things themselves.”

In 2017, Erna landed at Craft Central, a charity set up 50 years ago to support makers, after getting permission to teach Saori in London.

“I liked the area and its proximity to Canary Wharf and Greenwich and the maritime history,” she said. “It’s enveloped in the history of this area and it’s nice to be by the river.

“Every time I’m a bit tired I can walk there and have a stretch – there’s so much space and it has so many textures – I always come back inspired.”

Saori is about free expression – image James Perrin

She has about 40 regular students who she has taught to weave who now visit the studio for sessions on a loom.

“They come in by the hour – a bit like a gym – and make what they want to make,” said Erna.

“They just want some time with other people doing something creative in a beautiful setting.

“It’s not too heavy on the technical and is really more about enjoying the colours and textures and just coming to terms with these simple techniques that surround us from birth.

“Everything we wear is textiles and most of it is woven, so it’s a good way to connect with our distant ancestors as well, who had to create them by hand.”

Classes are held most weekdays and one weekend a month. She also organises the biannual Japanese Textile And Craft Festival with other makers and the Festival Of Natural Fibres (May 28-29) in conjunction with the Gandhi Foundation. This year, silk spinners will be over from India to talk about their techniques.

“People are looking at objects and the things around them in a different way,” said Erna. “We see it with food – people being more picky – and I think fashion will be the next thing where people start to choose with more care.

“People should see fast fashion as pollution. I have travelled to India extensively as I work with organic cotton farms and silk spinners.

“It’s horrible to see the river bright pink because it’s in this season. I don’t think severe change is necessary, though – just slow progress because people need employment.”

Erna does her bit by avoiding acrylic yarns and using recycled materials saved from landfill.

She splits her time between Deptford and Stroud, where she has a home studio in an old textile mill.

She also weaves outside and forages in the forest.

“I created my first clothing collection there in lockdown,” she said.

“People often ask if I go home and weave after teaching a whole day. I answer: ‘Yes of course, it’s so relaxing’.”

Craft Central has a number of workshops taking place for London Craft Week 2022

LONDON CRAFT WEEK WORKSHOPS AT CRAFT CENTRAL IN 2022

May 10 – Rework Your Garment Using Creative Sewing And Saori Weaving

May 11 – Saori Weaving With Natural Fibres + Bengala Dye

May 11 – Sewing A Japanese Komebukuro Rice Bag

May 13 – Ikebana Japanese Flower Arrangement

May 14 – Make Your Own Botanical Illustration Inspired 3D Paper Rose

May 14 – Paint Your Own Ceramic

May 14 – Pyrography Fire Drawing Workshop

May 14 – Makers Market 10.30am-5.30pm. A wide range of items will be on sale at Craft Central including interior products, jewellery, prints, textiles, fashion, ceramics, and woodwork

May 15 – Jesmonite Casting

Find our more about these workshops here

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April 27, 2022April 27, 2022

Property: How Canary Wharf-based Impact Capital Group is set to transform Romford

Developer’s eco-friendly plans win approval for former ice rink site next to Queen’s Hospital

Rom Valley Gardens is set to be built next to Queen's Hospital — Rom Valley Gardens is set to be built next to Queen’s Hospital

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“Mega, mega, mega going back to Romford” sang Underworld vocalist Karl Hyde on 1996 hit single Born Slippy, made famous by its inclusion on the soundtrack of Danny Boyle’s film adaptation of Trainspotting.

Its lyrics paint an abstract picture of the travails of journeying home to the Havering town from the point of view of an overly-inebriated narrator who’s just rolled out of a pub somewhere near Tottenham Court Road.

Fast forward 26 years, though, and not only is travelling from Soho and other parts of London to Romford set to get much quicker, it’s an area that’s experiencing a degree of mega change.

The opening of Crossrail’s central and eastern section – rumoured to be happening in May – will not only mean direct connections to Tottenham Court Road but also radically shortened journey times to whole swathes of the capital including Canary Wharf.

That’s something, presumably, the founder and CEO of One Canada Square-based Impact Capital Group, Robert Whitton, is looking forward to.

In addition to being born and raised in Romford, he’s created a company that is part of that change.

Impact Capital recently won planning permission from Havering Council to build the best part of 1,000 homes on the site of a former ice rink within walking distance of the town’s Crossrail station.

“I used to go skating there and I remember watching the Romford Raiders ice hockey team play,” said Robert. “I also used to take my children there to use the facilities.”

Artificial slippiness at the site – a piece of land encircled by Rom Valley Way adjacent to Queen’s Hospital – came to an end around a decade ago when the rink was demolished and another opened elsewhere in the town.

For the past nine years, various plans have been tabled for the area’s regeneration, culminating in Impact’s successful application.

While approval from the Greater London Authority and a Section 106 agreement remain outstanding, the hope is to break ground on what will become Rom Valley Gardens by the end of the year.

Impact Capital Group founder and CEO Robert Whitton

“The proposed scheme will see 972 homes built as well as 223 care units for later living or residential care, a medical centre, retail and cafe spaces, gym facilities and other amenities.

Impact’s intention is to use its modular construction factory to deliver much of the development, which will have a strong focus on sustainability.

“It feels good to have reached this point – there’s a lot of support for it,” said Robert.

“When it does come forward people will be very pleasantly surprised, because we are trying to do something that’s very different.

“It’s not going to be an ordinary development – we are looking for this to be a zero-carbon development, pushing the boundaries and looking for new concepts like inter-generational living and creating a real sense of place and community.

“That’s why we’ve included a lot of additional provision for these things within the plans, which we didn’t have to do, but wanted to.

“There will be facilities, both for residents and other community groups – an indoor gym and an outdoor gym and a big public square, where we hope to hold big outdoor events.

“There are residents’ lounges and a mixture of public and private open spaces to create a real neighbourhood – in many ways an urban village.

“We’ve put in there what is now termed ‘independent living’ with extra care provisioning, which is a great concept – it’s the idea of integrating that within a larger development, which will have elements that will also attract younger people, such as the private rental homes, and larger units for families. We want that whole mix of generations.

“I don’t live very far from it now, and have lots of friends and family who live in the area, so it’s very much my home town. It’s a great honour and privilege to be able to bring forward such a transformational project as this.”

An artist's impression of how Rom Valley Gardens will look when work is completed — An artist’s impression of how Rom Valley Gardens will look when work is completed

Robert said Impact, which will manage the development in perpetuity once it is built, would use its factory in Peterborough to ensure a high level of quality control in the building process, helping it deliver on its eco-friendly ambitions for the project.

“Construction and the built environment are the biggest polluters in the world, so we want to have a neutral footprint in delivering this neighbourhood,” he said.

“That way everyone living there will know this new neighbourhood doesn’t have a negative effect on the environment at large.

“They will also notice their energy bills are very, very low – the buildings will be firmly thermal-efficient with double or triple glazing and we’ll be making use of renewable energy.

“Because they’re built in a controlled factory environment, we can get the air-tightness of those units much better than traditional construction methods, and speed up the time it takes to get the project built.”

The development’s proximity to Queen’s Hospital – something that will be particularly beneficial to its older residents – is also an important element in its delivery.

“Included in the plans is a 3,000sq m diagnostic centre for the hospital,” said Robert.

“Timing for that is dependent on agreement with them, but that’s great for local residents.

“The hospital has also told us it has big issues with recruitment and retention, so having housing and facilities close to it will be good to help address that.

“Havering Council will work with the NHS so key workers can get prioritisation within the social housing element.”

For Wharfers interested in spotting trains – estimates vary, but Elizabeth line services could cut the commute from Romford to Canary Wharf by about 16 minutes per journey – more than half an hour a day, or two and a half hours per week.

Oh, and incidentally, Born Slippy was named after a racing Greyhound that members of Underworld once watched run in Romford – mega.

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April 16, 2022April 22, 2022

Isle Of Dogs: How Velocity’s revolutionary toilet is set to save huge amounts of water

Inventor Garry Moore is set to run trials of his domestic loo at at Alpha Grove Community Centre

Garry Moore has created a domestic version of his air flush toilet

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BY LAURA ENFIELD

He might look like a sombre-suited Clark Kent but Garry Moore is actually a superhero.

He has invented a way of saving something vital to life on this planet. Water.

His superloo uses the power of air to blow away waste – saving countless litres of our most precious resource.

And he has chosen Alpha Grove Community Centre on the Isle Of Dogs as one of the first venues in the world to trial the toilets, produced by his company Velocity.

“There is amazing pressure on water sustainability in the UK,” said Garry. “People think it rains a lot here but it’s not enough to be self-sufficient.

“We need to make sure we are not wasting what is a precious resource. It’s clean drinking water and we flush it down the toilet and turn it into raw sewage. That’s a luxury that can’t continue.”

His toilets are the first domestic designs in the world to use a pressurised air flush. They use 1.4 litres of water to clean the bowl, rather than the nine litres used on average by a traditional toilet, a reduction of 85%.

Garry said it meant his design was eco-friendly and also more pocket friendly, paying for themselves in four years through a 25% average saving on water bills.

He said the superloo also required no behavioural change from users and would help achieve water neutrality when developments were built – meaning the impact on water availability would be the same or less than previously.

“I’m a very practical person and have an inquisitive mind,” said Garry. “I’m always questioning how things are built and why they are built that way.

“So many things we interact with every day have been invented by someone and I like to consider whether they could be designed better.”

The married father-of-two has self-funded and developed the toilet from his home workshop in Westcliff-on-Sea and at the Innovation Centre at the University Of Essex in Colchester, with a team of six experts.

“They include a ceramic sanitaryware specialist, a mechanical engineer and a microbiologist.

An artist’s impression of Velocity’s toilet

Garry and his team are now getting ready to bring the innovation to market within the next year. He said the Isle of Dogs was the perfect place to test the invention.

The area holds great meaning for the 57-year-old. His parents were born and raised in Canning Town, surviving the Blitz and working in the docks before moving to Ilford to raise their family.

It was at the University Of East London campus in Docklands where Garry developed his first air flush toilet with Propelair during the 1990s and 2000s.

It was aimed at commercial use and went on to be installed in the Barclays and Citi buildings in Canary Wharf as well as at branches of McDonald’s and Moto service stations.

He parted ways with the company on bad terms in 2018 and thought his dream of revolutionising the toilet industry was over.

But inspiration hit once again during lockdown.

“I realised working from home was here to stay and, with COP26, people were not saving water using those flushes at the office,” said Garry.

“So I formed a home working group with my original design team and set about designing Velocity for domestic use.”

The original 20-year patents that his Propelair design was based on had expired, so Garry was free to have another shot at his superloo.

“It wasn’t my choice to leave Propelair,” he said. “I spent 16 years building the company up, 10 years unpaid and to just have to walk away was really difficult.

“I had secured £1million to develop a domestic version, but it just hadn’t happened.

“Then, during lockdown I just realised we had to do it – society needed it, because 75% of the market is domestic.

“So it has been absolutely fantastic working again on a new project with the team.”

His new toilet is more compact, quieter and has a motion sensor, offering hands-free opening and flushing.

But the main star is the in-built air system, which has shades of Back To The Future inventor Doc Brown.

“I had some big lightbulb moments – the main one being something we call the flush capacitor,” said Garry.

“It came to me while lying in a hammock drinking a beer in the summer of 2020.

“With a conventional toilet, you have a water cistern and, when you flush, water flows from it into the pan and carries the waste out into the sewer. It requires a lot of water.

“With Velocity, the lid seals onto the pan and when you flush a small amount of water comes in to clean the pan and then air is sent directly in and cannot escape, so it pushes the waste into the drain.

“With this system, you are not actually relying on water to move the waste, it is only for cleaning.”

Garry will trial the toilet at Alpha Grove Community Centre on the Isle Of Dogs

Southwest Water is testing the design from a regulatory standpoint, while the project at Alpha Grove will check how effective Garry’s design is in a real-life situation.

The toilets are due to be installed at the community centre as part of its redevelopment, which is being overseen by Dennis Sharp Architects.

Garry’s team is currently capturing six months of data from the site to map out its current water and energy consumption so the company can demonstrate what the savings are with Velocity.

Garry said installation of 12 toilets was expected to take place in early summer.

“We’re really excited about the first trial at Alpha Grove because it is a residential area,” said Garry.

“They’re trying to be an exemplar of low water use. It’s going to be a great place for us to do some demonstrations and save them water and carbon.

“We’re also looking at developing additional hygiene benefits, including chemical-free disinfectants.

“We want to eliminate the use of bleach and develop technology that kills Covid and other viruses.”

The trained engineer said people often laughed when they first heard about his job, but quickly realised the gravity of what he is doing.

“The modern toilet was crucial in preventing cholera,” said Garry.

“I’m pleased to be following in the footsteps of Doctor John Snow, who influenced big changes in public health and the construction of improved sanitation facilities.

“The first flushing toilet was invented hundreds of years ago for Queen Elizabeth I and, since then, the industry hasn’t radically innovated at all.

“As we move into the 21st century, we need to look at a different way of doing it. A royal appointment would be fantastic – you have got to dream big.

“I know the world needs to save water and we are developing a product that’s going to enable it to do that.

“I would love to see our toilets go into every home in the UK and to know we are really doing some good for the environment.”

DOCKLANDS LEGACY – THE MAN BEHIND THE MAN

When Garry’s father, Stan Moore, lived in Docklands, everything was different.

The 95-year-old grew up in Canning Town during the Second World War, when the Alpha Grove was a Methodist Church and the family’s toilet was an outhouse.

“It was my job to tear up the News Of The World, to use in it,” he said.

Aged 14 he started working for the civil defence association, delivering messages and putting out fires around the Docks.

“It was terrible – the Blitz,” he said. “One day you would walk down a road in Canning Town and the next it was all gone.

“As a young kid I took it all in my stride. My poor mum was a widow and had to bring up five kids with no pension.

“We lost our house and got evacuated. Our family was really lucky to come out of it in one piece.”

In the 1960s his father-in-law helped get him work at Millwall and Royal Docks, but Stan said he was “very suspicious” about risking his house by giving up his £17-a-week job at William Warne rubber factory in Barking.

“There were thousands of dockers waiting to pick up work,” he said of his first day. “I was told by an elderly docker ‘no matter what, you don’t go on the ships.”

By hometime he had earned £17 loading flour and said: “I couldn’t get on my motorbike quick enough to tell my missus.”

The places he knew have all been flattened but Stan said he loves having the chance to go back and visit with Garry and to see where his son is working.

“He’s a wonderful bloke,” said Stan, “Good looking and everything he does is good.

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April 16, 2022April 16, 2022

Canada Water: How Canada Water Dockside fits into regeneration plans

Art-Invest’s scheme to build offices on the edge of the water will see work at town centre’s heart

An artist's impression of how the office development might look — An artist’s impression of how the office development might look

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Art-Invest is doing something a bit unusual – at least in the context of the ongoing regeneration of Docklands, east and south-east London.

The German developer recently received outline planning permission from Southwark Council for a scheme covering the former Decathlon store (now temporary events venue Dock X) on the edge of Canada Water.

But while rolling cranes onto such sites isn’t exactly out of the ordinary, the fact that it intends to build offices, is.

Art-Invest’s plans for Canada Water Dockside cover a chunk of land either side of Surrey Quays Road, including the now defunct Hawker House, adjacent to the 53 acres that developer British Land is currently engaged in regenerating.

It’s a missing piece in the redevelopment of the area – a site originally earmarked for housing – that enjoys a lengthy stretch of dock edge and connects the British Land project with buildings already completed beside the Tube station.

Art-Invest’s plans are for a series of three buildings housing about 1.5million sq ft of space alongside community facilities and places to eat and drink at ground floor level. The scheme also promises to bring up to 10,000 jobs to the area.

“Back in 2019, there was an opportunity to get involved in this particular site, and we were very aware of what was happening in the area with British Land,” said Luka Vukotic, development director at Art-Invest.

“Given that the whole area was going to change from a residential district to a proper town centre, we thought it would be quite remarkable to help with that wider vision.

“What really attracted us to it was that it was already established, with existing communities all around it.

“As we were starting to consult with people, we realised how strong they were and how much local identity there already was. In addition, we were really attracted by the green and blue spaces of this place – its parks and its docks.

“With British Land coming forward with a town centre, our scheme needed to be more than just a residential building with a boring ground floor.

“We wanted to create office space with lower levels that everyone could use – both occupiers and local communities.”

Art-Invest development director Luka Vukotic

While many had questioned whether people would return to workplaces following the pandemic, Art-Invest remains confident that its plans have a place in the evolving way businesses and organisations operate.

“A lot of existing offices will become less attractive in the coming years for a number of reasons, some technical and some social,” said Luka.

“We’re convinced we’ve got a really special location, so it’s now about how we make something really remarkable out of this opportunity.

“We want to help build this new town centre and to create the offices of the future.

“What’s really helped us in this process was talking to the local community – I personally had more than 150 meetings with community stakeholders, local businesses, local residents and local groups.

“We realised that people really like the idea of a town centre as a place to socialise – to have a drink and some food and to enjoy it.

“So then we asked people what they wanted to see and they said they would like so many things – a food hall, restaurants, local shops, a community centre, a health hub, a bike repair shop. They told us what they thought was missing.

“That allowed us to think about our buildings in a different way – instead of having a large reception area for the offices on the ground floor, we thought it would be amazing to make that space vibrant, to create streets and squares there, before looking at what’s above.”

The next round of consultations focused on what the office buildings themselves might be like.

“That’s when we started thinking about the urban green factor, with external space and terraces, and how we make this a car-free place, a zero-fossil fuel development,” said Luka.

“It’s how we’ve begun to develop the vision of what the office of the future will be.

“That’s very different from the old thinking, where developers created these super buildings where you can spend the entire day without leaving.

“We thought it would be much nicer to deconstruct the building and ask what’s needed that’s not already there – then you can create a relatively simple development that plugs into the existing grid of facilities and amenities.

“We ended up with a planning application that has been really well received by the local community.

“That wasn’t surprising to us because of all the work we’d done.

“Now we’ve got the go-ahead, the next five to seven years are going to be really exciting, where we can actually put a lot more thought into what this development is going to be like – to bring more colour to what we have already shown.”

An artist's impression of how the ground floor of Canada Water Dockside might look — An artist’s impression of how the ground floor of Canada Water Dockside might look

Art-Invest is working with BIG Architects on the scheme, which will have an eye firmly on sustainability, aiming to create a net-zero development entirely powered by electricity.

“The office of the future is not the building itself, it’s the environment you’re creating,” said Luka.

“Workplaces will be spaces where you come maybe three or four times a week, but not somewhere you’d come to sit at a desk for the whole day.

“When it comes to the buildings, we think that the look and feel of office blocks needs to change – they should be more welcoming.

“Our intention is also to have lots of terraces. A lot of people complain about the weather in the UK, but I think for most of the year you can actually work outside, depending how cold it is

“We use the terrace quite extensively at our office for about eight or nine months of the year.

“Fresh air is very important to us – Canada Water has some of the cleanest air in London and we want to create buildings with opening windows, not sealed boxes that don’t feel very human.

“In the future, offices will also be places where you might come to meet other people and to do other things in addition to work that you wouldn’t necessarily do at home.

“That’s why we think Canada Water has a lot to offer – you can do all sorts of activities within a 500m radius.

“For example, Decathlon are our next-door neighbours and with everything the area has to offer there’s an opportunity to encourage healthy lifestyles.

“When we engaged with Decathlon, we realised its vision aligns with what we’re trying to achieve in terms of healthy living, active transport, and so on.

“That’s why we have a partnership with them and have set aside a £200,000 fund to encourage health and wellbeing in Canada Water over the next five years.

“This is a grass-roots project, supporting what’s already here.

“We are strong believers that we don’t need to create a place here – there’s already a place here – we just need to see if there’s something missing or if we can help with something that’s already in existence.

“I’d really like to thank everyone who’s been involved in the processes over the last couple of years – all those who have worked with our teams, but also all the stakeholders, the community and Southwark Council who will be engaging with us to make this a success.

“We feel that Canada Water is going to be the start of an amazing journey in the years to come.”

Art-Invest hopes to start construction in 2023 with its buildings coming in phases. Residents can expect some spaces to open by 2025 or 2026.

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April 16, 2022April 16, 2022

Canary Wharf: How cryptocurrency exchange CoinJar gives investors choices

Co-founder Asher Tan talks cycles, assets and why dipping a toe into crypto is something to experience

Physical currency is increasingly redundant

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This image is a great big pile of old tech (albeit American in this instance).

While coin has been around for thousands of years, there’s a growing sense that physical money has had its day.

Go to an ATM – machines once used on an almost daily basis. Try and remember your PIN and extract some cash.

See how odd the plastic notes feel, how strange the idea that they might be taken to a shop and broken down into small metal discs representing value.

Currency was digital before the pandemic but now physical euros, dollars and pounds seem increasingly otherworldly.

That’s one reason, perhaps, why cryptocurrencies seem less and less exotic.

If wealth is simply represented by numbers on a screen, maybe changing the logo next to them with the hope of making money on the trade is a little less scary than say, walking up to a currency exchange counter and converting a familiar set of notes into something completely alien.

Maybe it’s why about a fifth of British people have owned cryptocurrency as of March this year – up 103% on 2018.

Statistics like these will doubtless be welcome reading for Asher Tan, co-founder of CoinJar, which operates from bases in Australia, and Level39 in Canary Wharf.

He created the company with business partner Ryan Zhou in 2013 after the pair took part in an incubator scheme in Melbourne as interest around Bitcoin, which emerged in 2009 grew.

“CoinJar is a simple way to buy, hold and sell crypto assets,” said Asher.

“We also have tools, such as a debit Mastercard, so that people can go to any ATM and convert their crypto to any currency they want or spend it where the card is accepted.

“That part of the business has been a long time coming – we’d had previous versions, but we were a small company and nobody wanted to work with us until now when we’ve partnered with Mastercard.

“Most people use CoinJar for some form of asset investment, to just buy and hold crypto.

“The popularity of doing that comes in waves every two or three years.

“You have a huge upswing as crypto rises in value, then cryptomania resumes, but that’s just the nature of the cycles. It’s been easing off in the last three months.”

CoinJar co-founder Asher Tan at Level39 in Canary Wharf

Such fluctuations are not unusual and Asher exudes the air of a business owner content to play the long game.

Bitcoin, the most well-known and first cryptocurrency is famed for its rapid fluctuations in value, having gone from a few pence in value in 2009 to more than £30,000 per coin in 2022.

It’s still about 50% of the total crypto market but has since been joined by a bewildering array of digital coins – Injective, The Sandbox, Synthetix and Bancor, for example – many of which can be bought on CoinJar for a few pounds.

Ethereum, perhaps the second most well-known, can be bought for about £2,300 at the time of writing.

Doubtless people will continue to buy and sell the stuff in the hope of a big pay day.

But there’s another way to make money from crypto and that was the niche Asher and Ryan spotted.

“Being a startup in 2013 was a good vintage – we travelled quite a bit, saw other companies being built and, in the UK, saw the fintech bubble beginning,” said Asher.

“The message was already being pushed out that London was the fintech capital of the world and Level39 – Canary Wharf’s tech accelerator – was created about that time too.

“That was a bold move by Canary Wharf Group, to combine the existing financial infrastructure with fintech and it’s one that has really paid off.

“Being part of that early group, crypto was a movement – we were all trying to figure out this piece of technology.

“Everyone was trying to push for something but not everyone knew what that was yet.

“Everyone was trying to build services – some people created crypto point of sale businesses, others wallets to keep crypto in and some exchanges so people could buy it.

“Would you use it to pay for coffee? There was even a Bitcoin ATM in Old Street. Back then it was underground, people looking for consumer services.

“Now, in 2022, after the pandemic, crypto is almost accepted as an asset class, not just Bitcoin.

“There’s some debate about how you use it, but no-one argues that this isn’t the status quo.

“The premise has shifted and the imagination continues to grow.

“It might seem crazy to some people, but it’s the job of entrepreneurs to make these things happen. We’re trying to create an alternative financial system for the whole world.”

Bitcoin remains about 50% of the total cryptocurrency market

While the currencies it trades in are very different, CoinJar operates in a similar way to a conventional exchange, charging a fee to change money from one currency to another.

It also levies a 1% fee on in-store and online purchases and cash withdrawals for those using its debit card, available in either physical or digital form.

Having operated consistently in Australia, CoinJar has maintained a presence in Canary Wharf, deciding in 2018 to expand its business in earnest overseas.

“It’s been nine years since we started the company,” said Asher.

“In that time there have been so many peaks and troughs about Bitcoin – it’s died a thousand times. In the early years, you were wondering if this was a fatal step or whether cryptocurrency even needed to exist.

“At some points the overriding opinion was that crypto was just going to evaporate. So you do need belief and it takes time.

“Like with most good things, you have to wait. When we first came to Level39 we never fully launched and there were questions about whether we should just focus on Australia, but we always kept the membership even when we weren’t operating in the UK.

“So, in 2020 we had a proper launch and now we have six people based at One Canada Square. I think the UK market has always been slightly under-served in terms of crypto services.

“But there are some things it has in common with Australia, such as strong regulation.

“It’s always been a market we wanted to enter because the two countries have a unique friendship. It’s a good place to come for Australian startups.

“In terms of the future for CoinJar, the product is always changing.

“We started this business to provide consumers with an alternative way to use finance, so that means we’ve also got to keep up and change as the industry develops.

“As a business, we’re first generation crypto – we now have staff who are much younger and their views are very different – everything’s going to change, right?

“Now it’s Non-Fungible Tokens and these seemed very strange to me when I heard about them in 2017, but nine years ago crypto was very strange to everyone. It’s important to keep challenging yourself about the reality of the online world.”

The question all those teetering on the brink of their first investment want answered, is whether it’s worth it?

“Different people have different strategies,” said Asher. “Personally, I’m not a trader day-to-day – I don’t really see crypto as get rich quick.

“With fintech there’s no cap to what it could be, so it captures the imagination and then the sky’s the limit.

“In the early days there were a lot of predictions around crypto – everyone would be using it, the banks would all take it. But, come on, seriously? It might happen.

“The premise of crypto has always been about choice. You can opt for something different – you don’t have to choose one of the big banks – you can use alternative platforms in terms of investment. Right now, that means there are more options.

“Crypto has always been something for people who want to try different things. Right now, I do believe the promise has benefit for everyone in terms of buying and holding cryptocurrency – an experience most people should try.

“You can get into it for £10, so it’s not a huge financial commitment to try to understand what this movement is about.

“Use it, try to make sense of the technological mystery behind it, and I think that’s the first step to a better understanding of why it even exists.”

Cryptocurrency remains a very volatile investment. What you do with your money is your own affair and this article should in no way be seen as recommending the purchase of cryptocurrency.

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April 16, 2022April 16, 2022

Wapping: How Pop Skewer is serving up a taste of Brazil underneath the railway

Marina Simoes and Marcio Yokota opened their kiosk after both losing their jobs during lockdown

Marcio Yokota and Marina Simoes of Pop Skewer – image Matt Grayson

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BY LAURA ENFIELD

Underneath the grey stretch of railway tracks in Wapping lies a surprise. Well, more than one, actually.

Venture off the beaten path of Cable Street and you will find Brazil’s most popular street food on offer at Pop Skewer.

Succulent beef on sticks, halal chicken and sausage are freshly barbecued and served up on the side of the road, just like in South America.

The compact kiosk was opened by Brazilian couple Marina Simoes, 46, and Marcio Yokota, 53, after they both lost their jobs during the first lockdown.

They had never worked together, but decided to use their skills and take a chance on their new venture.

Marina said: “We were both doing something completely different before.

“I was working in property sales and then started temping because I knew I wanted to do something else but never thought of opening my own business.

“My husband was working in a coffee shop as manager but because of lockdown we were both at home unemployed, so we said: ‘Why not work together?’.

“He’s a very good cook, so we thought we’d do something that uses his skills and gives people a taste of Brazil.”

They decided to serve the skewers with another popular dish from their home country – rice and beans.

“In Brazil, they wouldn’t normally be served together,” said Marina. “But we decided to combine them.

“The skewers are everywhere in Brazil. You grab them and eat them on the street really informally on the stick.

“They’re a really profitable business there and, hopefully, we will get the same success here.”

Pop Burger and Pop Sandwich from the kiosk – image Matt Grayson

They also serve up a Pop Sandwich and Pop Burger and daily specials like beef stew with cassava, beef stroganoff, beef parmigiana and, once a month, slow-cooked beef ribs.

“Every Saturday we serve the feijoada, which is black bean and pork stew,” said Marina.

“It’s made with different types of pork meat served with rice, tomato salad, spring greens and the farofa, toasted cassava flour with bacon and something else.

“Forgive me, I forget as I’ve been a vegetarian for 20 years.”

A vegetarian running a meat-based business? How does that work?

“To be honest, I don’t like the smell of the BBQ, but I respect everyone whether they are vegetarian or not,” she said.

Marina admits she mostly stays away from the kitchen and sticks to handling other parts of the business.

The couple buy all their food fresh every few days and have items like the black beans delivered from a Brazilian supplier.

“I don’t cook anything, I’m terrible with that,” she said. “Of course, I help put the meals together. But cooking? No.”

Thanks to her, Pop Skewer also serves up plenty of vegetarian options, including a halloumi, onion and courgette skewer, a halloumi burger with courgette and lettuce, tomato and homemade sauce and a vegetarian sandwich in ciabatta bread.

Marina said: “Cooking with a charcoal grill makes such a difference to the taste.

“We have never just aimed to target Brazilians and, so far, everyone is enjoying eating it, which we find amazing.”

A range of dishes are available from the kiosk – image Matt Grayson

It’s not the first time the Bromley residents have taken a leap into the unknown.

Marina, who is of Italian heritage and grew up in Minas Gerais, left Brazil in her 20s on a one-way ticket to London.

She said: “My first job was working in silver service in hotels. I was terrible. Then I started in retail sales and then management and then property sales.”

Marcio, who is of Japanese heritage and grew up in Sao Paulo, arrived in England 15 years ago. He left behind a clothes business and found work in restaurants and coffee shops.

Having grown up 370 miles apart, it took them both travelling 5,900 miles across the Atlantic for their love story to begin on the streets of London.

“We met through a mutual friend and have been together ever since,” said Marina.

Their relationship is being put to the test with the challenges presented by their joint venture.

They built the business in just eight weeks, launching just after the first lockdown, and have faced struggles with supplies during the pandemic, getting word out to customers on a shoestring, and working together in very close quarters.

“Sometimes I want to strangle my husband,” said Marina

“But we have separate areas with me in the front taking orders and the other two guys in the cooking area. Sometimes we do bump into each other and bicker.

“It’s been very challenging having our own business under these conditions for the past year, but I’m really enjoying it.”

Pop skewers are very popular in Brazil – image Matt Grayson

They have also taken on fellow Brazilian Lucas Montagnini and trained him up to work on the grill.

“It was very hard to find someone because of the pandemic,” said Marina.

“He was a friend of a friend who was an engineer in Brazil, but he’d had enough and decided to leave and do something else.

“That’s what we all do when we come to England – something completely different. It’s great and challenging, leaving our comfort zone.”

The Pop Skewer site was empty before they took it over and they rely on Instagram, Google and word of mouth to gain customers.

But business can be unpredictable, with the lunch crowd sometimes arriving at 11am and sometimes not until 1.30pm, which makes it hard to plan.

“It can be really unpredictable,” said Marina.“We are not just building up Pop Skewer but also the location.

“The residents kept us going during the pandemic, but now the office workers are coming back. Hopefully, when the weather gets warmer, there will be lots of BBQ for everyone.

“We really want Pop Skewer to grow and get more customers.

“The past year has been about working hard and not getting much money, so we really want to move to the next level now and become known by everyone for Brazilian food.”

Pop Skewer is located by the side of Cable Street – image Matt Grayson

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April 13, 2022April 13, 2022

Greenwich: How The O2 is fixing its roof having reopened its doors to visitors

Peninsula venue was mostly up and running a week after Storm Eunice, with part of Icon now trading

Storm Eunice ripped off part of The O2's roof — Storm Eunice ripped off part of The O2’s roof – image Matt Grayson

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The holes ripped in the roof of The O2 by viscous winds instantly became the defining image of Storm Eunice as it tore across England on February 18, 2022.

In total eight out of the 72 segments that make up the dome were damaged, leaving a gaping hole in the eighth largest building in the world.

Thankfully nobody was injured at the venue and while 6,000sq m of roof was missing it took staff a week to reopen the majority of the venue so concerts could resume and the attractions of Entertainment Avenue could start trading again.

A month after the storm, a section of outlet shopping centre Icon At The O2 also reopened, recently welcoming a new store from menswear brand Skopes.

While the bulk of the retail destination remains closed as it is located directly under the hole, work to temporarily weatherproof the gap continues apace.

Full access is expected for shoppers in early May, once the venue is watertight and any damage to the units below has been repaired.

With trading already strong in the reopened section, that’s something Icon’s managing director Janine Constantin-Russell can’t wait for.

Icon At The O2 managing director Janine Constantin-Russell

“I think we felt particularly tested because we’d opened our doors again and we were seeing such strength in our numbers after restrictions eased,” she said.

“To have to stop again felt particularly trying. But there’s definitely been a sense of cameraderie about it.

“Our teams have been fantastic – to open up the entertainment district and the arena a week to the day after the storm happened was an amazing feat – and then to open 22 stores at Icon in March was even more incredible.

“The press that we’ve had from Storm Eunice has been kind and sympathetic and we’ve had such lovely support from our local customers who have come to have a look and have supported us by spending their money here.

“In some ways it’s been an opportunity to open our door a little bit wider, to say: ‘We’re here, we’re made of sturdy stuff but these things happen’. We’ve been able to show the best we can do.”

Icon At The O2 has partially reopened with full access expected in May – image Matt Grayson

In addition to Skopes, more openings are in the pipeline with brands selling high performance sportswear and homeware expected to launch when the remaining section of the venue is back in business.

“We would say that mass media attention on The O2 is such that we have never been so busy from a lettings perspective,” said Janine.

“We’ve been showing potential tenants around literally in hard hats as the units we’ve got available are under the part of the Icon affected by the repair work.

“Without exception, all of our businesses have seen improvement since the changes in Covid restrictions.

“On average sales are up 50%-60% on 2019 and we’ve seen those numbers come through straight away.

“But what we’re seeing is not necessarily a pent-up demand, it’s like a return to what people missed out on.

“It was fantastic to have online shopping during the pandemic and everyone’s now found a place for how they manage that – how it makes their life more convenient.

“It also means people have a bit more time to spend picking up luxuries and making decisions in store – so what we’ve ended up with is this really discerning customer who’s enjoying shopping and spending their time and money doing that.

“What we’ve seen is that the brands are curating their stores better to make sure they’re giving those people what they want.”

Activities are also a key draw with the likes of football venue Toca Social, Boom Battle Bar, Oxygen Freejumping soon to be joined by indoor skydiving venue iFly, which recently won planning permission to build a facility to the north of the dome.

“In other locations iFly attracts 150,000 visitors a year, so we’re super happy about that,” said Janine.

“As for the future, we always want to think big. For example, the venue’s roof climbing experience – Up At The O2 – is such an exciting thing, anything we do has to equal or top that.

“It has to have that wow factor and we’re pursuing lots of lines of enquiry to make sure whatever we do will be amazing.

“We quite like the idea of zip lines – we’ve seen some on the inside of venues and that would be super-cool.”

Executive vice president real estate and development at AEG Europe, Alistair Wood

FABRIC FIX – REPAIRING THE ROOF

As executive vice president real estate and development at AEG Europe (the company that owns The O2), Alistair Wood is responsible for overseeing the project to repair the damage wrought by Storm Eunice.

“There was nothing at all we could do on the February 18 so we reconvened the following day and the extent of the damage was quite frightening,” he said.

“It was a disaster rescue situation and we had to respond very quickly, which we did, making some very good, rapid decisions.

“We had to postpone two concerts in the week after the storm but we focused on making sure the UB40 show in the arena took place on February 25 because, having just come out of the pandemic, we couldn’t tolerate any further delays.

“In the end the two postponed concerts by Dave took place a week after they were supposed to happen, so phase one was a great success.

“Now we’ve been focusing on getting the venue waterproof and we want to be finished with that by Easter.

“Initially we’ll be installing a temporary roof that will be in place for the next year or two.

“That’s because the material – PTFE – is quite specialised and in quite high demand so there’s about a 12-month lead time on orders.

“Generally we’re pleased with how quickly we’ve been able to get going again but we’re not understating how harrowing that Saturday morning was.

“The buildings at Icon aren’t designed to stand outside so our biggest challenge has been water coming into the venue.

“It has rained very heavily for a couple of days and, while we have scaffolding up that supports a canopy across the buildings to achieve a degree of protection, some still gets in.

“We’re now working with all our tenants to identify the damage and refit the units where necessary and then get us fully reopened in early May.

“Fortunately there was no damage to the structure that holds up the dome, so for the canopy it’s just a case of hooking the material to that and welding a waterproof seal over the top.

“In the wider venue, it’s great to be coming out of the pandemic and we should be pumping out a record couple of years in the arena and that will support the hospitality and retail venues.

“We’re really upbeat about how things are going and our fingers are crossed for a clear run now to allow Icon to get some momentum alongside the rest of the site.

“All the current attractions are bringing their own footfall but also sharing that audience and that has always been the point of The O2.

“It operates as a composite destination so you can spend your whole day there.”

Looking ahead, hopefully that’s the last of the holes.

Workers repairing the damage over Icon At The O2 – image Matt Grayson

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April 13, 2022April 13, 2022

Canary Wharf: How Humble Grape is raising its food to the level of its wine offering

The Canary Wharf wine bar and bottle shop in Mackenzie Walk has a fresh focus on its dishes

Humble Grape executive chef Dane Barnard

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There’s a subtle shift taking place at Humble Grape.

The bottle shop and wine bar, which has its Canary Wharf branch at Mackenzie Walk overlooking Newfoundland and Middle Dock, will always be focused on supplying bottles and glasses you just can’t get anywhere else.

But the venue is also increasingly focused on the variety and flavours of the food it serves to its customers.

The man whose blue eyes are tasked with overseeing that operation across the company’s five locations is executive chef Dane Barnard.

“I started off as the head chef at the Battersea branch and, back then, there was no executive chef or a real food identity across the business,” he said.

“Each branch was doing its own thing. To an extent we still do, because you should be able to taste each head chef’s personality on the plate but as we’re becoming more and more about food – it’s about coming up with that identity.

“Now we know what we are and where we’re going – to really drive that side of Humble Grape.

“We’re not food-led, but it’s about half our business now, which is where we want to be.

“Humble Grape is a place you can come with friends or colleagues to enjoy wine along with something to eat.

Humble Grape is located in Mackenzie Walk in Canary Wharf

“Our founder and CEO, James Dawson has done such an amazing job finding all these niche wine suppliers that you can’t find anywhere else in the UK.

“My vision is to bring the food in line with that – to use as much free-range, organic and sustainable produce as we can and to really try to mirror what we’re doing with the wine.

“That starts with our suppliers – it takes a long time to find the right ones and to build that relationship.

“For example, we use Donald Russell, which is a big one but they source produce from individual farms. We go to them with a detailed spec and they come back if they can help us.

“We certainly don’t know everything, so if they give us an ingredient then we can always try to do something with it.

“Even though I’m executive chef, I’m learning from my head chefs every single day – we have people from Spain and France and we’re constantly teaching each other. There’s a lot of passion and knowledge.

“We meet up for menu development and swap ideas – that’s what we’re looking for here and we’re always looking for talented chefs.”

Octopus carpaccio at Humble Grape (£14.50)

That process has led to a menu of small plates at the Canary Wharf branch, including baked Camembert with sourdough bread, octopus carpaccio with compressed cucumber, stem broccoli with a lemon dressing and crab on a flatbread with chilli.

“My style of cooking is more about flavour than delicate presentation,” said Dane.

“A lot of my training was with a chef from America and we used the whole animal – that’s something we are teaching our teams at Humble Grape.

“For example, if we get a whole pig we take it apart, cure the legs use the cheeks and render the fat down to use when cooking.

“Every part of it has something to offer, you can even use the skin. You can see it on the menu where we’re using lamb neck for a small plate, served with freekeh.

“That’s more of a common cut but it has loads of flavour and you’re starting to see the upper echelons of the restaurant world jumping on that bandwagon.”

Stem broccoli with lemon dressing at Humble Grape (£8)

Dane, who joined Humble Grape in 2018 following stints at The Lockhart and Shotgun BBQ, is also keen to showcase vegetables.

“Spring is amazing,” he said. “If you can’t cook in this season, you can’t cook – there’s such a range of flavours and we try to use English seasonal ingredients.

“Vegan food had already come along big time before the pandemic hit – back then it was about 10% of diners and now we’re looking at perhaps 30%.

“We don’t go down the route of using products that look like meat – we’d rather use vegetables that look and taste like vegetables and try to enhance those flavours.”

With around 400 wines available at Humble Grape, the majority exclusively available through the business, the emphasis is on accessibility rather than prescriptive pairing.

“We regularly taste the wines,” said Dane.

“It’s a hard job, but somebody has to do it and it really helps when we’re developing new dishes.

“Our staff will be on hand to help with suggestions, of course, but we don’t tell people what wine to have with a particular dish – this is a place where people choose.”

Lamb neck with freekeh at Humble Grape (£13.50)

The venue, which offers bar snacks, sharing boards, sweets and a range of meats and cheeses, also serves more substantial dishes such as herb-crusted chalk stream trout with Jersey royals, steaks and a spring pea and asparagus pasta.

“The Sunday roasts are probably the best place to start here,” said Dane.

“We serve lamb, chicken, pork, beef and nut roast – all sustainable and organic – as something traditional but more in a sharing style with Yorkshire pudding, grilled cauliflower cheese, roast root veg and gravy for £18.

“We used to do a bottomless brunch, but everybody does that, so now we do a bottomless lunch on Saturdays.

“I didn’t become a chef to cook eggs for people, so we thought it would be better to showcase our small plates

“You get three plus unlimited Prosecco, red wine, white wine or beer for 90 minutes for £35 between noon and 4pm.

“Our intention is, when the summer comes, that we will expand the food offering a bit more.

“We’ve got a massive grill in the kitchen, so when it’s sunny and people are on the terrace, we’ll be looking to maximise the use of that and really make it a place to come and sit outside.”

Herb-crusted chalk stream trout with Jersey royals (£20)

To go with the food, Humble Grape boasts plenty of regular wine offers including Retail Monday (our favourite), where bottles can be drunk at takeaway prices, Tasting Tuesday – a mini flight of four wines for £15 per person, and Icon Thursday And Friday, where more expensive bottles are sold by the glass.

Booking is not required to participate in any of these events – just drop in and place an order.

The Canary Wharf branch of Humble Grape is also launching an Express Lunch menu from Wednesday–Friday with a main course for £14, two courses for £19 or three for £22.

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April 6, 2022April 6, 2022

Deptford: How Kath’s Place in Friendly Street is much more than a charity shop

Discover the work of the Kath Duncan Equality And Civil Rights Network in Lewisham and beyond

From left, volunteers Chloe Allen and Stewart Lendor with co-founders Barbara Raymond and Ray Barron-Woolford

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It may look like just another charity shop but Kath’s Place in Deptford is bigger on the inside.

Step through the Tardis-like entrance and you will find a growing mechanism for social change.

Opened in October 2020 during the pandemic, the shop in Friendly Street houses the We Care food bank, a food pantry, a book swap library, a baby bank and a vintage clothes shop as well as serving tea and coffee and hot meals to take away for those in need.

Money from the sale of second-hand goods is used to feed the 3,000 people who use its services and the hub provides support for anyone who needs it, including the homeless, single parents, refugees and low-income families.

Word of its work has spread as far as Japan and Chile and inspired others to open similar operations.

Co-founder Ray Barron-Woolford believes its method of support will spread worldwide, as food demand and energy costs increase.

“What we do isn’t about creating dependency, it is about supporting people,” he said.

“We do debt counselling, help if their fridge breaks down, if they need school uniforms. If they are homeless and have been given a flat, we get volunteers to help decorate.”

Kath’s Place charity shop on Friendly Street

All the projects are run by a team of 200 volunteers, headed up by Ray, as co-founder of We Care Community Hub and CEO of the Kath Duncan Equality And Civil Rights Network.

He draws no salary and puts all profit back into the organisation.

“My work isn’t about me, it’s about the people we help,” said the Deptford resident.

“It’s about empowering people to help themselves when councils and governments fail.

“It is about generating income through our work that self-funds all our different projects, so we don’t have to spend all our time fundraising and so people don’t feel they are getting something for nothing or accepting charity.”

We Care Community Hub achieved charity status last year, but doesn’t receive any funding and has to buy almost everything it distributes.

It receives about five tonnes of food a year through the Fair Share scheme from supermarkets, but Ray said that was only 10% of what it needed.

He visits up to 15 different supermarkets daily to buy the rest at the cheapest prices.

A mural of Barbara Raymond and Kath Duncan unveiled for International Women’s Day

“When you are buying in volume, saving a few pence on each item, it adds up to a whole other item you can buy for someone,” he said.

The We Care food bank is by referral only, as it already helps people from eight boroughs and cannot cope with more.

The We Care food pantry has 1,374 member households, including 784 children and 78 pets.

Members pay £1 a year and then £5 every time they access it and can have packages tailored to their requirements, such as vegan or Halal.

“It’s tragic we have to exist,” said Ray. ”We are all uncomfortable with it. But if we didn’t exist people would be dead.”

Ray understands because he has lived it. “I was a gay, homeless man who went through the care system and got lucky in property and that made me rich,” he said.

“But I have never forgotten all those people who helped me out from when I was poor and living on the streets of London. So I’m paying back for all those people who had faith in me.”

Ray lived on the streets of London for 18 months before making his fortune running estate agency Housemartins in Surrey Quays, specialising in housing gay men. But he walked away after one eye-opening exchange in 2014.

“I was coming out of my office and saw two men in suits going through the bins on the council estate opposite,” he said. “I asked why and they said: ‘We have jobs so we can’t get any benefit, but it’s five weeks until we get paid and we can’t get a loan’.

“I thought it was madness so that’s when I linked up with Barbara Raymond and decided we had to do something about it.

“We set up We Care at that moment and that led me to selling my company and becoming totally committed to tackling poverty as a full-time activist.”

Barbara, 86, had arrived in London as part of the Windrush generation and, in 1976, opened what Ray described as the “first food bank” from her home in New Cross, which still runs today.

She and Ray became instant friends and today she chairs We Care Community Hub.

The initial food bank ran from 2014-16 at a base in Deptford until the rent went from £7,500 to £32,500 and it had to shut.

This disused phone box on Deptford High Street in now the world’s first 24/7 community hub with info for those fleeing domestic violence, who are lonely or have mental health issues, are homeless and want help or ar in need of emergency food or legal aid

“We couldn’t get charity status at the time because you needed cash to have a charity registration,” said Ray.

“So we went underground and were running the business from people’s homes in the holidays and at Christmas.

“Then Covid hit and everyone was panicking. MPs vanished, the council went into lockdown and we had elderly people in their homes that couldn’t leave and people couldn’t get to them to feed them.

“We set up the buddy system that we learned through Aids in the 1970s, and that allowed us to feed 5,000 people.

“Then someone who we had helped died and left us the £5,000 we needed to get the charity registration.

“It was sad we lost that person, but they ensured our work could continue.”

Kath’s Place opened in October 2020 after a coffee shop went bust and Ray put up the money to rent the space.

He named it after former Deptford resident Kath Duncan who he discovered he had a startling affinity with.

“She is the most important civil rights activist of the past 100 years, lived in Deptford and was gay like me,” said Ray.

“We wanted to carry on her work. It’s important to us everyone knows about her.”

A mural was unveiled on the side of the charity shop for International Women’s Day depicting Kath and Barbara, who Ray said were “extraordinary women”.

“The mural is about instilling pride in our community and hopefully inspiring other women and showing that all of them deserve recognition,” he added.

It has not been touched by graffiti and neither has the shop or a disused telephone box that volunteers recently transformed into a 24/7 community hub.

Situated under the rainbow bridge in Deptford High Street, it is for anyone who needs it and contains information on local support, a book swap library and access to a scheme providing free tea and coffee.

“When you are in crisis you don’t know where to start,” said Ray. “Most people go online and what they find is national or closed.

“Having a space which is only local organisations, with their opening times, where they’re based and how you access them, is quite unique.

“When we opened the phone box everyone said it would be trashed. We knew it wouldn’t be.

“We are already the only place in Lewisham with black shutters because all the others have been covered in graffiti.

The charity shop is the base for all the work carried out by the We Care Community Hub

“Ours isn’t, because our work is so cutting edge and inclusive that everyone knows someone who uses our projects and wouldn’t do anything to undermine our work.”

It’s not an idle boast. Ray’s mission to change our society has travelled not just through the borough but across the world.

A Kath’s Place hub has opened in Marbella with plans for more in Toronto, New York, Los Angeles, Venezuela and Chile and he has been interviewed by Japanese television about the phone box.

“Instead of a McDonalds on every high street, there should be a Kath’s Place,” said Ray. “We are in talks to open in Redhill, Brighton, Liverpool and Kirkcaldy.

“Demand for this support is only going to increase because, even if you are working and have a good income, energy prices are going through the roof.

“Climate change will undermine the food supply, so access to food and water is going to be a huge issue.

“The need for projects like ours to come up with sustainable models that aren’t dependent on handouts is the way forward.

“I think the Kath Duncan Network will be as famous in 10 years as Oxfam because what we do is unique and we haven’t forgotten what we are about.

“Our charity shop is cheap, which is how they are meant to be.”

We Care Community Hub chair Barbara Raymond

Ray has written about the work he does in the books Food Bank Britain and Last Queen Of Scotland, a biography of Kath Duncan and play Liberty, which has been optioned by Netflix.

He also found volunteers to make short film, Feeding Lewisham, during lockdown, which he said won 15 international awards and helped inspire people across the globe to copy the charity’s work.

But Ray said there would always be opposition. “A woman came in recently and said: ‘I’ve just paid £1.2million for a house nearby and don’t expect to have a foodbank as a my neighbour. When can you move?’.

“I told her I had been here long before her and we’re not going anywhere. We still get that kind of bigotry and ignorance.

“You have to be realistic and accept that there are people who are horrible.

“But there are also extraordinary people who do extraordinary things – Lewisham is a really empowering place to come from.”

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April 5, 2022April 6, 2022

Royal Docks: How London City Airport is getting busier as air travel recovers

Head of aviation Anne Doyere talks new routes, business flights and the removal of restrictions

London City Airport has seen passenger numbers growing

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The green shoots of recovery continue to emerge at London City Airport as airlines launch new routes and resume old ones.

Confidence is everything in business and, with travel restrictions removed, activity is on the rise.

Figures indicate that the Royal Docks transport hub is set to have its busiest month since the start of the pandemic with passenger numbers up 40% on February alone.

BA CityFlyer recently added two new destinations – Milan Malpensa and Luxembourg – to its schedule and resumed connections to Rotterdam and Nice.

This means the carrier is now flying 20 of the 25 routes it was operating in 2019.

London City has also recently welcomed the arrival of a new airline on its tarmac with ITA launching a route to and from Milan Linate.

The airport’s head of aviation, Anne Doyere said: “We’re not surprised to see this growth, but you never know exactly how things will pan out because business travel is very unpredictable.

“The forward bookings are looking extremely strong for the summer across all of our leisure routes, but because businesses often have a short booking window it’s less easy to tell.

“There has been a return to it – when you want to close a deal, it looks like people are making those trips.

“While there are different behaviours in different sectors, one that has returned to air travel is banking, where organisations have lifted the requirement for senior management approval to take flights.

“One surprise was that the Swiss market has boomed with our route to Zurich, perhaps because of Switzerland’s open policies on travel.

“It’s absolutely wonderful that travel restrictions have now been lifted and we’ve seen that in the levels of traffic and what is happening.

“In the leisure market there are a lot of people who haven’t travelled outside the UK for the last two years.

“While we don’t expect it to be better than 2019, which was a really strong year, the level of load factors is going to be similar and that’s bringing a lot of confidence.

“It helps that you can now book on airline websites without fear of the sorts of cancellations we’ve seen over the last 24 months.

“What we’re doing is working with the carriers to provide flexibility, so that when there is demand they can react – we’re here to help them.

“During the pandemic we’ve done a lot of work when it comes to the infrastructure of the airport and the runways and we will be working with concessions to refresh the existing terminal.”

London City Airport head of aviation Anne Doyere

While plans to expand the airport remain paused for now, with aviation having taken an enormous hit over the past two years, City remains committed to that project when the sector recovers in the coming years.

“We’re now in a situation where, particularly business travel is a bit different to the way it was before,” said Anne. “Companies are clear that they need to travel when it makes sense.

“Wellbeing is a word we hear a lot in relation to both business and leisure travel and at London City, that’s what we do.

“We have always made travel easy and quick for passengers flying from our terminal.

“You can’t compare the convenience of flying from here with any other airport in the UK in terms of the fast track that we’re able to offer.

“We’re not about keeping people at the terminal for hours and hours. We were the fastest in terms of getting passengers from check-in onto their planes and, right now, because fewer people are flying, we are even faster.”

London City Airport is set to offer flights to 36 destinations this summer across the UK and Europe, covering nearly 80% of the routes available from the Royal Docks hub in 2019.

Having just recorded its fourth consecutive busiest week since the start of the pandemic, it’s already seeing strong growth to cities such as Edinburgh, Zurich, Amsterdam and Dublin.

The roof of Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II in Milan

DESTINATION FOCUS: Milan via London City Airport

There are now two ways to get to Milan from London City Airport. The first is via BA CityFlyer’s route to Milan Malpensa.

Located north west of the city itself just outside Busto Arsizio, this is a more far-flung option but has the added benefit of being closer to Lake Maggiore and Lake Como for those seeking a restful break in Lombardy.

The flight take approximately one hour and 55 minutes with prices somewhere in the region of £200 for a round trip.

This is the choice for the more relaxed traveller who doesn’t need to rush to a meeting.

There are now two ways to get to Milan from London City Airport

Alternatively, ITA’s first route from London City Airport takes travellers direct to Milan Linate, located on the eastern edge of the city proper.

Taking an hour and 50 minutes, it’s a little pricier at about £215 for a return, but it will get you there quicker.

Whether it’s for an essential business rendezvous, a visit to the Duomo Di Milano or a stroll around the glass-covered arcades of the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II, this is arguably the smart bet for travellers who like a full itinerary and want the time to make absolutely everything happen.

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