Fitzrovia News

Taxis, media lies, and Tottenham Court Road

10:32 pm, Monday, 28 January 2019

For the sixth weekday evening in a row London Taxi drivers have blocked Tottenham Court Road between 4pm and 7pm, and brought the surrounding streets to a standstill. Many people have struggled to get home by public transport and many more are wondering what’s going [...]

Cars, taxis and lorries are not being banned from Tottenham Court Road

8:26 pm, Monday, 7 January 2019

Last week’s news in the Evening Standard about cars, taxis and lorries being banned from Tottenham Court Road in three months’ time (sic) brought jeers from drivers and cheers from active transport campaigners. But the Standard’s story was so full of [...]

Westminster council seeks local views on ‘Oxford Street District’ plans

8:48 am, Thursday, 6 December 2018

Map of Oxford Street and surrounding area.

An exhibition of plans to re-shape the ‘Oxford Street District’ will be held this weekend at the building formerly known as the Fitzrovia Community Centre. Westminster council is asking local residents and people who work or visit the area what they think of [...]

Tottenham Court Road strip club benefits OAPs in northwest England

10:35 pm, Tuesday, 4 December 2018

A lap dancing club in Tottenham Court Road is helping out pensioners in northwest England, according to a licence application submitted to Camden Council in October. The application to renew a sexual entertainment licence for Spearmint Rhino Gentlemen’s Club states [...]

Wreath-laying and rededication at restored Rangers Memorial for Armistice Centenary

2:36 pm, Tuesday, 6 November 2018

The recently restored London Rangers Cenotaph in Chenies Street will be rededicated at a wreath-laying ceremony at this year’s Remembrance Sunday, the one hundredth anniversary of the Armistice. The memorial has been restored as part of Camden’s West End Project [...]

Police talk on how to avoid becoming a victim of fraud and cybercrime

9:08 am, Friday, 5 October 2018

Experts from the police’s fraud and online crime unit will give a talk this Saturday on how to avoid becoming a victim of the various scams that target unsuspecting shoppers. Officers from FALCON (Fraud & Linked Crime Online, Organised Crime Command) will give a [...]

All day comedy in aid of a worthy cause at Fitzrovia pub

8:43 am, Friday, 5 October 2018

A Fitzrovia pub is hosting an all day comedy marathon in aid of cancer research for the second year running this Saturday. The second Macmillan Comedy Marathon takes place at the King & Queen in Foley Street under the banner of the Coffee and Cocktail Jokes comedy club [...]

Memorial service for man who died sleeping rough in Fitzrovia park

9:48 pm, Thursday, 20 September 2018

A memorial service will be held this Friday (21 September) at a church soup kitchen for a man who died while sleeping rough in Whitfield Gardens public open space. The man, known as Igor, was originally from Ukraine and died in his sleep on 31 August near where his friends [...]

Beige Holes of Fitzrovia: new squares are generic nowhere places derived from transactions and contracts

8:03 pm, Thursday, 20 September 2018

Two new privately owned public spaces (POPS) in Fitzrovia are products of development and real estate speculation in a wildly distorted market. The first project, completed in 2016, is GROSS.MAX.’s design for Fitzroy Place, and the second is Gustafson Porter + Bowman’s [...]

Guided walks explore London’s history of sexual diversity

8:55 am, Wednesday, 29 August 2018

Two fundraising guided walks to support international LGBT activists will take place in September and uncover the hidden sexual history of some familiar surroundings. London-based activist Richard Cohen is leading the guided tours, in affiliation with the Amnesty [...]

Nursery empty again after charities fail to agree on future plans

9:25 am, Tuesday, 28 August 2018

The children’s nursery in Whitfield Street is to close at the end of this week after more than ten years of serving the community with the loss of 25 places for under-fives because of a disagreement between two charities over improvements to the building and plans to [...]

Designs for Alfred Place and Whitfield Gardens go on public display

7:50 pm, Friday, 20 July 2018

Camden Council has published landscape designs for a new public park at Alfred Place, a redesign for the existing Whitfield Gardens, and is seeking comments on the proposals this summer. The scheme is part of a £35 million transformation of the Tottenham Court Road area [...]

New plans for mental health services in Camden and Islington

11:41 am, Sunday, 15 July 2018

Camden and Islington NHS Foundation Trust are consulting on plans to change mental health services and build a new hospital and community health hubs, a project to be partly funded by the sale of a property at Tottenham Mews in Fitzrovia. The consultation is seeking the [...]

Camden Council gets £870k to tackle rough sleeping

11:01 am, Monday, 25 June 2018

Someone sleeping on the street under a blanket.

Camden Council has secured £870,000 of government funding to assist homeless people in the borough after a count of rough sleepers identified a more accurate picture of its street population. The money, from the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government [...]

Westminster council to draw up new plans for ‘improving the Oxford Street District’

11:44 am, Friday, 15 June 2018

Westminster council has written to community groups in the neighbourhoods surrounding Oxford Street to announce that “completely new proposals” will be drawn up after the summer but that pedestrianisation is “off the table for good”. In a letter [...]

Third outing for Fitzrovia’s celebration of music and culture

9:10 pm, Monday, 28 May 2018

There will be four days of events on offer this week from the organisers of the third annual festival to celebrate Fitzrovia’s rich and diverse artistic past. Team FitzFest will put on a wide selection of concerts, drama, talks, walks, and social and fitness events and [...]

Volunteers sought for Camden rough sleeper count

10:06 pm, Monday, 14 May 2018

Camden Safer Streets Team will be carrying out a comprehensive count of people sleeping rough in the borough this week and is looking for volunteers from the community to help. In the autumn of 2017 an official count revealed that there were total of 1,137 rough sleepers in [...]

Summer gardening club aims to make Fitzrovia greener, not more commercial

9:31 am, Tuesday, 1 May 2018

A new gardening club will be launched on Saturday at one of Fitzrovia’s most used and abused public open spaces ahead of London becoming the world’s first National Park City. Volunteers from the Friends of Fitzrovia Parks will be spending an hour every Saturday [...]

Wilkie Collins lived out the double identities of his characters

10:52 pm, Monday, 30 April 2018

Scene from BBC adaption of The Woman in White.

Of all the 19th century Fitzrovians who had secret families, Wilkie Collins is probably my favourite. Famous for ‘sensation novels’ such as The Woman in White and The Moonstone, Collins was adept at probing the hypocrisy that underpinned bourgeois family values in [...]

Westminster Tories in disarray, Labour opposition defies Mayor, and new party to fight Oxford Street pedestrianisation

11:41 pm, Sunday, 29 April 2018

Plans to pedestrianise Oxford Street have caused Westminster council’s Tory leadership and their Labour opponents to defy Mayor of London Sadiq Khan, and have given birth to a single issue party to fight the local elections this Thursday. Westminster’s cabinet [...]