The 'Bakerloop' bus – part of TfL's expanding Superloop network of limited-stop buses – was a manifesto commitment by Sadiq Khan during last year's mayoral election.

TfL is proposing a seven-day bus service between Waterloo and Lewisham, stopping only at Elephant & Castle, twice in the Old Kent Road and at New Cross Gate.

The double-decker bus service would run every 12 minutes during the day on Mondays to Saturdays, and every 15 minutes in the evenings and on Sundays.

As we reported last year, TfL is also proposing to develop "unique design features inspired by the Bakerloo line" for the interior of the buses.

The BL1 consultation runs until Friday 14 March.

If the proposal goes ahead, TfL is intending to introduce the BL1 in autumn this year.

Filming took place in Boyfield Street on Tuesday and Wednesday, with mock police vehicles and a replica crime scene.

Trigger Point - which was created by Dianel Brierley and stars Vicky McClure - is currently filming its third series.

Producers have made a donation to the local tenants' and residents' association in recognition of the disruption caused by the filming.

A hole has opened up in the road surface of Fenning Street, a short thoroughfare just off St Thomas Street immediately south of London Bridge Station.

The hole adjoins the construction site for a new 28-storey office block called EDGE London Bridge.

Local organisation BermondseyStreet.London published the first report on the mysterious hole on Wednesday 15 January, claiming that the void is "estimated 10m (4 storeys) deep".

The SE1 website approached both Southwark Council and EDGE for comment. No reply was received from the developer.

When SE1's reporter visited the site on Sunday, it had been screened off from obvious public view with fencing panels.

According to an update provided by the council to local residents earlier this week, the sinkhole appeared on 6 January:

The exact cause of the sink hole remains under investigation. Mace completed the construction of basement over a year ago. Until 5 January, the basement was dry.

The hole appeared after material and ground water entered their basement at basement levels 3 and 4.

The construction of the basement at the level 4 created a ‘pocket’ in the clay, which was breached most likely by the ground water.

Material from under the carriageway entered the fourth basement level of the construction site. This created a void beneath the roadway which then collapsed into the hole.

The volume of material in the basement is equivalent to the material lost from the highway. 

Mace are presently, sealing the basement, which when completed, will allow them to reinstate the highway.

In addition to the damage to the roadway the collapse damaged electrical supply cables to the construction site and a water main. The electrical cables have been isolated and rerouted. The water main was found to be redundant and has been disconnected. 

Before remedial work could be commenced additional ground surveys were completed to ensure there are no more voids or contributory factors. The sewer network has also been checked and found to be operating correctly.

The council engineering services are in close liaison with the team from Mace and have approved their method statements for the repairs.

The work is likely to take a number of weeks to complete.  To monitor progress there is a weekly meeting between the site operators, the utilities companies and council representatives.

Work at the construction site continues with the hole being continually monitored 7 days a week.

News of the pub's reopening – under its original name of The Blue Maid – was announced on Instagram this week, with an April launch date proposed.

Shut since Christmas 2019, the Blue Eyed Maid at the corner of Chapel Court can claim a long history.

The pub is indicated on a 1542 map of Southwark and was name-checked by Charles Dickens in Little Dorrit.

More recently it featured in David Jesudason's 2023 book Desi Pubs about venues run by people of Indian origin.

In the early part of the last decade it had a chequered record with Southwark Council, when a high crime rate came under official scrutiny.

The plaque was installed as part of Southwark Council's blue plaque scheme which allows local people to vote for the historical locations and people they would like to see recognised.

Radio DJ Mike Read compered the unveiling ceremony at which the three music industry legends were reunited.

The plaque can be found in Vine Yard, just off Marshalsea Road close to Borough Underground Station.

Stock Aitken Waterman was based in Vine Yard from 1984 until the partnership ended in 1993, though Pete Waterman continued his association with Vine Yard beyond then.

Among the many notable songs linked to Vine Yard is 1989's Do they know it's Christmas? for Band Aid II which was recorded at the studios.

Speaking at Wednesday's ceremony, Pete Waterman said: "This was a magical building to us. There are so many memories here in terms of the story of pop. This building was special.

"It's different now – this area's quite trendy. When we first moved here, this was the worst area in London.

"We used to have to guide the staff [to the main road] at night because there were dead bodies there, and that is not a joke.

"But it was home to us, and the local community was fantastic."

Last year Waterman's Vine Yard penthouse home was on the market for £1.25 million.

We reported in November 2023 that the London Fire Brigade was planning to leave its current offices in a former parcels sorting office in Union Street when the lease ends in 2027.

This week London Fire Commissioner Andy Roe signed off a new report authorising work to continue on plans to refurbish the brigade's former HQ on the Albert Embankment as the service's new home from 2029 onwards.

The purpose-built riverside building near Lambeth Bridge was the brigade's base from 1937 to 2007 and is a grade II listed structure.

If the plan to return to Albert Embankment goes ahead, the development would include upgraded facilities for Lambeth Fire Station and a permanent base for the London Fire Brigade Museum which has been in exile since its Southwark Bridge Road home closed for redevelopment nearly a decade ago.

Since 2007 the brigade has twice tried and failed to redevelop the Albert Embankment site with mixed-use schemes.

Speaking at the London Assembly's budget & performance committee this week, Conservative Susan Hall AM said: "We need to stop talking about that damned building. It's been going on too long!"

In reply, commissioner Andy Roe joked: "It's still got 'London Fire Brigade Headquarters' written on the front of it, so I'm quite keen to return to it. It's all practical common sense really."

The latest LFB report makes no mention of what would happen to the former workshop buildings on Lambeth High Street if the main riverside block was refurbished for use as brigade offices.

With the LFB expected to leave Union Street in 2027 and any new HQ not due to be completed until 2028 at the earliest, plans for temporary offices at another location are also under consideration.

Police were called to Westminster Bridge at 10.43am on Sunday 24 November. Officers attended the scene alongside the London Ambulance Service and London’s Air Ambulance, where they found a man in cardiac arrest.

Initial reports suggested the man had been stabbed, but police say that further enquiries have confirmed this is not the case.

The man remains in hospital in a critical condition.

Three people have been arrested on suspicion of attempted murder, and one person has been arrested on suspicion of affray. Two of those arrested have been taken to hospital with head injuries.

Police are particularly keen to hear from anyone who was in the area at the time and may have witnessed the incident.

Officers are also urging anyone with CCTV, mobile phone footage, or dashcam footage that may assist the investigation to come forward.

Anyone with information or footage is asked to contact police on 101, quoting CAD 2468/24NOV.

The incident comes in the same week that the state of Westminster Bridge has been put back in the spotlight by the new London Centric publication:

Southwark has had one Library of Things - at Canada Water Library - since 2023.

The council claims this has been a success, with more than 1,200 people (about two or three per day) using the service in its first 15 months.

By March 2025 the council plans to add two more LoT sites - at the Elephant & Castle and in Dulwich - which would put most residents of the borough within 2km of the service.

Announcing the expansion at council assembly on Wednesday, Cllr John Batteson (cabinet member for climate emergency, jobs & business) said the move would mean that "every household is in close proximity to a site so they can save money, reduce their carbon footprint and play their part in tackling the climate emergency".

The Canada Water Library of Things offers hire of 30 items ranging from a staple gun (£1.50 a day) to a sewing machine (£5.50 a day) and a carpet cleaner (£25 a day).

A no-questions-asked 25 per cent discount is available with a concession membership, which is described as being for anyone who is "a student, receiving a pension or government support, not in work, have children to feed, people to care for, or you’ve got other bills to pay".

The council says that the Castle Centre "has space for a kiosk in its lobby area next to the café which is used by residents to socialise.

"It enjoys a footfall of approximately 3,000 people per week and is well used by residents, schools and community groups" and will "provide coverage to large parts of Walworth, Bankside and London Bridge as well as Elephant & Castle".

Southwark Council will pay a monthly £2,000 service charge to the national Library of Things organisation to maintain the service at the Castle Centre, offset by the rental fees paid by customers.

In her later years Charlotte had been fed by a Waterloo resident, who when the cat’s health took a turn for the worse contacted the RSPCA.

RSPCA inspector Jade Guthrie collected the cat from Greenham Close earlier this month and was able to track down her original owner, Vivien Tarlton, after contacting the London-based animal charity which implanted the cat’s microchip many years ago.

Soon Charlotte was the centre of attention at Vivien’s home where she was able to spend time with her owner and her son Harley, one of a litter of six she gave birth to a month before she vanished in 2010.

Sadly, the feline’s health had deteriorated to such an extent that the happy reunion was but a fleeting one. Vivien was advised by her regular vet that the prognosis for Charlotte was poor and that the kindest course of action was to put her to sleep.

Happily, cat-loving Vivien was able to shower her love on the missing cat for the last two weeks of her life and says she is extremely grateful to the RSPCA and the caller for making that possible.

“I’ve gone from the highest of highs to the lowest of lows, but the 16 days Charlotte was with me was lovely,” said Vivien.

“She was home and safe, although I suspected her time with me might be short. When she lived with me she was quite feral, but it is still amazing that she managed to get to the other side of London and had someone feeding her there - she must have jumped on a bus as it is quite a distance.

“I never gave up hope of seeing her again as she was an amazing little cat. She’d come into the house and always be near to me, although she didn’t really like being touched.

"I kept looking when she went missing. I had posters printed and placed them on doors and trees all around West London, but she was never seen. I even asked a psychic for help locating her.

“I was thinking recently that she’d be 20 or 21 now and wondered what had happened to her. She was so wary of people that it was a shock that she went out of my back garden. I kept two of her kittens; Holly died in 2019, but Harley is still with me."

We reported last month on plans by JD Wetherspoon plc to open a new pub called The Sun Wharf in the former London Dungeon premises on Tooley Street.

Wetherspoon's application for a premises licence is due to be considered by Southwark Councillors at a licensing sub-committee on Tuesday 5 November.

Papers for that meeting have revealed the concerns raised by the police and by another local business.

In his representation on behalf of the Metropolitan Police, PC Mark Lynch wrote: "The area already has in excess of 20 alcohol-led venues which are within 500 metres of the new premises and any addition would clearly add to the cumulative impact on the local area.

"The likelihood of off sales being taken home from the premises is remote and realistically they would be consumed in the nearby streets, on public transport or its hubs.

"This raises concerns for public safety and inevitably an increase in alcohol related crime and disorder, adding to the already burdened emergency services.

"The area is already blighted by all types of alcohol related crime from thefts to violent crime though not always committed by those intoxicated but those being intoxicated being the victims."

PC Lynch urged Wetherspoon's to tighten up the proposed conditions attached to the licence to address crime and disorder concerns.

The police are also uneasy about the impact the new pub will have on days when big sports fixtures are being played.

"There is mention of a dispersal policy and also football management plan however these have not been produced with the application and we cannot at this stage comment on their suitability to address concerns regarding over intoxication on sport fixture days."

In their application, Wetherspoon's said: "The location of the premises adjacent to a major railway and underground hub will assist in the dispersal of customers away from the premises at close."

The only public objection to the Wetherspoon's licence comes from the owners of The Rake in Winchester Walk, one of the smallest pubs in SE1.

"The position on the fringes of London Bridge Station one of London’s major stations is one of the main crossover points for many fans supporting various teams and sports and therefore a serious flashpoint risk.

"Indeed, already the police ask local operators to control access to their venues on occasions. There are more than sufficient licensed premises in the area to service visitors and as such act as a dispersion too.

"Should the council decide to breach its own policy and licensing objectives and grant the licence then would it at least be possible to restrict opening hours in some way, such as not open before 1200 any day and to closed on weekends when majority of sporting events occur."

In their report for next week's meeting, Southwark's licensing officers remind councillors that "members of the sub-committee cannot take business competition into account when considering application".

Create Real Estate applied to Southwark Council earlier this year for change of use of the vacant office building at 291-299 Borough High Street.

The decision was made at a planning committee meeting on Wednesday evening.

Planning officer Zaib Khan explained that the development "would contribute to meeting an identified growth need in Southwark" and was in line with London planning policy which anticipates a requirement for thousands more hotel rooms in central London.

The council received 12 objections, principally from residents of Hulme Place, a residential block whose only access is immediately adjacent to the proposed hotel.

Mr Khan said that planners had responded to the concerns raised by residents and incorporated a range of conditions to address the issues raised, including construction management, lighting, delivery arrangements and privacy. 

"Overall these conditions are considered to be practical and reasonable to allow the proposed development to be implemented whilst minimising disruption," he said.

Local resident Fiona Clouder addressed the meeting and said: "Hulme Place consists of 14 properties with at least 40 residents of all ages. 

"We are very, very concerned about this application on our homes, our lives, our quality of life and particularly access to our homes, which has not been properly addressed."

Ms Clouder also warned that "people laughing, joking and drinking" on the hotel's roof terrace would prevent Hulme Place residents from enjoying the "privacy and quiet" of their homes.

The applicant's agent Nicholas James told councillors that the failure to find new tenants for the offices  proved that "the site is no longer suitable for the existing office use and the site will remain vacant if a change of use of redevelopment is not considered".

Mike Griffiths of Latitude Architects added:  "Architecturally, the configuration of the existing building is well-suited to hotel use."

Mr Griffiths said that traffic movements during construction would be "carefully managed by a banksman so that residents will not be inconvenienced".

He concluded: "The proposed change of use will see a boutique hotel introduced to the central activities zone, increasing activity on Borough High Street and which is wholly supported in planning policy terms.

"The highly sustainable proposals have been carefully developed to respect their surroundings and through appropriate controls will protect the amenity of neighbouring residents."

Chaucer ward councillor Laura Johnson addressed the meeting in support of the objections raised by local residents.

"We are not against redevelopment of the site and tourism and hotel space in and around London," said Cllr Johnson.

"In Southwark we have a unique place and Chaucer ward is very central.

"But ultimately we do not want a development that will have a negative impact on our residents who have who lived there and will always live there. 

"Having this building change from office use to a 24/7/365 hotel will not necessarily bring much joy and peace to those people who have been there for a long period of time."

Committee members resolved unanimously that permission for change of use be granted.

The Cervantes Theatre was opened in 2017 in Old Union Yard Arches off Great Suffolk Street, a few doors down from the long-established Union Theatre and close to the Africa Centre's new location.

The theatre's closure was confirmed last month and a message from co-founders Paula Paz and Jorge de Juan – titled 'The lights go out' – is displayed at the entrance of the closed theatre:

We have worked endlessly, we have lifted this project on our shoulders. It takes a village to open a theatre and there have been many people who have built the Cervantes Theatre, stone by stone, verse by verse. Artists, technicians, audience, team, trustees, volunteers, members and friends of the theatre, the British theatre industry... each and every one of the companies and institutions that have supported this theatre since the beginning.

Unfortunately it has not been enough. The Cervantes Theatre needed fundamental institutional support that fell through. As many other cultural institutions in the United Kingdom, we are in such fragile state that any change or delay in funding can be deadly.

The Cervantes Theatre during the last 7 years, has programmed 106 plays, concerts and events, produced 15 plays, promoting the work of 42 playwrights from Spain, Colombia, Mexico, Uruguay, Argentina, Brasil, Venezuela, Peru, Chile and Cuba.

From Spain Juan Mayorga, Paloma Pedrero, José Sanchis Sinisterra, Lucía Carballal, Marilia Samper, Juan Carlos Rubio, Paco Bezerra, Guillem Clua, Denise Desperoux, Gon Ramos, Carolina África and many other playwrights have seen their plays translated and performed here at the Cervantes Theatre.

Like the Don Quixote of our beloved Cervantes, after which this theatre was named, we have fought against windmills since the beginning, more than 7 years ago. Including Brexit, the pandemic and an extremely fragile cultural industry. The Cervantes Theatre auditorium will stop listening to Cervantes' language, the seats will remain empty, the lights will go out and the heart of the Spanish theatre in London will stop beating.

With deep sorrow, the peace of the one who has fought everything, the frustration of the one who has waited for support that never came and the infinite gratitude to each and every one of the people who have been part of this dream, we we say goodbye. The Cervantes Theatre closes its doors. It, will remain in the memory of those who sat in its seats and those who stepped on its staged.

Bankside – with its literary and theatrical history – was an appropriate home for a theatre named after Miguel de Cervantes, who was a contemporary of Southwark's own William Shakespeare. Both men died in 1616 and both are commemorated by their countries on 23 April, which is also Unesco's world book day.

Lost Gardens of London is a new exhibition curated by Dr Todd Longstaffe-Gowan that tells the story of some of the capital's green spaces that are gone but not forgotten.

The exhibition covers the whole of London and includes several Southwark and Lambeth gardens. Dr Longstaffe-Gowan believes that his choice of locations featured in the show says something about the city's north-south divide.

"In the south of London, you get this idea that there were lots of these kind of places for subscription, entertainment and amusement," he told SE1.

"People came south of the river to misbehave. That's where you have early fairgrounds and whoring houses and other things like that.

"It was all about having a good time outside the metropolis because you only had one bridge and you cross over the Thames at your peril – or for pleasure."

The exhibition features a 1632 woodcut of Holland's Leaguer, a notorious brothel set in a moated garden on Bankside and within the Paris Garden liberty.

Perhaps the image that presents the greatest contrast between past and present is James Sowerby's 1787 watercolour of William Curtis's nursery ground on Lambeth Marsh. Today, Ufford Street Recreation Ground (south of The Cut) is the last remaining fragment of green space in what was once a rural scene with a solitary weatherboarded cottage.

Further into Southwark and Lambeth beyond SE1, the exhibition includes images of the Surrey Zoological Gardens in Walworth and the Kennington manor house that was the residence of the 'Black Prince'.

The most recent garden to be included in the exhibition is the William Curtis Ecological Park, named in honour of the 18th-century botanist, established on derelict land next to Tower Bridge in the 1970s and a forerunner of today's Potters Fields Park.

It was a consciously temporary green space long before talk of 'meanwhile uses' for vacant land was fashionable.

Dr Longstaffe-Gowan describes the ecological park as "a noble experiment" that was about "creating a sense of atmosphere and character" whilst "appreciating the local flora [and] appreciating the importance of where you are".

He added: "I think this is why this garden was, for its short life, so successful.

"Because you could bring all these things that were traditions in the past, like withies and pollinating plants, and park them there."

The antithesis of a manicured garden, the ecological park was "scrappy ... and atmospheric" – all the more so for its location next to instantly recognisable landmarks.

The William Curtis Ecological Park is recalled by a sundial installed on The Queen's Walk in 2015 in memorial to the park's founder Max Nicholson.

The spirit of Nicholson's work has also been evoked by the developers planning the refurbishment of the former City Hall who claim they will draw on the legacy of the park in their plans for a green transformation of the building and its environs.

Dr Longstaffe-Gowan welcomes developments that draw inspiration from what has gone before, without seeking to create a replica or pastiche.

"I think it's important that we should try and evoke something of the past and to reflect on the history of the site, because it just makes these places so much more interesting.

"As an historian and a cultural geographer, I really enjoy reading about that, because I want to know the continuities and discontinuities of places.

"I want to understand the context ... and why it's important."

Lost Gardens of London is at the Garden Museum, Lambeth Palace Road, until 2 March 2025. Admission £15 (concessions available). The exhibition is accompanied by a new book by Dr Longstaffe-Gowan.

At around 11.20pm on Monday night, a 999 call was received about a man who had collapsed on the bridge. City of London Police firearms officers were the first emergency vehicles on the scene.

When officers arrived, a member of the public was attending to the gentleman. No pulse was detected, and CPR was commenced with the officers taking it in turns to administer treatment. Officers used a defibrillator and then restarted CPR.

The London Ambulance Service arrived and after a sustained and prolonged amount of CPR administered, a small pulse was located, and he was taken to hospital.

City of London Police Assistant Commissioner Paul Betts said: “The intervention of the six firearms officers was crucial and I commend them for their actions. The officers’ advanced medical training was vital in being able to secure a pulse and get the man to hospital.”

• The London Ambulance Service offers free lifesaver training for members of the public, including courses at Transport for London's Palestra headquarters in Blackfriars Road.

Architectural salvage firm LASSCO has been trying for years to sell 463 metres of redundant balustrade from Westminster Bridge, replaced by a facsimile when the bridge was repaired in the late 1990s.

This week the company confirmed that the ironwork had been sold and dispatched on nine articulated trucks.

"Visitors to LASSCO Three Pigeons in Oxfordshire know we’ve had the original Westminster Bridge ironwork on display here – but now it’s gone," the salvage firm said in an email newsletter to customers.

"We’ve sold it - all 185 tons of it. It’s a sizeable bridge. 

"We had fielded interest from as far afield as China and then from Paraguay (for the latter we’d priced to have the whole lot containerised and shipped up the Amazon but it wasn’t to be). 

"Ultimately, we have sold it to an Englishman who now has half of it lining the quayside of his commercial premises on the south coast; the rest is being cunningly inserted into his ha-ha as the retaining wall.

"The cost of delivering all that ironwork was included in the deal: in the end we squeezed it into nine articulated trucks. How much did it sell for? I can tell you that it was a lot of money… but it was cheap."

The ironwork had previously been advertised for sale on the LASSCO website at £250,000 plus VAT.