All posts tagged: capitals

London is now a no-go zone for developers, warns capital’s biggest housebuilder after shopping centre plan rejected

London is now a no-go zone for developers, warns capital’s biggest housebuilder after shopping centre plan rejected

Published by Sam Flores

Developers “can no longer invest in new London sites”, the capital’s biggest housebuilder has claimed after its plan to bulldoze an old shopping centre for almost 900 homes was rejected. Berkeley Group‘s bid to knockdown the Aylesham Centre in Peckham was dismissed by the planning inspector this week. The scheme would have seen 867 new flats, 77 of which would be affordable. While the planning inspector said the development would bring “social and economic benefits” and ease Southwark’s “acute” housing shortage, it ruled this would “not outweigh the harm to the relevant designated heritage assets important to the area”. Rob Perrins, Executive Chair at Berkeley Group, said: “This decision demonstrates the extreme uncertainty developers continue to experience within the planning system.” The proposed development at the Aylesham Centre in Peckham (Berkeley Homes) He added: “How can we be allowed to build next to world heritage assets like Tower Bridge, but not here? “If we’re no longer permitted to meet housing needs on brownfield land then where should we build? It would take hundreds of acres …

Capitals cool on Brussels age-check app  – POLITICO

Capitals cool on Brussels age-check app  – POLITICO

Published by Sam Flores

Digital ID kerfuffle  The app the Commission issued this month is the latest hiccup in a years-long effort to get tech apps up and running to check the age of internet users.   Brussels and EU member capitals have already spent two years working on “digital identity wallets,” which should be available across Europe by the end of 2026.   But the EU executive announced last July it would roll out a “mini-wallet” designed to help tech platforms check the age of their users, as worries mounted about the impact of social media on the health of children. The mini-wallet was meant to come out before the broader digital ID apps; it’s the one the Commission showcased in mid-April and is officially recommending to countries this week.   Countries that were already working on their own digital ID apps, like Denmark, France, Greece and Spain, were selected to be frontrunners in testing the mini-wallet.   According to Poland’s Digital Affairs State Secretary Dariusz Standerski, the new app is “secondary” and “complementary” to the broader digital ID wallet the country has been working on. That wallet “will always be the primary way” to verify people’s age online, he said in an interview. The Commission’s tech architecture underlying the app is designed to ensure that national applications …

Spain defends EU’s flagship climate law against attacks from other capitals – POLITICO

Spain defends EU’s flagship climate law against attacks from other capitals – POLITICO

Published by Sam Flores

Sánchez sent the paper to European Council President António Costa on Thursday, just as Italy launched a blistering attack on the ETS. Rome called for its suspension until after the reform is completed, claiming that the carbon price is driving up energy costs and acting as a “tax” on manufacturers. The Spanish paper takes the opposite view. “Dismantling the emissions trading system is the wrong answer to high energy prices,” the paper reads. “While some adjustments to the current system to reduce [price] volatility could [be] welcome, a misguided and rushed reform would risk distorting the price signal it has successfully been sending without bringing competitiveness gains.” Madrid joins Sweden in defending the system, which regulates around half of the bloc’s emissions and has successfully slashed pollution in half since 2005. In general, Spain writes, “we must advance and accelerate, not dilute, the green agenda. This is not just a moral imperative, but a lever for sustained, long-term competitiveness … Any slowdown in decarbonisation would play directly into our competitors’ hands.” Madrid also positions itself …

Europeans want Brussels to hand border control back to capitals, poll finds – POLITICO

Europeans want Brussels to hand border control back to capitals, poll finds – POLITICO

Published by Sam Flores

Secondary movements aren’t a Schengen problem, he argued — they only mean that the bloc needs to cooperate better and strengthen controls on its external borders. “The illegal migration does not take place between Luxembourg and Germany,” Gloden said. The small country has lodged a complaint against migration-linked checks on Germany’s borders, which have landed the thousands of commuters that enter Luxembourg on a daily basis in major traffic jams. When the Schengen zone was built, it was “not linked to migration … [It] should facilitate the free movement of people, not hinder [it],” he said. FGS interviewed 11,714 adults from 23 European Union countries between Nov. 10 and Nov. 23, 2025. A minimum of 500 interviews were conducted in each of the following countries: Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czechia, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain and Sweden. Interviews were conducted online and the data was weighted to be nationally representative of each country by gender, age, income, region and socio-economic group. Data from …

London tops list of world’s slowest capitals for driving | UK News

London tops list of world’s slowest capitals for driving | UK News

Published by Sam Flores

Widespread 20mph speed limits have been blamed for London topping the list of the world’s slowest driving capitals, according to research. It took an average of three minutes and 38 seconds to travel one kilometre (0.6 miles) in the centre of the city last year, mapping technology company TomTom said. Reducing speed limits from 30mph to 20mph has been one of Sir Sadiq Khan’s main transport policies as mayor, as he aims to reduce road casualties. More than half of the capital’s roads now have a 20mph limit, according to Transport for London’s website. It says that a person is five times more likely to be killed if they are hit by a vehicle travelling at 30mph rather than 20mph. You need javascript enabled to view this content Enable javascript to share Share New rules for drivers over 70 Meanwhile, drivers lost an average of 141 hours stuck in rush hour traffic in 2025, the analysis found. The worst day of congestion in London, on 10 September last year, coincided with a Tube strike. Read …