Updates on Friday 21 December
BBC London News
Updates for London have ended for the day but we'll be back at 08:00 on Thursday with the latest news, sport, travel and weather.
Keep checking back here throughout the evening for any breaking news.
Clear at first this evening, but gradually clouding over from the west again with the risk of some showers, these most likely towards dawn tomorrow.
Staying breezy through the night. Minimum temperature: 4 to 7°C (39 to 45°F).
Local Democracy Reporting Service
More known criminals could be caught and prosecuted as automatic number plate recognition cameras are installed throughout Redbridge.
The council’s Labour group promised to bring in the new technology as part of its local election manifesto in May this year.
The cameras are being brought in to tackle crime and improve safety, wanted vehicles will be more easily identified and the technology can be used to find members of organised crime, travelling criminals and even terrorists.
The authority has pledged £1.5m to the scheme and installation began this week, with 18 cameras going live.
In total, 41 cameras are set to turned on over the coming days with 14 digital display boards positioned as drivers enter the borough, which will show car registrations as they pass. In a recent public consultation, 96% of those who responded came out in favour of the plans and the council has worked with the police to determine where and how many cameras will appear throughout the borough.
As part of the £1.5m investment, the council is also upgrading its CCTV systems.
It is the busiest time of year for Royal Mail, who are processing millions of letters and parcels a day in the week running up to Christmas.
The BBC went behind the scenes at the Heathrow Worldwide Distribution Centre, where hundreds of people and machines are working around the clock to ensure the post reaches its destination.
Video Journalist: Adam Paylor
Arber Rozhaja believes going cashless has not harmed his London business at all
After yet another break-in at south London pub the Crown and Anchor, Arber Rozhaja decided enough was enough.
Burglars were after cash lying around after lock-up, but what if there was never any cash on site at all?
Mr Rozhaja, operations director at the pub's parent firm, London Village Inns, calculated the volume of cash transactions and was bowled over.
"Somewhere in the region of 10-13% of the total revenue would be cash and the rest was card," he says.
So in October, the Crown and Anchor went fully cashless.
Full story: Millions 'will suffer without cash'
A 29-year-old woman who was left infertile because her cervical cancer was not spotted for more than four years by a London hospital has been awarded the costs of having surrogate children in America.
Whittington Hospital NHS Trust admitted negligence in failing to detect signs of cancer, leading to the woman - known as XX - to develop highly invasive cancer.
The chemotherapy treatment left her infertile.
At a previous hearing, the High Court awarded her a total of £580,000 in damages, including the costs of fertility treatment, cryopreserving her eggs and having children by surrogacy in the UK.
Her claim for the costs of four surrogacies in California, where commercial surrogacy is legal and binding, was dismissed as the court found commercial surrogacy was still illegal in the UK.
Image source, PABut the latest hearing on Wednesday saw the Court of Appeal allow her appeal meaning she will now receive as much as an additional £560,000 to cover the cost of having children with commercial surrogates in the US.
Her solicitors Irwin Mitchell say the ruling is the first time the costs of surrogacy in the USA have been awarded in a claim for clinical negligence.
XX's solicitor Anne Kavanagh said: "This is a tragic case where, due to no fault of her own, my client has suffered grievous injuries including infertility at a young age.
"Her only hope of becoming a mother is by surrogacy using her own eggs which were harvested just before she started chemo-radiotherapy, as well as using donor eggs."
Local Democracy Reporting Service
Image source, LDRSGreenwich Council has been told to rethink plans to spend £1.3m on keeping its town hall magazine running for another four years.
Bosses at the council approved new printing and distributing contracts for the Greenwich Info earlier this month.
The fortnightly publication is delivered to the majority of households in the borough, but new contracts totalling £1.3m to keep it running were ‘called-in’ by the opposition.
Call-ins are rare town hall moves that have decisions brought back for further scrutiny.
Matt Hartley, the leader of Greenwich Conservatives, said Greenwich Info was an outdated way of getting in touch with residents – and a waste of taxpayers’ money.
“It’s just dull”, Cllr Hartley said at a special scrutiny meeting last night. “The main reason for this call in is that far from being an effective means of communication, it is as dull as dishwater.
“This is a waste of resources, it will have an adverse impact on media outlets and it is ineffective and inefficient at communicating the right information to the right people.”
The Tory leader said claims the authority was offsetting its spending with advertising cash were debatable as council departments were placing ads – meaning it was moving taxpayers’ money “from one pot to another” and calling it revenue.
Council boss Katrina Stuart defended claims the magazine competed for advertising with local papers such as News Shopper or Greenwich Mercury, saying the Info attracted different markets.
She said: “The need to communicate with residents has never been stronger. “We can print it so long as it is not considered a newspaper – by necessity it has to be very dry as it is purely factual information that can be published.
“There is no other paper that is widely available. It is important there is borough wide access to jobs and housing and statutory notices.”
However, the panel agreed there may be a more cost effective method to target residents who want the Info – admitting that they themselves had not been getting a copy.
Image source, PAAnnual house price growth across the UK slowed to its weakest levels in over five years in October, official figures show.
And for the first time since 2011, annual house price falls have now rippled out into the London suburbs - following a falling trend already seen across central London this year.
Average house prices across the UK increased by 2.7% in the year to October, slowing down from 3% annual growth in September 2018.
This marked the lowest annual growth since July 2013 when it was 2.3%, according to the report, released jointly by the Office for National Statistics (ONS), Land Registry and other bodies.
Over the past two years, there has been a slowdown in UK house price growth, driven mainly by a slowdown in the South and East of England, the report said.
The average UK house price was £231,000 in October, falling by 0.2% month-on-month.
Across London as a whole, house prices fell by 1.7% annually in October to reach £474,000 on average, continuing a trend of price falls seen each month since July.
The report said falling house prices in London are mainly driven by inner London, which includes boroughs such as the City of London, Kensington and Chelsea, Westminster and Islington. House prices across inner London have been consistently falling annually since January.
But in the year to October, house prices in outer London fell by 0.2% - the first annual fall there since September 2011.
Outer London is made up of Barking and Dagenham, Barnet, Bexley, Brent, Bromley, Croydon, Ealing, Enfield, Haringey, Harrow, Havering, Hillingdon, Hounslow, Kingston, Merton, Redbridge, Richmond, Sutton, and Waltham Forest.
Both inner and outer London tend to follow similar trends in house price growth, with changes in outer London tending to appear slightly after those in inner London, the report said.
Local Democracy Reporting Service
Image source, Local Democracy Reporting ServiceThe ruins of one of Europe’s oldest non-denominational chapels are set for a rebirth after Hackney Council announced an initial £314,000 grant for renovations.
Stoke Newington’s Abney Park Cemetery Chapel is one of the "magnificent seven" cemeteries in the capital and the only surviving public building by architect William Hosking, according to the Victorian Society.
The chapel, which had hoardings erected around it by the council for safety reasons in 2014, has come in for a beating over the years, with interference of the contents of its catacombs even leading to rumours of the practice of dark magic on the site.
Hackney Mayor Philip Glanville said the grant for the "historic site" will be used "to maintain and improve a green space that residents can enjoy and contribute to a more sustainable Hackney.”
Abney Park garden cemetery was laid out in 1840, and the council has been working on stabilising Hosking’s gothic centrepiece, though there are still “significant issues” with the structure.
Works to improve the site are expected to cost around £4m, which will be provided by the Heritage Lottery Fund if the council is successful in Phase 2 of its funding application.
Mayor Glanville also made funding announcements of over £6m to be spent on facilities for 14 different primary schools across the borough, as well as £834,000 in upgrade works to Hackney Service Centre.
Image source, City of London PolicePolice have released CCTV images of a man they "urgently need to identify" after the rape of a woman near Bank in the City of London.
The victim was attacked around 03.00 GMT on Friday, 7 December, in St Michael's Alley, off Cornhill, in London's financial district.
The man approached and spoke to a white woman with blonde hair and walked with her into Worship Street.
He is described as white, possibly olive skinned, with brown hair and a slim build. He was wearing black trousers, a black blazer and a black scarf.
CCTV shows the man walking south on Norton Folgate in the Hoxton area at 02.30.
Commander Jane Gyford of the City of London Police said: "This was a distressing attack on a young woman in the very heart of our City.
"We have identified from CCTV footage a man we need to speak to and if you recognise this person, it is vitally important you get in touch with police immediately."
Image source, City of London PolicePrivate hire vehicles including Uber will no longer be exempt from the daily £11.50 rate from April.
Read More
Image source, Jason HawkesWe used this wonderful photo by Jason Hawkes of the London Eye as our banner, but we want a new picture every day to show off the capital.
Have you taken a photo of your part of London which you think would be suitable?
If so, email it in high resolution (2048 x 1152 or 1680 x 945) to london.locallive@bbc.co.uk.
A mainly sunny and fine afternoon with just the risk of the odd isolated shower. Breezy.
Maximum temperature: 7 to 10°C (45 to 50°F).
Three people have suffered stab injuries following an incident at St Stephen's Surgery health centre in Tower Hamlets, east London.
The victims have been taken to hospital and a man has been detained by police.
More soon
Three men have been arrested in connection with the fatal shooting in Enfield, north London.
Read MoreSadiq Khan says raising council tax is necessary to "fill the hole left by massive cuts in policing".
Read MoreThe head teacher showing her pupils life isn't about always looking and being perfect on social media.
Tim Stokes
BBC News
Image source, Getty ImagesIt is 175 years since Charles Dickens introduced the world to his vision of Christmas in A Christmas Carol, and from the outset it proved extremely popular.
Within six days the entire print run of 6,000 copies had sold out. Within six weeks theatre adaptations had hit London's theatres.
The Victorians of the early 1840s clearly did not have a problem with keeping the Christmas spirit going.
And nor did Dickens - although six weeks would probably be pushing it a little too far even for him.
For the famous writer was someone who took the festive period very seriously and his novella encapsulated the things he loved most about the season.
BBC London News
Tolu Adeoye has this morning's top stories from the BBC London newsroom.
Image source, Getty ImagesLast-ditch talks are being held in a bid to avert a strike on London Underground which threatens travel misery for Christmas shoppers this weekend.
Members of the Rail, Maritime and Transport (RMT) union on the Central Line are due to walk out for six hours on Friday evening and most of Saturday.
The strike will cripple services on the line, one of the busiest in the capital, and halt its Night Tube on Friday.
The two sides will meet on Wednesday at the conciliation service Acas.
