26/02/2018 Inside Out London

Hello, you're watching

Inside Out London.

Here's what's coming

up on tonight's show.

Could building on our rooftops be

the solution to London bus

in the housing crisis?

The combination of building

in the airspace but doing it

where a lot of the work produced

an off-site to minimise

inconvenience.

It's got to be an exciting

concept for us.

Why hiring a professional friend

to help with your court case

could do more harm than good.

They're clogging the courts.

They give false hope to people.

They are the unlicensed

minicab of the court world.

And why is the Irish dance hall

is making a comeback.

It reminds 40 years

the music hasn't changed.

The atmosphere is much the same,

even the people are much the same,

only 40 years older.

We all know the capital

is hungry for housing,

and according to Sadiq Khan's draft

London plan, we need

65,000 new homes each year

for the next ten years.

But with a shortage

of space, where are these

properties going to go?

Some reckon the answer

lies above our heads,

I went to find out more.

London boasts one of the most

dramatic skylines in the world.

And for decades, it's

been building upwards.

With at least 400 more

skyscrapers in the pipeline.

With space at a premium

in the capital, many believe

the answer to our housing crisis

belongs in the sky.

But rather from starting

from the ground up, some developers

want to use the roof

above our heads instead.

Asha sounded Apex airspace three

years ago, one of a handful

of rooftop developers in London.

He believes expanding

upwards is the future.

And after years of work, he thinks

people are starting to listen.

What is airspace?

This is airspace.

We are talking about existing

buildings with flat roofs,

where we can build extra new homes

on the top of existing

buildings using construction.

People have no idea how much cash

they are sitting under and how much

they can sell fresh air

above the rooftops.

And where is the potential for this?

Across London.

From council blocks to housing

blocks, from retail

to private freeholds.

Everywhere.

Let me show you the one

we have already done.

Over in Camden, Apex

is about to complete one

of its first rooftop developments

on this 1960s apartment

block, adding a single

penthouse to the roof.

I'm intrigued to see how this

all works in practice.

Let's take a look.

I see air, you see airspace?

So if simplify it,

what are the processes here?

Essentially, our project

managers look at property.

We agree a legal agreement

with the freeholders.

We apply for planning

permission then we build

the unit off-site, bring

it

on the back of the lorries

and installed it.

In this particular apartment,

took only a day to install it up.

Because it was built in the factory.

Is this a temporary fix

to a long-term problem?

Absolutely not.

It is the way to go now,

we are the 21st century

and the industry is

moving that direction.

The project came about after one

resident convinced seven

of his neighbours to the club

together and by the

the leaseholder of the building.

They then sold the roof to Apex

and used the money to fund hundreds

of thousands of pounds

worth of repairs.

Describe what your block

was like for work started?

To be honest it was maybe one of

the ugliest buildings in any road.

With the money raised some

of the residents have not only been

able to give the building

a face-lift, but also have

improved the insulation,

remodelled the communal areas

and repair a long-broken lift.

It sounds like there was a lot

of work that needed to be done.

How much did that cost?

About £200,000.

How were you going

to raise that before?

Without selling the before

we couldn't have that money.

Without selling the roof

we couldn't have that money.

As you can see, this

place is almost finished

and will go on sale very soon.

I find it hard to believe that

all of this was built in a factory

hundreds of miles away

and brought here by truck.

Tucked away in the Welsh

countryside is F1 Modular,

one of the factories supplying

ready-made homes to

developers in London.

We take everything we do

in the building site

but do it in a factory.

We start on day one as component

parts, we can build the box,

at the end of the 15 days

you have a finished house.

They are far more robust

than anything traditionally

built because we have

to lift and transport them.

House prices in London

and the construction cost make

off-site particularly interesting

because we are manufacturing

here in Wales and our hourly rate

and ability is far exceeding

that of London.

It makes this a very

cost effective solution.

Off-site will provide to my mind,

certainly 20-30% of the solution

to London and the whole of the UK.

The issue we have is getting

to build the quantities required.

Across the UK new factories

for modular housing are being built

to supply the increasing demand.

Demand that appears to be present

at all levels of the housing market.

In Bermondsey, a housing association

has plans to work with Apex to build

more affordable homes on top of two

existing council blocks.

The idea is to build 28

new apartments here,

we will have two additional stories

and then book end

apartments on either end.

Of the 28 apartments,

17 will be sold by Apex on the open

market and 11 will be accused

by the housing association for local

residents at affordable rent levels.

We need to do something to house

people in London so we can do

one of two things: one,

we can spread out or we can

end up using better use

of the density level.

The combination of building

in the airspace but doing it

where a lot of the work is actually

done off-site, said minimises

inconvenience, has got to be

an exciting concept for us.

Across London in Knightsbridge,

the first penthouse that produced

house for the higher end

of the market.

They sold one of the award-winning

multi-million pound penthouses

on top of the grade

two listed building.

They continue to develop some

of London's most expensive areas.

We are talking marble,

designer kitchens, solid parquet

flooring, the whole lot.

But planning restrictions mean that

both entered the market often

are slow to progress.

I don't mind guidelines at all,

but we need to be flexible.

You need someone with a bit

of oomph as I said, this

is what we are going to do.

Let's go for it.

because the longer

things are delayed and inevitably

there are cost implications

and there is the frustration

people experience.

Fortunately for developers

for the government

appears to be listening.

Earlier this month, the Ministry

of Housing announced plans to update

the National Planning Framework

to encourage local authorities

to facilitate rooftop developments.

and free the path so local

authorities with the ambition in

London but also across the country

can get on with it.

There are a lot of local

authorities with this ambition.

We want to make sure they have

freedom of flexibility of choice,

and scope, to build the homes

London needs.

One of London's largest estate

agents has used 3-D mapping

technology to analyse the airspace

above buildings

in zones one and two.

To identify exactly

what potential there is.

There are 23,000 buildings

supporting potentially

41,000 additional homes

within zones one and two.

This level of development will be

the equivalent of London sprouting

60 new skyscrapers each as high

as the Shard.

We need to think outside the box.

We know the housing targets

are significant, we know that

existing intensification tends

to focus on bringing

brownfield land back into use.

We feel anything that adds

an alternative model

to that is a good thing.

And beyond the confines of central

London, Arshad is even more bullish

when it comes to the future

potential modular airspace living.

We can have potentially more

than 60,000 affordable new homes

and in total 180,000 across London.

Pretty much finished, what next?

We are in the process

of building over 100 in 2018.

Spread across six sites, we can

offer London as an opportunity

that they can tell us

what they want to how

it is the budget, we will build

a penthouse for them.

It has not always been an easy road

for London's rooftop developments,

but by the looks of things here,

the sky is very much the limit.

Good job I've just about got

my head for heights.

Still to come on the show...

In comparison to dance

halls in Ireland

it was a basic hall,

it's an awesome.

We're looking at a place

like this, it's beautiful.

Following legal aid cutbacks,

it has been much harder for people

to get free legal assistance

for many types of law cases.

And if you can't afford a solicitor,

representing yourself in court can

be daunting and stressful.

That's where McKenzie friends come

in, people who can provide practical

guidance and emotional support.

But with the market for professional

McKenzies now building,

there are concerns that some

could be misleading

or exploiting their client.

People needed an alternative

to solicitors.

Who were extremely expensive

and dominated the client

with a rod of iron.

McKenzie friends I think

are a brilliant idea

but unfortunately, there's people

like him taking advantage

of people like me.

They're clogging the court,

they run unnecessarily arguments,

they give false hope

they are the unlicensed

minicab of the court world.

Blake is representing himself

in an upcoming court case.

Today he's come for a consultation

with his McKenzie friend, Nicola.

Hi, good morning.

The pre-trial review,

do you know what that is?

No.

It is where we go along at its then

listen for that half an hour.

It is where we go along at its then

listen for that half an hour.

It is where we go along at its then

listen for that half an hour.

As he has a full-time job

he doesn't qualify for legal aid.

But still feels the need to help

the pairing his case.

It's a challenging process.

Mentally very

challenging and tiring.

Obviously, in terms of financial

funding, the solicitor is not

the cheapest option.

So I looked into other options

and I stumbled across Nicky.

I feel like she was sent from above.

You never know what a judge

is going to be feeling

like and they say they don't want

any witnesses because

it will take too

much court time and therefore

you don't get the witnesses

that all, none.

We spoke about the cases ahead,

what needs to be done

in terms of paperwork, I've done

research myself but I can't

do it without Nicky.

Nicola has been working

as a professional McKenzie

friend for 15 years.

On average you pay £250 VAT

per hour for a solicitor.

With me, you pay £89 an hour.

Let's go to your application.

I realised there was a real

imbalance in the system

and need to be an alternative

So that people didn't have to pay

£500,000 a month every month

for something straightforward

and administrative task

for all intents and purposes.

As a McKenzie friend,

Nicola does not have the same rights

in court as a qualified solicitor.

But she believes she still offers

a valuable service.

For clients that have the support

of a McKenzie friend it's great,

because it's more like moral

support and being able

to organise so they have

confidence.

Anyone can act as a McKenzie friend

without formal qualifications.

The term dates back to a divorce

case in 1970 called

McKenzie versus McKenzie

after which it was

ruled everyone can be supported

in court by a friend

or family member.

As for many years most

McKenzies provided that

support free of charge.

But since legal aid cuts

came in five years ago,

there's been an explosion

of McKenzie friends charging fees.

There is no regulation in this

corner of the legal marketplace

and making sure the McKenzie

you hire is a help rather

than a hindrance isn't easy.

Solicitor Julian has faced several

McKenzies in family law cases

and think they often overlooked step

abounds of their original role.

Why would you trust something

as important as your children

and your relationship

with your children or your future

financial security to someone

who has no real clue what they're

doing most of the time?

Quite often professional McKenzie

friends who have no training,

no qualifications, and actually

very little experience,

have watched far too much American

television and feel the need to be

adversarial, aggressive,

they really put on a show

for the poor sap who's

paying the money.

I'm thinking of one incident,

the father in this case

chose a professional McKenzie friend

who just poured fuel

on the fire and any chances

of coming to a sensible resolution

were blown out of the water.

The moment he sacked him,

we made a deal in half an hour.

End of it.

That would not have happened had

the McKenzie friend kept trying

to aggravate matters.

The Law Society which represents

solicitors also thinks that

regulated professionals are a much

safer bet for litigants.

There's a complaint system

which means that if the client

is unhappy with the solicitor

they can lodge a complaint

with an independent body.

If you instruct a McKenzie friend,

they do not necessarily have

insurance, there is no regulatory

system backing them up

so if something goes wrong,

there is no redress for the client.

Things certainly went wrong for one

litigant who we are calling Beth.

When she went to a family court

to get an urgent innjunction

to restrict her ex-partner's access

to her son.

I was advised by a domestic violence

charity to go to a McKenzie friend

which would alleged to save me

a lot of money.

He charged me £500 on the spot.

He thought the best course

of action was to go straight

in with an injunction at High Court,

it turns out this was totally

the wrong thing to do.

They don't hear family

matters at the High Court

so it was a complete waste of time.

When Beth finally got

the injunction, it wasn't watertight

enough and left her son at risk

because the McKenzie had filled

in the paperwork incorrectly.

The McKenzie also failed

to deliver the injunction

to Beth's ex-partner,

to guarantee he'd received.

The McKenzie insisted

he would go and knock

The McKenzie insisted he would go

and knock himself and deliver it.

The following day when I asked him

how he delivered it,

he said he posted it

to my ex's door.

So he left me at risk by doing that.

Another hearing was scheduled

but by this time, Beth was heavily

pregnant and her McKenzie friend

told her he'd arranged

for the case to be adjourned.

But he tried to do this by post,

just two days before the hearing.

The post takes ten days before

the court even open it,

so they didn't see

the request for the journey.

So the case went ahead.

My ex partner was that

and I wasn't was made it look

like I didn't turn up.

As a result, he managed to change

some things in the order

which created upset for my son.

At this point, Beth decided

to stop using the McKenzie

friend and in desperation,

she turned to a solicitor.

I'd used all my savings

on the McKenzie friend,

I gave him £1200 altogether,

it cost me roughly another £2500

to undo the mess that was made

by the McKenzie friend.

I had to beg, steal and borrow

the money to do this.

This is absolutely what I wanted

to avoid in the first place.

Beth is now trying to get back some

of money by taking the McKenzie

friend to the Small Claims Court.

It made me feel extremely

angry and down.

McKenzie friends I think our

brilliant idea but unfortunately,

there's people like him taking

advantage of people like me.

Beth's bad experiences

with a professional McKenzie

friend may not be typical,

but there have

certainly been several

other rogue McKenzies who painted

the profession in a bad light.

In 2015, a former nightclub bouncer

was barred from acting

as a McKenzie, after verbally

abusing a lawyer.

And in 2016, paid McKenzie David

was jailed for 12 months

for perverting the course of justice

by submitting a false

psychology report.

The judiciary are currently

consulting on whether to restrict

the role McKenzies can play in court

and ban them

from recovering their costs.

We have come a long

way from the original

good Samaritan role.

The industry that is growing up

with those providing at a cost,

legal advice, conducting litigation,

that was something that

was never envisaged.

My clear view about that

is that the protection

of the consumer requires

that should not be allowed

to develop in an uncontrolled way.

And I know that the judiciary you

have first-hand experience of this,

are concerned about it.

But McKenzies like Nicola

are clear, if they can't earn

a living, it's the justice system

that will lose out.

It would proabbly put

a lot of very efficient,

effective and honest professional

McKenzie friends out

of business and of course,

that's bad for the litigants in

person and it's bad for everybody.

Especially given there's no

real support out there.

So what's the alternative?

People settle in London

from all over the world,

and when they arrive here,

they'd usually recreate

a slice of home.

For the newly arrived Irish

immigrants in the 1950s and 60s,

twisting the night away

in their very own dance halls

was the perfect way to remind

themselves of the old country.

Thomas McGill has been to find out

what became of those ballrooms

and the wild nights that took

place in them.

# Last night I had a pleasant dream.

# I woke up with a smile #.

This song by Larry Cunningham

knocked the Beatles off the number

one slot in Ireland back in the 60s.

And the night he performed it

here in Cricklewood in the ballroom,

nearly 7000 people queued up

to see him.

The old doors are still here

but the dance hall's gone now.

It first opened in 1952 and along

with other venues such

as the National in Kilburn,

the Gresham in Archway,

it featured Irish showbands

and country singers,

often playing to huge

crowds of regulars.

In the 60s and early 70s,

there was nearly 22 or 23 Irish

dance halls in London.

You could go dancing

seven nights a week.

In comparison to the dance halls

in Ireland, which was a basic

hall, it was awesome.

You asked am I looking

at it and were really

in a place like this,

it was beautiful.

It was massive queues but once

he got on the door, that was it.

An absolutely fantastic night.

In the swinging 60s,

these dancers would have been young

and living in a foreign

land for the first time.

Having just arrived from Ireland

and yearning for a bit of home.

We came here with school pal

as a holiday job and almost 44 years

later I'm still here.

Being away from home was difficult

at first even though

it was my choice rather than,

you missed your family,

your parents, you missed the ways

of Ireland,

things were very different.

It was good to be able to talk

to and meet other Irish people.

People in those days, they lived

in shared houses and rooms.

And they really didn't

want to stay in rooms all night.

It was only a place to sleep,

put your head down, more or less.

So they got out and about.

First of all, they get to a pub,

maybe to another pub or whatever,

then they go to the big

show band scene.

Girls would line up on one side,

and then when the dance started,

the boys would ask you would

you like to dance?

Some of these guys were really

drunk and staggering.

They would come over

and would say would you dance?

And you'd look and think

he's going to fall, no.

But eventually, Mr Right

could come along.

And that first dance

could last forever.

Yeah it took a long time to arrive

but it arrived in 2003.

I met my husband

Declan sitting there.

It was actually 2002.

We met in the Galtymore 1969

and in 1970 we got married.

Still here today, 48 years.

We had a dance and then another

dance, and moved on from there.

Is he a good dancer?

Yes he is.

I was a good dancer,

mover and waltzer.

# This is my home now.

But time has changed.

Some of the early immigrants return

to Ireland and youngsters stopped

coming over to London en masse

like they once did.

Most of the ballrooms closed

and the Galty was demolished.

It marked an end of the era,

and it seemed the Irish dance

scene had gone for ever.

But something rather wonderful

is happening just behind the Church

of the Sacred Heart here in Kilburn.

Every Monday night one

of the performers from back

in the day, a man known as McGinty,

is single-handedly attempting to

revive the old dance Hall tradition.

He is turning its social club

into the ballroom of romance.

What are we doing here?

Dancing, me and you.

It's slippy!

What have you put on the floor?

It is like salt.

Special stuff floor.

It's from Ireland.

What does it allow you to do?

Reduces the stickiness of the floor.

A lot of people said, Monday night,

lots of people wake up Monday night

because they work on Tuesday.

But a lot are retired.

I thought I give it a go

and I came up with the name

the Ballroom of Romance,

it works really well.

# Think of all the good

times that we knew #.

# And time will go rushing

by you won't be ...

# Bring me safely home to you.

Straightaway, they're

up on the floor.

They're all dancing and they're

going round the floor like rabbits.

Rabbits, dancing all night.

I know some people who come

in here and have got a stick

and they are walking in.

And a the music starts,

there are dancing on the floor.

They reckon I'm a faith

healer as well.

In terms of the music, is it helping

to keep the music alive?

It is a lifeline.

The band will come from Ireland

and I have somewhere to play,

and they'll play Manchester

on Friday, Birmingham on Saturday

and finish up in London.

At least it's an extra gig

for any of the bands.

There's local bands

that play here as well.

I play three times a year and keeps

the old thing ticking over.

The Irish were brought up

on basically a love of music.

People come here from Luton,

Essex, you name it.

Croydon, they come

from all over the area.

# Country roads, take me home #.

# To the place I belonged #.

They're all people from

the Hibernian, they're

from the Galtymore,

all from the dance floor.

Maybe a quarter of them have

met in the Galtymore.

But how does it compare

to the original ballrooms?

To find out, I invited

Trisha and Declan to trip

the light fantastic once

again at McGinty before

the ballroom of romance.

It reminds me of 40 years ago,

the music, hasn't changed.

The atmosphere is much the same

and even the people are much

the same, only 40 years older.

Surprisingly that this can

stay going in the world.

The world is

technologically whatever.

And you see something like this that

is the throwback to the old days.

And it seems the words

"will you dance" are still working

working romantically

in this dancehall today.

We met here on the second week

of it opening, roughly,

almost two years ago.

And we've been going out

together ever since.

What is it about the ballroom of

romance that made you fall in love?

We both enjoy a good work-out.

And this is certainly

a good work-out.

I enjoyed the dancing

and I love music.

With the lack of Irish dance

halls in London now,

when I first came here in 1967,

there was probably about 20

on a bigger scale than this.

And now the Galtymore was the last

of them in 2008 that close,

and this hall here, McGinty,

he took a punt on it and he's been

very successful with it.

So the old Irish dancing

scene is still alive

and kicking in Kilburn.

And as I took in the atmosphere

here, it struck me that all too

often we don't appreciate a moment

until it becomes a memory.

The great news here on a Monday

night for these revellers

is that their memories can once

again can truly become real moments.

That looked like a cracking evening.

That's just about it

for tonight's Inside Out.

Before we go, here's what's

coming up on next show.

We meet the former city worker

on a mission to get rid

of London's plastic waste.

In just one hour,

I filled up both nets.

There are many more

plastic on the canal,

but you can't collect everything.

Why the price of antique furniture

has come crashing down.

This is a typical

example of Victorian.

About ten years ago,

I think we would have

got £4-600 for this.

Today it in the auction at £30-50.

And 75 years on, we remember

the victims of the Bethnal Green

Green tube disaster.

I heard people screaming

and calling for the mothers,

We couldn't get out.

I couldn't get out.

It was terrible.

At the time, it was terrible.

That's it for tonight's Inside Out,

don't forget tonight's

programme will be on iPlayer,

just head to our website.

See you next week.