27/12/2016 London News

Good evening, welcome to BBC London News, I'm Chris Rogers.

Three weeks ago, around 80 people were evacuated in Islington

as a burst water main caused extensive damage.

Now BBC London has learnt that many have been unable to return home,

while some local businesses fear they may never recover.

This is what Jackie's bedroom look like three weeks ago, devastated and

completely destroyed by flood water. Almost a month on, it's looking a

little better, but there's still a lot of work to be done. And it will

mean balls, frames, skirting boards, everything has got to be taken out.

Even though she's had to sleep on her sofa, Jackie said the response

to the flooding has been efficient. I think all the people that have

worked on it have been marvellous. You know, it was slow at the start,

it's to take ages for them to get moving, but once they did everyone

has done a wonderful job. Around 80 residents in Islington were

evacuated after this three foot wide water main burst. Many homes and

shops to metres deep in water, the flood also meant that the streets

were covered in mud, silt and even rats, and the clean-up effort took

days. Today it all looked like it was back to normal but local

businesses have been hit hard. Many, like this gallery, lost a lot of

their stock before Christmas and are still drawn to get rid of the dump.

The financial blow it has had on us, I don't know if we will recover

fully from it as an independent business. Our concern collectively

as a community is that for a lot of us it is the same, and we fear that

for a lot of us it will not survive the impact this will have. Today,

Thames Water told us they apologised again to residents and shop owners

for the inconvenience. In a statement, they said they were

supporting their customer service to put the way to help get their lives

back to normal and their insurance claims sorted. This month saw

similar floods in Lewisham, Stoke Newington and Streatham, it is

because most of the pipes are over 150 years old. Repairing them is now

a priority, but here in Camden passage the damage has been done,

and the these shots it wasn't a Merry Christmas. Many of them still

don't know when they will be open again.

Fans have continued to pay tribute to the singer George Michael

Flowers and candles have been laid outside his North London home.

Stories about the 53-year-olds support for children's and HIV

charities have emerged since his death.

After nearly 50 years running her shop, Blackheath's Peggy Hawkes

passed away, but the community have carried on the day she would have

wanted. Sarah Harris explains. It is a shop that has not changed for six

decades. Even the till at this store near Blackheath is the same one used

in the nostalgic TV comedy, open all hours. It is the way Peggy wanted it

to stay for the 43 years she ran it behind the counter. Since her recent

death, she has been so sadly missed, her family supported by local

volunteers have kept it going in her memory. Some of the people that are

sort of out of work and stuff would come in and ask mum for money. And

she would quite often say, look, here's a couple of Bob, go and get

yourself a cup of the your something like that, and even if someone said

to her commune they will never come back with that, and she would say

no, if I have made them feel better today than it is worth every penny.

Other than a lick of paint, many of the features Peggy Love to have been

preserved. Several local customers have been coming here for more than

30 years. She was just a really, really nice lady, and it just kind

of has an old-fashioned niceness about it, this shop. People came

from miles away to come in the shop. Not just because of what she came in

the shop but to see my mum. The family said they have had offers to

buy the shop all the time, but they are determined to try to keep it

going as long as they can with the help of their neighbours in Peggy's

memory. A look at the weather

now with John Hammond. A wintry night out there and a foggy

warning for many of us, the aware of some potential disruption as we had

into tomorrow morning Post a lot of rust out there but it is to the

early hours that the fog continues to thicken up and it could be quite

dense and freezing, with temperatures in some spots well

below zero as you step outside in the morning. The fog will take a

while to shift, in some cases it won't all day. Hopefully you will

see some brightness but where it lingers all day, not much.

That's it we're back tomorrow morning in Breakfast.