03/07/2017 London News

It was the council severely criticised after the Grenfell Fire,

with a leader under pressure to resign.

And tonight, Kensington and Chelsea elected a new leader,

one who's apologised and says it's time to heal wounds and ask

Marc Ashdown is at the Town Hall now.

This was an extraordinary meeting of the 40 Conservative councillors in

this borough, called as you said after the former leader Nicholas

Paget-Brown stood down on Friday, they have elected a new leader,

Elizabeth Campbell, who's been a councillor for 11 years, notably in

the Chelsea Ward, nowhere near the Grenfell Tower area and also a

slightly controversial choice, some are saying, in that she served on

the Cabinet which was heavily criticised for its handling in the

immediate aftermath of the tragedy but this evening, she started off on

the right foot, straight after the meeting, coming out and speaking to

the media and striking the kind of tone which I suspect will go down

well with people living around here. The first thing I want to do

is I want to apologise. This is our community

and we have failed it So no buts, no ifs, no

excuses, I am truly sorry. As new leader, I will appoint

a new Cabinet tomorrow and things And the first thing I'm going to do

is to reach out to our community, And the second thing I'm going to do

is to phone up Sajid Javid, the Secretary of State,

and ask for more help. I don't know at this stage

what that help will be like, what plan it will be,

but I know that the thing we need is a plan for the community

in North Kensington So what happens now? Firstly, her

appointment needs to be ratified and approved by the full council which

won't be a problem because the Conservatives have an overwhelming

majority, 40 of the 50 councillors but then the difficult work begins

on trying to win back the trust of this damaged community.

Interestingly, the meeting this evening was chaired by the Minister

for London, great hands. So far, the government has resisted pressure to

step in and take more of a lead because they believe local democracy

should be allowed to work but make no mistake, ministers are keeping a

close eye on this as our local people as to how the council moves

forward under its new leader. Thank you for joining us.

Meanwhile, safety continues to be reviewed at tower

But there are questions about whether local authorities

have the power to force costly safety measures like sprinklers

and fire doors on leaseholders who own their properties.

And whether there should be a change in the law.

Here's our political editor Tim Donovan.

This is, this is the fire door that Croydon Council fitted...

A dispute over this doorway has proved very costly for Julie.

This is a council flat she bought in Croydon.

She installed a plastic coated front door.

The council said it was a fire risk, a danger to others in the block.

The council was saying, we need to set a precedent...

She claimed, as a leaseholder, she had rights over the front door

She ended up paying not just for the front door but owing

I should have been given the opportunity to do it myself

rather than Croydon Council going to the extremes that they went

to and how they are literally persecuting me for the recovery

The key thing about this judgment is that the judge decided,

in the absence of any clarity in Julie's lease itself,

that the council retained responsibility for external features

But this has actually proved a rare legal success for a council.

Experts say it is very hard to force leaseholders to accept

The vast majority of Right To Buy leases, in my experience,

will not let councils just enter properties to make improvements,

to add in whole new fire safety systems that didn't exist before.

Despite the fire at Lakanal House, Southwark reported its hands

were tied because of the fact the council has no right

of access to install PPS systems, that's sprinklers,

We can't have different standards of fire safety in some properties

within a high-rise building compared to other properties.

There has to be a common approach to fire safety.

Wandsworth, like Westminster, is now planning to install

sprinklers in dozens of tower blocks but with many leaseholders here,

disputes over costs and legal rights may lie ahead.

It was exactly a month ago that London found itself once again

the target of terrorism, this time in London Bridge.

It's emerged that more than 160 people who witnessed it

or who were affected have turned to a support charity for help.

A Londoner who was stabbed has been telling us

On Saturday night one month ago, three men drove a van

They went on to stab others at Borough Market.

Eight people lost their lives and almost 50 were injured.

He must have cut my neck and my earhole, I think,

Then there was the stab wounds to my chest.

Roy had gone out for a drink that night and friends had persuaded him

He says he doesn't know how he survived the attack.

I still didn't know they were terrorists

It is only when they pulled the blade out and started

talking about Allah, Islam and something

And he's stuck the knife in me. I don't know whereabouts at first.

But what people said was... I must have fought with him.

I was trying to fight with him but then he has

pulled the other two back that was going into the restaurant

way, where they were going to do more damage or killings.

So people... I'm just...

My memory is blank from after the first stabbing.

But apparently, then three of them came and started attacking me

Roy says he is feeling better and his scars are healing.

But others are still dealing with the emotional effects.

One charity says it has helped more than 160 people that witnessed

The key thing is not to bottle it up because there

is a danger that by doing that, it will actually get worse

and you may develop the symptoms that will require more

And with the recent tragedies in the capital, the charity suspects

there are many people out there that still need help.

The capital's weekend Night Tube service is to be extended to part

of the London Overground by the end of the year.

It'll initially run between Dalston Junction and New Cross Gate.

With more details, here's our transport correspondent Tom Edwards.

Shoreditch, one of the areas that will benefit from 24-hour train

Byron is a local musician. He thinks it's great news.

One of the things that has kind of grown the southeast

and the east has been, like, the arts community

Anything that helps that kind of grow is just a good thing.

So it's just really about connectivity.

From December, on Fridays and Saturday nights,

there will be four trains per hour right through the night

The service will extend to Highbury next year.

We've been experiencing traffic jams in the middle of the night.

There's huge traffic congestion in the evenings

So it's very important that where possible,

we do shift people from car traffic into clean public

According to the mayor, the Night Tube has already boosted

Now there are also calls for licensing restrictions to be eased.

We still have a climate where we don't have

In some areas, people are nervous about granting licences to bars

Rashid has had a stall here for two years.

He thinks better transport will benefit the area.

Well, it makes it more attractive and busier, for sure.

And this won't be the last service to run through the night.

Transport for London says it is already looking to introduce

So I'll wish you goodnight and it's over to Tomasz

I gather it is warming up again? Ochre media, it is going to be

sizzling, like the sausages we saw a moment ago. I weekly look at whether

for the week ahead, on Monday. Temperatures rising, maybe even

reaching 30 towards the end of the week. Once again, the fans will be

out. We are looking at a risk of some storms on Thursday. Sunbury

Thursday potentially at least on the way. In the short-term, quiet out

there. Quite a warm night with temperatures early on Tuesday

probably no lower than 16 in that capital outside of a bit fresher. A

cloudy morning and then the cloud breaks up and then some sunshine but

not a lot in the afternoon. A decent day with some shade, temperatures

still getting up to 25 in London. On balance, a fine day and find for

Wimbledon. Through the middle part of the week, the hot spell begins,

with temperatures getting to around 28 or 29 in the centre of the

capital. A bit breezy up the estuary, 22 degrees, just a bit

fresher. On Thursday, Bunbury Thursday, the margin of error in

predicting exactly where the storms will come as quite large this far in

advance, they could be here, there come a bit further to the east but

there will be storms around on Thursday. On Friday, another hot

one. The centre of London around 29. And just in time for the weekend, it

is all going to grind to a halt and we are back to fresher weather.

is all going to grind to a halt and we are back to fresher weather.

Hello, very warm to hot weather returns for some of us this week but

right now we're watching wet weather coming into Northern Ireland. This

is how it looked earlier, the cloud is even bigger now, with the rain

just about in and courtesy of this weather system which will take the

rain onto parts of Scotland and northern England and it will hang

around for much of the day tomorrow for some of us. This is how it looks

overnight, rain gradually ending in -- edging it bot of north-west

England and southern Scotland, Grisly for parts of Wales and the

south-west the cloud thickens, clear spells for eastern England and

especially northern Scotland and it will turn out to be quite chilly

year with spots into low