24/08/2017 London News

I'm Asad Ahmad. the UK learn from Norway and border.

For the very first time, a piece of land in north London has

been sold on condition that all the hundreds of new homes

to be built upon it will be affordable.

The Mayor of London believes it's a way of getting more much

needed homes to Londoners who would otherwise be priced out

But there's criticism too - as Karl Mercer explains.

This site hasn't changed much in the last seven years.

Perhaps the weeds have got a little taller,

But perhaps these four fellas might be about to change that.

Here in Walthamstow today, with their plans to build 330

new homes on the spot in the next five years.

All - yes, 100% of them - will be affordable.

Sold to first timers who can buy a share in their new homes.

For one-bedroom flats you'll be looking at about ?350,000.

But with a shared ownership offer, it would enable somebody to buy

a share of the property for about ?100,000.

So, actually gaining a deposit for ?100,000,

City Hall bought this land last year, then sold it on to two

housing associations, at a profit and also

The deal is you can have this land for a sum of money on the condition

that every single home on this land is affordable.

So, a couple earning less than an average wage would be

Walthamstow, like many areas around London, has seen plenty

Expensive flats have been going up around the area,

so the local council leader is all in favour of

It's not actually unique to us in Waltham Forest.

I think it's happening right across outer London.

The test for us as political leaders is what we do about that.

Do we just sit back and let the private sector roll into town,

Or do we put up a very strong fight, a very robust argument

for lots of affordable and social housing?

Most have welcomed plans for this site, but there are those

who would like to see more homes for people to rent to put

It's true that no council homes have started under the Mayor's programme

I've been asking him questions about this.

But, yet again, we see it with this scheme.

We need to see new schemes in future actually prioritising affordable

homes for rent that are really affordable, like council homes.

The Mayor says homes for rent will come in time.

Finding somewhere to live is likely to be the biggest

challenge for the next generation of Londoners.

Providing them, the biggest challenge for its politicians.

Tolu Adeoye, you've been following this.

It is. And more housing was the Mayor's big campaign pledge. He said

last year he wanted to build 90,000 affordable homes over the next four

years, but he has been criticised for not going about it quickly

enough. This announcement is really a good indication of how he plans to

do that, buying public land, selling it on cheaply with strict guidelines

for developers. We spoke to one housing expert who said it was a

good way to go. The really revolutionary thing

about this method is that it takes a piece of land and gets it

into the system for less That's really important,

because the cost of land is the main factor making housing expensive

in London for new homes. So, if the Mayor can get a piece

of land and get it into a housing association's plans for cheap,

that can make the house We mustn't lose sight of the fact

that this is just 330 new homes. London is growing at a rate of

100,000 people every year and needs 50,000 to 60,000 new homes to cope

with that and the Mayor can't do it alone. They also said we need land

that is currently in the hands of other public sector authorities. The

Mayor has said he is trying to identify brown field sites that can

be built on. His team say this is a marathon, not a sprint.

Teenagers in London have outperformed the rest of England

Figures were slightly down on last year, but a lot less compared

Helen Drew has been meeting some students in west London to find out

if they've had tears of joy or sadness.

Getting exam results is a familiar sight,

They only opened in 2012, so this is the very first group

It's also the first year of the new grading system,

where some subjects are awarded numbers 9-1, others

A bit upset about the B in RE, but I can brush aside that,

I feel fantastic, because I got a 9 in maths.

I got Bs and I'm proud of that, because I didn't think

Reach Academy is a free school, meaning it's government

funded, but not controlled by the local authority.

It was set up by a group of teachers who are delighted

Nationally, and in the area, it's better than perhaps would have

been expected of a school in a community like ours.

But it goes to show that when you work hard and every person

in the building comes to work every day loving their job,

and working really, really diligently together

The success story continues across the capital.

In England, 66.1% of students got a C or above, or its equivalent.

And for grade A and above, now a 7 and over, it's 19.8%

Back in Feltham, one student who's overcome a lot

She barely spoke at primary school and was incredibly shy when she came

And an A* in English language and literature.

And I thought I was terrible at physics!

Across the country, this year's results have shown the biggest ever

Here in Feltham, though, tears of joy.

So many students have worked very hard.

Over a million and a half tonnes of food is wasted

every year in London - that's the same as each of us

throwing away 200 bags of sugar every year.

Most of it goes to landfill, so Dan Freedman has been finding out

what's being done to try and solve the problem.

Food waste, hundreds of tonnes of it here at the largest food

And yet this isn't even 1% of what we waste on a daily basis.

This is the latest delivery they've had here.

This is about six tonnes of food waste.

They'll get 30 deliveries just like this one every single day.

Admittedly, a lot of the food is rotten and really smells bad.

But some of this food, actually, looks OK to eat.

Here, everything you see is separated out and recycled,

producing gas, electricity and fertiliser which can then be

This is known as an anaerobic digestion tank.

Inside here is the digestate material, which is the end product

from after the food product goes to our process.

It's used as a rich fertiliser for farms in Surrey.

But Paul says he can't understand why more London boroughs

don't collect and recycle such valuable material.

Of the 33 local authorities in London, only about 18 of them

are actually segregating food waste and offering a segregated food waste

That compares to cities like Milan, where they introduced a separated

food waste collection service for their residents,

and recycling rates went up from about 35% to over 56%

Across town in Euston, and they do understand

Using smart technology, they've cut it by 70%.

It's a bit like a supermarket self checkout.

All the waste is weighed, the only thing they have to do

is tell the computer what type of food it is.

In this kitchen, the Wellcome Trust, we've reduced food waste by 70%,

preventing nearly 4.5 tonnes per year of food waste

In the capital, ?2 billion worth of valuable food waste like this

There are no openly gay professional football players in the league,

which is why there's criticism of homophobia in the game.

So Charlton Athletic has taken a stand and become the first

professional club to affiliate itself with a team which

It's hoped the move will help bring a change of attitude in the game.

Tooting has made it into the top ten of the coolest places

Yes, Lonely Planet calls Tooting's multiculturalism

and originality, "captivating" - and it's the only place in Britain

An area in Florence in Italy made it to number one.

Tooting proudly came in after districts in New York,

Lets see if the sun is shining on treating.

It has been a better day today, we have had more in the way of blue

skies. It looks good over the next few days, the bank holiday weekend,

where we are going to see a lot of dry weather. Some sunshine around

and if anything it should be a bit warmer than today. Quite chilly over

the night, the cloud that developed has cleared away, clear skies and

hardly a breath of wind. Temperatures down to nine or 10

degrees. Chilly start first thing tomorrow. A bright and sunny

picture, and will stay that way all morning, perhaps into the afternoon.

A little bit of cloud heading our way. Not as much as today. With more

sunshine around tomorrow, temperatures will be higher. We are

looking at highs of 25 degrees, 77 Fahrenheit. Into the outlook over

the weekend, looks good for the Notting Hill Carnival. A bit more

cloud around. Should stay dry, more sunshine on the way as we head into

Monday. National picture with Ben sunshine on the way as we head into

Monday. National picture with Ben Rich.

Good evening. Sometimes our weather brings us rapid changes, dramatic

twists and turns. This is not one of those times. Things are moving very

slowly at the moment. The sort of whether you had today is the sort of

whether you will get tomorrow. Good news, probably,