30/08/2017 London News

The chair of an independent inquiry into building regulations -

prompted by the Grenfell fire - has told BBC London

it's inevitable she'll find systematic failings.

Dame Judith Hackitt also says she understands why residents

in other tower blocks are so worried.

In her first interview since being appointed, she has been

speaking to our political correspondent Karl Mercer.

Before the 14th June, few people had even heard of Grenfell Tower.

Ten weeks later, it stands testament to

a system that failed, to fire and building regulations

that didn't do their job and to inspection regimes that

And in the weeks since, tower blocks across the capital have had to be

At the Chalcot Estate in Camden, hundreds had to leave their homes.

At the Ledbury estate, the gas was turned off over safety fears.

Today, the woman charged with looking at what went wrong with

I can understand that people living in those tower blocks

And it's important that we get some recommendations out quickly so that

the right rectifications can be made and things can be

Her inquiry will focus on fire and building regulations and

In the wake of Grenfell Tower, the Government

ordered tests on hundreds of pieces of cladding from tower blocks.

I think it would be obvious to most people,

having seen the data on the number of high rise buildings that where

the tests have proven the cladding to be inadequate, it's clear to most

people that there must be some problem that is bigger than

Her findings will feed into the wider public inquiry being led

by former judge, Sir Martin Moore-Bick.

It may have hard lessons for many across the sector.

I think it is inevitable that we are going to find some short

What they will be, I'm not prepared to speculate at this stage.

I think it's important that I look at all of those things, the

competence of the people, how they work, whether people

know what their roles and responsibilities are, all

If a system is going to work effectively, it is

not just about what's written down, it's about how it's applied

Dame Judith has promised an initial report by the

The Mayor's offering ?1 million of extra funding

to encourage more trees, plants and green spaces

in every neighbourhood - which anyone can apply for.

This map gives a sense of how green our city is -

As our Environment Correspondent Tom Edwards reports, getting London

boroughs on board is key to making the scheme work.

Kew Gardens enjoying the drizzle this morning.

London is one of the greenest cities on the planet and

there are now plans to make it greener.

Today the mayor launched a ?1 million fund for community groups to

He wants London to be a National Park city.

Although pre-election promises of two million trees by 2020

Where are we now with that target, is that still your ambition?

Our manifesto was clear, we wanted to embark on a major

We are well on the way to doing that.

The two million target, you're not abiding by that now?

My manifesto was quite clear in relation to a major

I'm going to keep that promise to plant more trees in London.

We will increase the tree canopy in London and I published

recently my environment strategy and the ambition there is to have an

increase of 10% of tree canopy across London.

London's green spaces support 14,000 species.

It has 3.8 million gardens and 47% is made up of green space or

The ambition is to make that 50%.

But that's not straight forward.

This is is a community garden in Greenwich.

Here there have been battles with the local council,

This initiative is hopefully a step in the right

direction, but I feel that the green spaces are under a lot of threat,

with so many encroaching housing developments,

not always sympathetic with the surrounding area.

I feel they're a vital resource that do

Do you acknowledge that the balance between

housing and green spaces is a difficult one

I don't think it is a choice between housing, jobs and green spaces.

I have been here speaking to some of the scientists at Kew Gardens -

Nonetheless, with pressure on space, serious challenges lie ahead to

And our series on London in the future.

It's thought that up to a third of the jobs we do now will no longer

Automation, robots and the internet are set to dramatically

Brother and sister, Daniel and Rachael,

Here, children are imagining the world of work, but

will these jobs even exist when they grow up?

And while dentists will probably still exist in 30 years

According to research by Deloitte, industries

most at risk from machines will be transport, car repairs

Across the world, two thirds of children entering

primary school will end up working in jobs that don't yet exist.

And how will they be created and what impact

will that have on London's workforce?

Jobs that pay ?30,000 or less today are eight times more

likely to be automated than jobs that pay ?100,000 or more.

Just imagine the scene when Mr and Mr 2000 sit down

to breakfast with their very own automatic au pair.

Some of us have long been promised that robots will

change our lives, but just how realistic is that vision?

At Deloitte's digital office, I met their robot Ada,

who like us humans, was having an off day.

We like to have this technology here so

we can show it to clients, rather than talk to them about it.

This is actually a virtual collaboration space.

But other technology like virtual reality is allowing people

So could this make the office redundant?

Not quite, says the founder of this shared work space?

What we are doing here is creating an environment in which

We have found here at second home small

teams work ten times faster than the national average,

which is great, because it means more jobs and more growth.

Few can predict exactly how the future will look, but for this

generation, we know it will look very different.

It was one of Diana's best kept secrets -

her love of dance and how she would, away from the cameras,

Her teacher was the world famous ballet dancer

He's been speaking to our reporter Sarah Harris.

The Royal Academy of Dance in Battersea,

where it all started for

one of the most famous ballet stars of his day, Wayne Sleep.

It was in his heyday that he struck up a

friendship with the then Princess of Wales.

A closeness he still feels, 20 years after her death.

And she used to come around to my flat, kick her

heels off and walk around barefoot and just completely zonk out

I felt that was so wonderful that she could feel so comfortable

Diana famously loved to dance and wanted to perform to

surprise her husband at the Royal Opera House.

It was Wayne she chose to be her partner, despite their

I mean the performance was as if she had

I was worried that the nerves will get you

Spotlights and you have got do a big routine.

Your husband's watching, you haven't told him about it.

You're going to ghet a rollicking probably.

Next door to the Royal Academy and a certain Prince George will be

starting this school in a few short weeks.

And guess what, he will be having ballet lesson with a

His grandmother supported ballet until the end of her life.

Including helping Wayne's foundation for young

Wayne believes she will be delighted George is to take lessons

It makes your mind quick and it is very good exercise.

That's it form me, so I'll say goodnight and here's Darren Bett

The weather can't get any worse. This was Twickenham and temperatures

struggled to reach 15 degrees. Tomorrow it will be warmer, but some

showers in the afternoon. We have seen the back of the rain. It is

heading east and tonight we will have clear skies. But there will be

hardly any wind and it will be quite chilly. Down to eight or nine

degrees. Tomorrow, we start bright and sunny. It will warm up quickly

and the cloud will bubble up by the end of the morning and some showers

arriving particularly in the afternoon. There could be some slow

moving and heavy down pours. A bit hit and miss. Temperatures higher

than today at 21 degrees. We have got some sunshine on Friday. A small

chance of a shower. A fine day on Saturday. Clouding over on Sunday.

The big picture is with Ben. We still have one full day of August

to run. But in some places today it felt like September had long since

arrived. We had a lot of cloud, some rain, particularly towards the

south-east and temperatures no higher than 13 degrees in some

spots. It was nice in County Down and the cloud that brought the rain

and chilly conditions has been clearing away to the east. Clearer

skies following with just some showers. That is the sort of weather

we take with us through tonight. Some clear skies, maybe the odd fog