On March 11th 2024, The Mayor of London announced London’s upcoming boroughs of culture. Writing before the decision was made public, Mickey Ambrose backs the bid, but after a look around the local streets he says there is a long way to go if we want to present Newham at its best

People sleeping rough on Stratford High Street — Photo: Mickey Ambrose

If we want to become London’s Borough of Culture everyone in Newham, young and old, from every community, needs to start pulling together.

We all know there’s a lot to be said for Newham, particularly the specialist, worldclass sports venues including the London Aquatics Centre, London Olympic Stadium, and Queen Elizabeth Park. Newham also boasts Europe’s largest shopping centre, Westfield Stratford City Shopping Centre, with over 350 shops and restaurants and London’s biggest casino.

However, we need to address certain local, community social issues which are impacting us and our wellbeing as a community on a daily basis.

I have spent the last two months out and about in the local community and met some passionate, wonderful, caring people, talking to local shopkeepers, police officers, underground staff at Stratford Station, even staff in my local Sainsbury’s, where you can pick up a copy of Newham Voices, about their concerns in the community.

The main issues I was told about are:

Poverty: The Department for Work and Pensions figures show more than 18,028 children in Newham living in relative poverty in the year ending April 2022. It’s been going on for years, so long that I get the impression that perhaps governments want our children to live in poverty – we can find £400 million to hand over to the Rwandan government but we cannot look after our own children with decent housing?

Newham is the third most deprived local authority in London. Three out of every four residents live in the 30 per cent most deprived neighbourhoods in the country.

Public safety: Knife crime, street robberies and muggings are top of the list of concerns. Newham is among the top ten most dangerous boroughs in London. The overall crime rate in Newham in 2022 was 99 crimes per 1,000 people. This compares poorly to London’s overall crime rate, coming in 3.9 per cent higher than the London rate of 95 per 1,000 residents. For England, Wales, and Northern Ireland as a whole, Newham is the 28th most dangerous city.

Homelessness: This is not a good look, especially, if you’re trying to promote the Borough and you have vulnerable people sleeping in filthy, dirty conditions. Five years ago I highlighted the issue of homelessness to my producers at Sky News where I’ve been a guest expert and social commentator for the major broadcasters including Sky News, BBC News Channel, ITN News, Sky Sports News and BBC Sportsday for over 14 years. I am fortunate to have this platform to bring real, factual stories to their attention so that government, sporting organisations and local authorities take action.

One such story was when I invited Lorraine Tabone from Lolas Homeless to join me and Sky News who agreed to run a story about why people are sleeping rough on the streets, in doorways of local shops in Stratford Shopping Centre.

This problem remains. Yet Newham is one of six London Boroughs that hosted the London 2012 Olympics costing around £8.77 billion – which was three times the original budget of £2.4 billion.

The Olympic stadium alone cost £701 million pounds, almost three times the original estimate. This angered many local people and still does because they feel betrayed and let down because of one of many things we still lack is adequate social housing.

People see £3 million luxury apartments being built yet we are still sending homeless people to towns on the outskirts of London. After 12 years there is still a lack of social housing in an area with rent rises and evictions from unscrupulous landlords, questions need to be asked and action taken.

And I don’t lay the blame fully on the Mayor and her colleagues on the Council. Far from it, I think they do well under the circumstances, having to live with the cuts and lack of funding from central government.

But if we are bidding to be the Culture Borough, things need to change and fast. Some parts of the Borough are filthy, dirty and could do with a regular deep, spring clean – outside Stratford Station, for example, and along the Broadway in Stratford, around McDonald’s and surroundings. As well as showing compassion and support and offering medical help for the genuine homeless, there also comes a point when you have to enforce the law.

One question concerns the presence of beggars around Stratford Station and Stratford Broadway with rumours that these people are part of an organised gang.

At the same time we see eight police officers, nine plain clothes London Transport Revenue Inspectors, another seven in uniform trying to catch fare dodgers.

On the Central Line recently a shortage of trains was said to be the cause of delays. Instead of 78 trains they are operating with only 50 – Why has London Transport and the Mayor of London allowed this to happen?

All this does not bode well for Newham’s bid to become London’s Borough of Culture because it’s all bad PR. How can you market Newham if all these issues exist and need to be addressed?

I would like to offer an open invitation to the Newham Mayor Rokhsana Fiaz for lunch (on me this time Mayor Fiaz because you paid last time!) and we could discuss these questions. What we can both agree on is that something needs to be done and now.

Mayor of London Sadiq Khan announced on Monday 11th March that both Wandsworth and Haringey were the winners of a competition among boroughs to be named London Borough of Culture for 2025 and 2027, with each council receiving £1.35m to deliver a year of creative and cultural activities.

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