The M25 motorway has been closed anticlockwise this morning (September 30) after a major crash saw a lorry overturn and block a carriageway. The incident happened at around 9.30am with emergency services rushing to the scene and a closure put in place shortly afterwards.
It's understood the incident is somewhere between J20 (Kings Langley) and J18 (Chorleywood).
Congestion is also building on the clockwise carriageway due to delays from onlookers slowing for the incident. Elsewhere there is queuing on routes through Watford and Rickmansworth as traffic diverts.
MyLondon has reached out to police for more updates on the incident.
For more updates follow our live blog below.
Did you see what happened? Get in touch at tai.kolade@reachplc.com
Croydon is famous for a number of things. Stormzy, the 50p building, and of course being the former home to one of the UK’s first international airports. With Croydon Airport’s closure in 1959, the then Surrey council were left with acres of empty runway space to fill on the now Purley Way. In 1967, that space was eventually filled by the first tenants of the Roundshaw Estate.
Now sitting in the borough of Sutton, Roundshaw is home to 10,000 residents on the outskirts of Wallington and South Croydon. The brutalist high rise flats and anti-social behaviour that characterised the area prior to its regeneration in 2000 meant its residents often had to wrestle with the estate's bad reputation.
However, Roundshaw is home to a proud community who take issue with this reputation and instead say that living there has improved their lives and compare it to life on Coronation Street. The Roundshaw Community Network (RCN) is the main group behind the rise in Roundshaw pride, and one of its key figureheads is Shen Inalpolat, 42.
Roundshaw's roads pay homage to the old airport the estate built on (Image: Harrison Galliven)
On a windy September morning outside her own burger van, Shen told the Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS): “I moved here from the bottom of Carshalton, or the nice end as people say. People say to me 'you chose to go there?!'
"My response is always to say I needed a bigger property and my kids went to school here. If I had the chance to swap now, I wouldn’t. I’ve got to know everyone here, whereas I didn’t even know my neighbours at my last property.
“Some people think of Roundshaw as a stepping stone or that people can’t wait to get off it, but for me, it’s been the total opposite. It’s made my life, whereas I probably would have just sat at home otherwise and got a crummy little job. Living here has meant I’ve built a business, been part of a community, set up events and community schemes.”
Shen bought her burger van with the support of MVTH, the housing association that is now responsible for all the homes in the estate. She claims that their support for her and others in the community has been encouraging. She told the LDRS that due to the success of her burger van following covid, that she will soon set up a permanent cafe in The Phoenix Centre opposite.
Shen's burger van serves as a hub for the community (Image: Harrison Galliven)
As well as her business, Shen also runs a mobile food hub for the community. Working alongside Roundshaw’s permanent food bank, she offers residents free food and provisions provided by local retailers. She said: “I left French sticks out last week and they were gone in 15 minutes after I put a post up on our community Facebook page. I thought that must be some kind of record but it does show that there is still a need for stuff. People still need a lot of help.
“There are still a lot of people who won’t come to the hub because they feel embarrassed but they will walk past and take from here because it's on their route and there’s no judgement. We do have some that raid it but that’s always going to happen. I will not let anyone go hungry.”
Despite the community support it provides, some residents have expressed frustration in dealing with MVTH, especially when it came to home repairs. One resident told the LDRS: “If you have a problem, you can’t get through to MVTH. If they do respond, you’d be quite lucky. You can’t just walk in to their office like you used to before Covid.”
Another local resident added: “I have had a leak in my kitchen and black mould on our ceiling for three months. I have three children and one disabled adult. The leak from the ceiling has now meant there’s mould around the floor, and I can’t have that. Metropolitan has come round three times, but it’s never sorted. They just say they haven’t got the part and reschedule. This has been going on for three months now.”
Mum-of-five Holly, 38, said: “I have tried to swap my property for a while now. I’m in a three bed, but they won’t house me in a bigger property because my husband’s work means we are over the cut off point. So they say go and look in the private sector. When I do look, no one wants the property, because of the reputation.”
Residents claim to have seen Wembley stadium from Roundshaw Downs on a clear day (Image: Harrison Galliven)
According to Shen, crime still does seem to be an issue in the area, although she believes it is a problem not specific to Roundshaw. According to recent data published by the Met Police, Roundshaw’s crime rate is just over average when compared to the rest of the borough. Furthermore, Sutton remains one of the top five safest boroughs in the capital.
Shen added: “We do have our problems here. Ghere was a local guy running around with a machete, but what happens on Roundshaw stays on Roundshaw. There’s not many police on walking patrols round the estate, but there are a lot of cars and vans that come through. When they do come through, they try to talk to you, and they do make an effort.”
Kyra Annacy, 35 told the LDRS: “We do talk to the police, but things tend to be sorted out between us because we live here, and we have to deal with it. There’s no worse that goes on here than there does anywhere else. We all look out for each other, it's like Coronation Street up here. If someone needs something, there’s always there to look out for you. But at the same time, we were not in each other's pockets.”
Being a largely self-contained estate on the fringes of both Sutton and Croydon, Roundshaw relies heavily on its bus services. Kyra told the LDRS: “Roundshaw’s well-connected, but we had to fight to get the 154 bus back after the council stopped the route. It runs from West Croydon to Morden, it's a long route, but it runs late. At one point we lost the 455 and the 154 due to the buses colliding into the corner of Sandy Lane just outside of Wallington. The council just stopped running it.
“A lot of children on this estate go to Oaks School, which means you had to get 154. Everyone around here gets the bus. The nearest station is Wallington or Morden, so when they take away a bus route we really notice. Especially the many children on the estate. We had to do lots of appeals and got our local MP involved. Mainly it’s just Facebook though, people argued to bring it back on there.”
Pioneer Vicar David Atkinson and Jean Grima outside St Paul's Church (Image: Harrison Galliven)
Another key member of the community, Pioneer Vicar David Atkinson, also praised Roundshaw’s strong community spirit. Speaking to the LDRS outside of St Paul’s Church, one of his community hubs, he told the LDRS: “My family have been here for three years now. The reason a place like this separates itself from anywhere else in London is that it has a genuine community. My kids always know they’ve got other kids living next door if they want a kick about. You often hear, that’s what used to happen in the 50s, but that still happens in a place like this.”
He joked: “You see the same people, and we look out for each other. There are also challenges with that though, if you have a fight with someone you have to see them every day.”
The force of Roundshaw’s community spirit is best demonstrated in the seriousness in which they take their local events. As well as the recently refurbished The Phoenix Centre, the estate has a large playing field and backs onto the sprawling Roundshaw downs, which offer an impressive vista of nearby Croydon town centre.
Shen said: “One thing that shocked me when I came here eight years ago was Roundshaw’s Halloween and fireworks night. It was like America. I had never seen anything like it. There’s a long row of houses that club in and decorate their houses for the kids to enjoy. There’s even a lady around here that decorates her house like the Hansel and Gretel trail and lets children walk around for free.
“Halloween goes on until about 10pm here. It’s done in such a nice way. It’s not just that, though, we see it in the street parties we had through lockdown as well. We do summer fairs and Christmas fairs at The Phoenix Centre that get massive turn outs. About 3,000 people each year. One year we even had the local MP, Elliot Colburn, doing the char char slide. These events have given people an excuse to get back out after Covid and learn more about their area.
“Roundshaw Downs also has events there occasionally. They even have cows there that graze from December to February, and you can sit there and see Wembley Stadium on a clear day. We need people to come here on a more regular basis, so they don’t think that it was just Roundshaw people on their best behaviour. If people could actually spend a bit more time up here, they’d see that actually it's not nearly that bad.”
When approached for comment, MTVH said: "We want to make it easy and simple for residents to contact us and have many ways of getting in touch. The MTVH office at Roundshaw is fully open, five days per week, and has been since February 2022. Residents can either walk-in or book an appointment in advance."
"Our online easy access forms are a quick and simple way to send us a message about neighbourhood concerns, estate maintenance, or repairs. On MTVH online residents can request and track repairs and perform a number of other functions through a personal account 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Our phone lines are open from 8am to 6pm Monday to Friday with emergency support available 24 hours a day. We operate a free call back feature."
"Roundshaw is one of the largest estates MTVH manages. Given its size, our property services team regularly visit Roundshaw to listen to any resident concerns and help address any issues. As well as managing and maintaining the properties on the estate, our team based in Roundshaw play a big role in the local community. We work hard to support residents with different types of tenancy support, wellbeing initiatives, run a community centre, provide support with the cost of living, and organise a food bank."
"Our team focuses on listening to residents and addressing the issues that matter to them most. The team works holistically with residents to impact not only their current quality of life, but also their longer-term goals and aspirations as individuals and communities. All Roundshaw residents are also invited to attend our monthly drop-in hub at the local leisure centre. This is attended by our Property team should residents wish to raise any issues. Roundshaw's also has a dedicated local surveyor for the estate."
"Ensuring we are connected and listening to our residents is absolutely critical to our work at MTVH, and one way we do this at Roundshaw is through a monthly community poll, which has been signed up for by over 200 residents. This survey is sent to residents to understand what is most important to them and to inform MTVH on how to best support residents. The Resident Connectors then follow these questions up with phone calls to residents, offering person-centred one-to-one support to those who need it most."
"This runs alongside a ‘You Said, We Did’ report. The report was built on listening to residents’ concerns and thoughts, which MTVH colleagues then used to address the issues that mattered to residents most."
London 365 - Roundshaw Estate
MyLondon visited the Roundshaw Estate, in Sutton, as part of our London365 project, where our reporters will be visiting a different part of our great city every day in 2023.
Ever wondered what it's like to live in the part of London furthest from a Tube station? Or in the shadow of one of the world's busiest airports? How is gentrification impacting some of London's neighbourhoods hardest hit by the cost of living crisis?
From Brent to Bromley, Hillingdon to Havering, and everywhere in between, the MyLondon team will explore the biggest issues facing Londoners, while celebrating every part of the capital this year.
Where should we go next? Email mylondonnewsdesk@reachplc.com. To see all the other neighbourhoods we have visited in 2023, click here.
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People who witnessed the shocking murder of 15-year-old Eliyanna Andam yesterday (September 27) in Croydon have been speaking of the harrowing scenes that they saw.
One mother had just dropped her children at school and witnessed the moments after Eliyanna was stabbed to death in Croydon. The mother, who only gave her name as Iman, told the PA news agency: “I was driving past when I noticed that somebody was lying down on the floor.
"I drove round, parked up and tried to get as close as I could. Two young girls were saying it was a young lady and she had been stabbed in the neck. “I haven’t really slept properly, because I still have that image of her lying there.”
Eliyanna Andam, 15, was killed in the stabbing yesterday in Croydon whilst she made her way to school (Image: X)
The mother, from Streatham in south London, said she saw police officers at the scene take aside a bus driver who “looked like he was almost holding” the 15-year-old victim.
A woman who works opposite where a 15-year-old girl was stabbed to death in Croydon south London, has said she was “struck down in her prime”.
Filomena Merola laid flowers by the police tape on Thursday morning. The 57-year-old, who grew up in Croydon, said: “That young girl could not even go to school without being cut down.
“We all have young teenagers in our lives, in our families. It has just struck a chord.”
A 17-year-old boy was arrested nearby in connection with the murder and is still in custody this morning. He was being quizzed on suspicion of her murder.
The aunt of the Croydon teenager murdered on her way to school has spoken of the family’s “heartbreak.”
Eliyanna’s aunt Mariam spoke from the family home - a mere half mile from the crime scene. She said: “She wanted to be a lawyer. She went to a private school and had a great future ahead of her,” reports The Mirror.
Mariam continued: “My sister paid for her education. She was a lovely girl, loved gymnastics. She loved doing her hair. We are all devastated by this. We are a big family and we are all here for my sister. We are planning on putting out a further statement later. We can’t comprehend the heartbreak of the last 24 hours. She went to school and didn’t come home.”
Met Police Chief Superintendent Andy Brittain told reporters at the scene: "This is every parent's worst nightmare, and I know the officers who responded this morning, along with our emergency service colleagues, are devastated at the victim's death.
"This is an emotion I share and I know people across Croydon will be feeling the same. The victim's family has been informed and our thoughts are with them at what must be an incredibly difficult time."
Metropolitan Police has issued a full statement after a 15-year-old girl was stabbed to death on a Croydon school bus. A huge police response descended on Wellesley Road outside the Whitgift Centre at 8.30am this morning (Wednesday, September 27).
Chief Superintendent Andy Brittain, in charge of local policing, said: “Our immediate thoughts are with this young girl’s family who are facing the most tragic of news. Our officers are with the girl’s family to support them.
The scene of the stabbing in Croydon (Image: David Nathan/999London)
“I am in contact with the local community, who are clearly as concerned as we are about this tragic incident. I shall continue to update them throughout the day.
“My officers were immediately on scene to provide first aid and support paramedics. "Acting on information provided to them, officers also worked closely with colleagues from across the Met and the British Transport Police to track a teenager in connection with the stabbing. I can confirm that an arrest was made at about 09:45hrs in the Croydon area. At this early stage we believe that he may have known her.
“A crime scene will be in place for some time, and I am grateful for the cooperation of residents.”
London Mayor Sadiq Khan said he is "absolutely heartbroken" by the death of the 15-year-old girl this morning, and has urged anyone with information to contact the police.
Anyone who witnessed the attack or has information that can help officers is asked to call police via 101 quoting reference CAD 1601/27Sep. To remain anonymous contact Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111.
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A strike among refuse workers in Newham has been called off after a pay deal was reached. Members of the Unite union were due to walk out between September 25 and October 22, but now lower paid staff across the whole council will receive an extra £750 payment.
Originally 105 refuse workers from Newham rejected the national pay offer of a flat rate increase of £1,925. Union members secured improved terms and conditions on top of the Local Government Association national pay deal, with the £750 being given to all workers on grades one to three.
Unite said the deal reached at Newham "points the way" to a similar resolution at Tower Hamlets where workers are taking strike action for a month. Newham Council has also agreed to a continued retention payment to HGV drivers up to 2026; permanent jobs for agency workers in refuse department; to work with Unite to review the night shift premium and refuse worker grading; and improvements to local consultation processes.
The agreement means all bin collections and recycling services will operate as normal, Newham Council said. Abi Gbago, the authority's chief executive, said: "After intense negotiations, I am pleased to confirm that we have avoided industrial action that would have caused disruption and significant cost to the council at a time of real financial pressure.
"Through collaborative discussions we have been able to avert strike action and demonstrate our commitment to open consultation and the strength of our relationship with our workforce. I would like to thank Unite and all colleagues involved for working constructively and collaboratively to resolve this dispute.
"Whilst Unite continue to be in negotiation relating to the national annual pay deal they raised local matters which, if resolved, could put an end to the dispute and cease any action. We listened and were able to meet the majority of the requests made. We are determined to be an employer of choice and we will be completing a full review of employee terms and conditions later this year to ensure that we benchmark well and can attract and retain valued employees."
Unite's general secretary Sharon Graham said: "Unite members are staging a fightback. As a result, low paid workers across the whole of Newham Council have secured a payment of £750.
"It just goes to show what workers can achieve when supported with the full force of their union, Unite, and a council that is prepared to listen. This is a clear message to Tower Hamlets that the council has the power to end the ongoing strike."
A serious crash has closed part of Tottenham Court Road in central London this morning, September 25. The road was closed shortly before 7am, when a 'police incident' occurred on the busy main road.
Photos from the scene show a blue forensic tent erected near Lidl, just down from the entrance to Warren Street Underground Station. The road has been cordoned off for two blocks, from Euston Road down to Grafton Way.
According to one person who claimed to witness the incident, a "high speed chase" was involved. Rob, a witness to the incident, spoke to MyLondon, saying they heard a "huge bang" which "sounded like an accident". They said: "It made me feel sick." Below are the first photos from the scene.
This is a breaking news story, follow MyLondon for more information in our live blog below. Do you have any information or photos? Email anna.willis@reachplc.com.
Two people are fighting for their lives in hospital after a "serious" crash on a busy road just outside London this morning. The A308 Staines Bypass was shut in both directions following the incident that police say involved two individuals riding a motorcycle.
Surrey Police are now appealing for witnesses after being called to the area shortly before 2am. Officers reported at 9.04am that the route was closed between the Crooked Billet roundabout and the Fordbridge roundabout in both directions. The force added that it was likely to remain shut for the next few hours however at around 11.30am the road reopened.
A spokesperson added: "Two people have been taken to hospital for treatment to life-threatening injuries and remain in a stable condition. We are appealing for anyone who witnessed the collision, or with any information, including dashcam and helmet cam footage, to contact us straight away."
The traffic monitoring service Inrix reported earlier this morning: "A308 Staines Bypass in both directions closed due to accident investigation work from A30 London Road (Crooked Billet) to B377 Fordbridge Road (Fordbridge Roundabout). Following a serious accident involving a motorbike which happened at around 02:00 this morning."
Staines Bypass is on the A30 near the Surrey/London border just south of Heathrow Airport. The road leads to the M25 at Junction 13.
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