London Centric

1 week ago | londoncentric.media | Jim Waterson

“It’s the police!” shouted Margaret Smorthit, when London Centric began asking questions of her husband Steve on the doorstep of their house. The reality, I explained, was worse: I was a journalist who wanted to know about a financial deal involving one of Banksy’s best known London artworks. Steve started to explain that he couldn’t discuss the issue.

1 week ago | londoncentric.media | Jim Waterson |Rachel Rees

There was a big response to Saturday’s piece about London’s vigilante tube cleaners, and the political movement behind them. (The comments section is still very much alive and well worth checking out.)A lot of people told us they wanted to know more about exactly why it is that London’s tube trains are suddenly covered in graffiti. Sometimes the simplest way to find out is just to ask – so today we have a chat with a tube maintenance worker, who explains it all.

2 weeks ago | londoncentric.media | Jim Waterson |Rachel Rees

Yesterday morning London Centric reporter Rachel Rees took the lift down to the platform at Lambeth North tube station, and joined a trio of young men wearing high-vis jackets emblazoned with the words “Doing What Sadiq Khant”. For the next hour, as commuters stared at their phones and tried to avoid making eye contact, the group (and Rachel) went up and down the Bakerloo line removing the graffiti that has plagued the trains on the route in recent months.

2 weeks ago | londoncentric.media | Jim Waterson

If London has a soundtrack for summer 2025 then it’s the beep beep beep of a stolen Lime e-bike approaching down a street. The high-pitched electronic noise is near-ubiquitous in the capital at the moment, as the company struggles to find a technical solution after the capital’s ever-resourceful teenagers pioneered a new way to use the vehicles for free. Scroll down to read why it happens — and what Lime are doing to fix it.

3 weeks ago | londoncentric.media | Jim Waterson

We’ve been busy at London Centric working on some chunky investigations that are coming up over the next few weeks. While we keep our lawyers busy, we’ve got a few stories for you today, including the curious story about a man who set up a beloved indie cinema in east London that was once named the best in the country — but now wants to knock it down, taking on outraged locals. Scroll to the end for the row over the Genesis cinema, or first read a selection of other bits from across the capital.