As we enter 2026, MyLondon is looking back at our stories which made a difference to the lives of ordinary people in the city
As we enter 2026, MyLondon is looking back at our stories which made a difference to the lives of ordinary people in the city. Some of our criminal investigations led to the Metropolitan Police pressing charges against people accused of terrorising their communities.
Our reporting has also led to a range of smaller scale wins which might not appear as important, but go a long way to support more vulnerable Londoners. This included pushing back against a Newham Council-owned developer which wanted to evict a foodbank before they could host their Christmas party.
In 2024 we launched the ‘Don’t cut the heart out of London’ campaign aimed at saving community spaces at risk of closure across the city. This got off to a flying start after a children’s adventure got the donations it needed just before Christmas, and continued to see success throughout 2025.
Whatever the story, none of it could be possible without you, our loyal readers. We’ll be continuing with the same agenda-setting journalism in 2026, so if you haven’t already, click here to make MyLondon one of your preferred sources on Google to see more of the stories you love. Here’s a quick recap on just some of what we’ve achieved in 2025.
1. Passion, hard work and £85k: How Croydon
Norbury Park Lawn Tennis Club was able to secure the cash they needed to their lease and prevent closure following a MyLondon campaign. First established in 1889, it’s one of the oldest tennis clubs in the world.
Committee member Blaise Westmaas told the Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS): “If we did not buy it from the council ourselves, it would have been a disaster because this place would have been under a new landlord. They could have quadrupled the rates for us and priced us out.”
The Croydon tennis club received £25k in donations from a GoFundMe page. Former tennis club members, some even living in the US, also pitched in with donations, while Surrey Tennis provided a loan to get them over the line.
2. Covent Garden gym saved and is set for £250k upgrade
A community hall and gym in Covent Garden has been saved after a leisure company stepped in to buy it.
Residents in Central London are still concerned the site could lose its community feel amid calls for a £250k upgrade, but GLL, which operates under the Better brand, said it’s committed to keep this in place.
3. Heavyweight boxer charged with 5 animal cruelty offences after MyLondon investigation into cat deaths
Alexander Warren has been brought before a court after a MyLondon investigation named him as a suspect linked to a series of gruesome cat deaths across South London earlier this year. The former heavyweight boxer appeared at Croydon Magistrates Court in October charged with causing unnecessary suffering to five cats and two dogs after a string of alleged attacks first reported by this newspaper in February. He denied all offences.
Warren from Tulse Hill, faces claims that he allowed dogs Bella and Prince to harm cats in Lambeth, Southwark, and Brixton on five occasions between November 2024 and February 2025. He appeared at Inner London Crown Court on November 7, and has been released on unconditional bail until March 15 2027 to attend another hearing at the same court.
During our investigation, we learned cats had long been welcome in Brixton Market as a form of pest control, and were loved by locals, street cleaners, and market traders.
4. Broken Homes
Much of our reporters’ focus this year was centred on our Broken Homes investigation into London’s housing crisis.
We’ll go into more detail on specific case studies below, but it involved highlighting issues such as poor-quality newbuilds, councils failing their tenants and homeless families being forced into disused office blocks outside London.
It was led by MyLondon Local Democracy Editor Dave Comeau, who worked with photographer Facundo Arrizabalaga and six reporters to deliver our longform campaign.
5. Trapped: How lift failures in London housing blocks are turning high rises into prisons
As part of the Broken Homes campaign we are calling for specific legislation that will require landlords to fix lifts within a set time frame. A joint MyLondon and Local Democracy Reporting Service investigation uncovered systemic issues with lift breakdowns that are trapping residents, sometimes for months at a time.
Now deceased, D-Day veteran Percy Chafer, aged 104, spent the last months of his long life battling lift failures that trapped him in his Pimlico home, while disabled Army veteran Hilary Hepburn spent months stranded inside her flat in Hounslow.
Rahma Yermak was unable to leave her Isle of Dogs flat for two weeks in the June heatwave because the broken lift meant she was unable to take her mother with dementia and daughter with Downs’ Syndrome outside.
The Mayor of London Sir Sadiq Khan has now backed our call for this as well as a London MP
6. London’s real life game of Monopoly secretly playing out as councils compete to buy up housing
Another key pillar of our Broken Homes campaign we are calling for a better system of cooperation between councils in England to stop this competition to buy up property which is just moving the issue – and people – around.
London councils are bearing the brunt of Britain’s housing crisis. With many homes lost due to the Right to Buy scheme introduced in the 1980s, boroughs have been forced onto the private market to purchase or rent homes for their homeless residents.
Due to surging house prices in the capital, many have been forced to look in other parts of England. Not only has this seen Londoners moved 275 miles away from friends and family, but it’s also affecting the supply of housing in areas where councils are facing their own difficulties.
7. London council ‘threatening to cut off water supply’ so foodbank will move into containers
Carpenters Cafe foodbank has been forced out of a community hall into a cramped set of containers by Newham Council.
This is due to plans to use the hall as a headquarters for the upcoming £1.4bn regeneration of the estate.
MyLondon backed the foodbank campaign to delay this. Although the move still went ahead, Newham Council allowed Carpenters Cafe to return to its former venue to host its annual Christmas party.
8. ‘Homosexuals are trying to groom me’: Jail for hate crime painter despite series of court blunders
When Rob’s boyfriend Piotr was attacked in the street for his sexuality, it felt like a battle to get the case taken seriously. Despite numerous blunders, with dropped charges and missing evidence, the attacker has finally been jailed following a MyLondon investigation.
James Billings, 41, got 18-weeks at Highbury Corner Magistrates on July 30, eight months after throwing a plank of plywood at Piotr Kwiecien outside Arsenal’s Emirates Stadium late at night on November 29, 2024.
A series of court blunders, such as a photo of Piotr’s head, went missing during court proceedings. This, in part, is why he was not prosecuted for ABH. The CPS said an alternative lesser charge of assault by beating was provided to ensure a conviction after assessing the available evidence.
9. Deaf West London mum in dangerous mice-infested flat is rehomed after we told her story
A deaf West London mum-of-three has finally been rehomed from a dangerous flat after we told her story. Stacey Watson had been living in a mice-infested, mouldy, property in Ealing that is riddled with fire hazards.
Despite years of pleading with her landlord and Ealing Council, she was not moved and the issues remained unresolved, despite the flat being considered ‘uninhabitable’… until we told her story. When speaking to MyLondon in February, Stacey said she felt she wasn’t taken seriously because she was deaf and easier to ignore.
The family has now been moved by Ealing Council from the dangerous, leaky, fire hazard two-bedroom flat to a new three-bedroom house. The LDRS had questioned and pressured Ealing Council to take action after years of delay.
10. Councillor apologises for parking £200k Lamborghini in disabled bay
A West London councillor has apologised after MyLondon revealed that a Lamborghini SUV belonging to him had parked in a disabled bay twice without a blue badge.
Cllr Farhaan Rehman, a member of Hounslow Labour, has also resigned from his position as Chair of the council’s Licensing and General Purposes Committee. He will also voluntarily donate £160 to the Mayor’s charity rather than be served a fine. This is the amount members of the public are usually fined in Hounslow for parking in a disabled bay without a blue badge on display.
The councillor initially did not respond to a request from the LDRS for comment. However on Monday (November 24) he said: “I have written to the Leader and Chief Executive to offer my apologies.
“Although this is not a public car park, I recognise that councillors should uphold the highest standards as elected representatives and that our actions should serve as a model for the behaviour we want to encourage throughout the borough.”
11. Builder’s heart surgery ‘lies’ exposed as customer shares bombshell evidence
A builder accused of cheating tens of thousands of pounds out of a customer by faking major heart surgery sent exactly the same hospital photos 640 days apart, new documents show.
John Pembridge-Hore, 61, was first exposed by a MyLondon investigation featuring two families who claimed their builder ran off with their cash after failing to complete the work on their homes in South West London and Surrey.
Though we suspected Pembridge-Hore had been dishonest about his medical issues to an Isleworth family in June 2025, we could not prove it. But after reading our story, Jonathan Woods, 43, stepped forward with evidence that proves Pembridge-Hore already wheeled out the same excuses almost two years prior in September 2023, including photos of chest and leg scars.
12. ‘Met Police the last bastion of cover-up when it comes to grooming gangs’
In a joint investigation with the Daily Express, MyLondon compiled public record evidence of child sexual exploitation network in the capital.
The Mayor of London Sir Sadiq Khan and the Metropolitan Police have consistently claimed to have “no reports” of Rochdale or Rotherham-style rape gangs in the capital, with Khan suggesting there was “no indication” of them.
But in the pages of four different His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services (HMIC) reports from 2016-2025, which the Mayor of London responded to, we found details of six potential victims.
Days after MyLondon and the Express contacted the Metropolitan Police for comment, the Commissioner appeared before the London Assembly and reversed the force’s longstanding stance it had “not seen” grooming gang cases in London.
Answering an off-topic question from a Labour Assembly Member, Sir Mark Rowley revealed the force has a “steady flow” of live multi-offender child sexual exploitation investigations, and a “very significant” number of cases that would need to be reinvestigated as a result of the Home Office’s grooming gangs review, requiring a cash injection from the Government.
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