
‘Most haunted pub in Prestatyn' re-opens doors with new name
Dubbed 'the most haunted pub in Prestatyn', it has been taken on by Ali Akbar, and had its 'soft opening' last Friday (July 11).
Ali, 50, and originally from Bradford, said he decided to name the pub after the 'White Lady of Prestatyn', the subject of a famous ghost story in the town – who Ali said he met last week.
Ali Akbar (Image: Submitted) He said: 'The White Lady of Prestatyn is the most famous ghost in Prestatyn. I saw her one last night last week, saw decided to name pub after her.
'I am a ghost merchant of Prestatyn now – I'm not as doolally as people think, believe me!
'At night, we have ghosts in the pub windows. I'm hopeful that she's going to come back - the feedback we've had so far has been amazing.
'This place has had a chequered past; it's been closed and gone through many landlords, but have no fear – 'Doolally Ali' is here!'
Outside The White Lady Beer House (Image: Submitted) The pub's beer garden has been refurbished, while Ali stocked, licenced and staff the pub in less than three days.
It is now open seven days a week from 12pm, with last orders at 2am, and serves a range of real ales and lagers.
Food, including curries and jacket potatoes, started being served yesterday (July 17), and a barbecue unit will be set up for Saturday, when the pub will also open early for Prestatyn Carnival.
Ali, who has been running pubs for nearly 30 years, said: 'I want it to be a very, very lively community pub.
'As far as I'm concerned, Prestatyn needs it.'

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Telegraph
6 days ago
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No-fault evictions surge under Labour
The number of 'no-fault' evictions has surged under Labour as landlords rush to free up properties ahead of rent reforms that will ban the practice. So-called Section 21 evictions enforced by bailiffs rose by 8pc in the 12 months since Sir Keir Starmer was handed the keys to Downing Street, new figures show. Section 21 notices allow landlords to force renters out during their tenancy without needing a specified reason. It comes after Rushanara Ali, the Government's homelessness minister, was forced to resign after it was revealed she evicted tenants at her London property before increasing the rent. There were 11,402 repossessions by county court bailiffs following a Section 21 notice in the year to June, up from 10,576 from the previous 12 months, according to Ministry of Justice figures. The notices are served on tenants by landlords to begin the process of regaining possession of a property despite their shorthold tenancy not having expired. Under Labour's Renters' Rights Bill, landlords will need to apply for a hearing before they can evict a tenant. During the same period, there were 30,729 uses of fast-track evictions. These are available to landlords when a tenant has not left the property by a specified date. This was a slight drop from 32,103 in the preceding 12 months. A spokesman for the National Residential Landlord Association said: 'It is concerning that the number of bailiff repossessions relating to no-fault proceedings is increasing at a time when claims, orders warrants, and overall repossessions are decreasing year on year according to the Ministry of Justice's latest statistics. 'This illustrates that, even after receiving a court order to leave a property, tenants are opting to wait until they are removed by a bailiff. This is not in the interest of households or landlords, all of whom will have to endure additional stress and costs associated with evictions.' Last week Ms Ali quit her role as homelessness minister amid claims she gave tenants at a property she owned in east London four months' notice to leave before relisting the property with a £700 rent increase within weeks. Ms Ali's house was put up for sale while the tenants were living there, and it was only relisted as a rental because it had not sold, according to the i newspaper. Her actions went against Labour's flagship Renters' Rights Bill, which is in the final stages of becoming law, and introduces stronger protections for tenants. Once the law comes in, landlords who evict their tenants in order to sell their property will be banned from relisting it as a rental for six months. Instead, buy-to-let owners will only be able to evict for a very limited number of reasons, using a Section 8 notice, which requires a court hearing. The bill will also introduce a 12-month protected period from eviction at the start of a tenancy. Mairi MacRae, from homelessness charity Shelter, said: 'It is unconscionable that more than a year after the Government came to power, thousands of renters continue to be marched out of their homes by bailiffs because of an unfair policy that the Government said would be scrapped immediately.' A government spokesman said: 'No one should live in fear of a Section 21 eviction and these new figures show exactly why we will abolish them through our Renters' Rights Bill, which is a manifesto commitment and legislative priority for this Government. 'We're determined to level the playing field by providing tenants with greater security, rights and protections in their homes and our landmark reforms will be implemented swiftly after the Bill becomes law.'


Telegraph
10-08-2025
- Telegraph
France's last newspaper hawker to be honoured by Macron
France's last newspaper hawker is to be awarded one of the country's highest honours by Emmanuel Macron. Ali Akbar will be decorated in September with the National Order of Merit by the French president, who was once a former customer. Mr Akbar has sold newspapers in the tiny Saint-Germain-des-Prés neighbourhood of Paris, historically an intellectual and artistic hub, for over 50 years. 'When he [Macron] was a student at Sciences Po, he used to offer me coffee or a glass of red wine,' Mr Akbar told lifestyle magazine Beau. 'But now that he's president, I see less of him.' The order of merit medal recognises those who have rendered 'distinguished service' in either military or civilian life, for a minimum of 10 years of activity. Mr Akbar, 73, is the last of a dying breed. When he arrived in Paris from his native Pakistan in the 1970s, he was one of 40 street newspaper vendors. Business was booming, he said. 'When I first started, after an hour, I could sell a stack of 80 copies of Le Monde,' he told Le Media Positif. 'Now, I sell 30 copies in 10 hours. It's because of the internet.' For his one-man business, Mr Akbar buys copies of the Le Monde newspaper at a local kiosk and keeps half the sale price, earning about €60 (£52) a day. But Mr Akbar is not just a newspaper hawker. For residents, his well-known sense of humour and good nature make him a beloved neighbourhood character. Every day, he racks up an average of eight miles on foot, pounding the pavement in search of customers. His regular rounds include the literary cafés of Saint-Germain-des-Prés such as Café de Flore and Les Deux Magots, which once attracted the French intelligentsia including Jean-Paul Sartre, Albert Camus, and Simone de Beauvoir as well as expat writers like Ernest Hemingway and Oscar Wilde. A gallerist, who has been buying newspapers from Mr Akbar for 22 years, praised the street vendor for his 'loyalty, his smile, his kindness' and also the 'poetry that he asserts in the streets that no one understands sometimes'. The poetry in question refers to Mr Akbar's sales strategy, which involves putting his own humorous, sarcastic and sometimes sensational slant on the day's headlines. 'It's official. Marine Le Pen is no longer racist,' he bellows out to amused coffee drinkers outside the local cafés. Or, 'They found the vaccine,' he says laughing. 'The Arabs, they did it with harissa.' Mr Akbar left Pakistan at the age of 20 hoping to help lift his large family out of poverty. His journey took him through Afghanistan, Iran, the Netherlands, Greece, on a cruise ship where he cleaned floors, and finally to Rouen and Paris. After stumbling on newspaper hawkers in the French capital, a job he held as a 12-year-old boy back in Pakistan, he gave it a go despite not knowing French. The first paper he sold was the satirical publication Charlie Hebdo, which poked fun at the pope on the cover, a realisation that drew horror when a student translated the cover for him in English. 'And here I was like an idiot yelling, Charlie Hebdo, Charlie Hebdo,' he told media outlet Konbini. 'I was scared because back in my country, if you say one word against Islam, they can kill you. When I saw this, I thought, 'This is strange.'' In 1980, he married a Pakistani woman with whom he shares five children, one of whom is autistic, and another suffers from physical ailments, according to The New York Times. Mr Akbar also explained that his decision to stay in a business that had long petered out and was no longer lucrative, was to remain his own boss. 'I love my freedom,' he told Konbini. 'No one tells me what to do. In Pakistan I was exploited. Savagely. That's why I never wanted to be exploited again.' Now on a minimum pension, he said he no longer sells newspapers for the money, but for the joy of making people smile. 'I love making people laugh, so that they live in joy.'


Metro
09-08-2025
- Metro
'The system is at a breaking point' Inside London's housing crisis
London's chronic housing crisis remains a hot topic after the resignation of the homelessness minister, Rushanara Ali. The MP resigned on Thursday after being accused of being a 'hypocrite' for raising the rent at her property by £700. Ali was accused of getting rid of four tenants in her townhouse in Bow, east London, before relisting the property for more money shortly after. Her office insisted the house was relisted for rent only after no buyer was found, and that the tenants were not evicted, but were given the option to stay while the property was up on the market. The previous tenants paid £3,300 for the home, and the rent was upped to £4,000 when it was relisted, the i Paper reported. The rent rise highlights the endemic issues plaguing people in London – unaffordable rents, lack of houses, homelessness, and damp and mould. Here is a roundup of what is going on with housing in London. Millions of people are renting from private landlords in the capital – around 2.7 million. And it is not a cheap affair as 37.9% of Londoners' income goes towards rent, figures from HomeLet show. It can be difficult to even find a rented home as properties are being snatched within minutes of adverts going up, with homes often going to those able to pay several months' worth of rent upfront which can decimate savings and lead to debt. People face a toxic cocktail of rising rents and fewer available homes, causing people to move out of London in droves. Only around 5% of privately rented homes in London are considered affordable for people in receipt of a housing benefit, according to Trust for London. Leaving London has become a dream for many young people trapped in expensive city living, but the exact number of people escaping is difficult to nail down. Outmigration from London reached 5.7% last year, according to analysis from real estate company Hamptons, which is still lower than the 8.2% peak in 2022, when almost 250,000 people are estimated to have left the capital. While the coronavirus pandemic saw a momentary fall in rent prices, the average rent in the capital has crept back up. Across the UK, nearly half of renters – around 1.7 million – are just one paycheque away from being homeless. Housing experts have warned that the crisis in London is spiralling out of control. The cost-of-living crisis has meant that many, especially those on low incomes or working in precarious jobs, have not been able to make ends meet, the charity Crisis has said. Latest figures from the Combined Homelessness and Information Network (CHAIN) reveal that 4,392 people slept rough in London between April and June this year – a 4% increase on the previous year. Rick Henderson, the chief executive of Homeless Link charity, which works directly with people experiencing homelessness, told Metro: 'It is appalling that so many lives are being destroyed by being pushed into rough sleeping, in London and across the country. This data is yet more proof that too many people are being trapped on the streets and that the current support system is at breaking point.' Thousands more people are also hidden homeless – instead of sleeping on the streets, they are living in temporary accommodation, hostels, sofa surfing or in overcrowded conditions, often out of sight. The Rushanara Ali story sparked thousands of reactions from Metro readers, with many calling her to be sacked or to resign, which Ali did so on Thursday. Liba Kaucky said it was 'quite right too' of her to resign, saying that the rent increase was 'an outrageous thing to do.' Christine Browne commented on the increased rent: 'I live in Bow, it's not worth that rent I can tell you that for nothing.' Jan Oons said: 'Maybe politicians should not be receiving any income other than their parliamentary wage to avoid any conflict of interests?' Stephen Locking said: 'Broken housing industry.' Stephen Wilde commented: 'We've the same problem Ireland, sitting politicians shouldn't be allowed be landlords. Conflict of interest in making big decisions will always be an issue.' Mike Dixon defended the MP, saying she 'wanted to sell the property with vacant possession: fair enough.' 'After not selling she has put it back out for rental. Perhaps she did not increase the rent of previous tenants and now was charging market rate.' Mark Coleman said: 'Nothing she did was illegal.' Rob Kavanagh said: 'She gave them four months notice and there's been no overreach of ministerial powers, nothing to see here. Leave the woman alone.' Sara Jane said: 'Well, reading the article she didn't make them homeless, they rented for a fixed term and were offered to stay longer which they declined. Whilst I don't think people like her are in the right job sounds like she didn't do anything wrong. Should private landlords exist, well, if they didn't and you can't afford a mortgage and can't get a council house, where else are you going to live other than the streets? It's a difficult one. The real issues are holiday homes not houses that are rented out.' Susan Marmon said: 'It's also that young renters or first time renters need guarantors that earn over £35,000 per year AND have at least 2 months rent available in cash! In some places it's even more! No wonder there's such a housing crisis.' London Councils, the group representing boroughs, estimated that over 183,000 Londoners, including 90,000 children, live in temporary hostels arranged by their council. The group warned that London councils are forecast to spend more than £900 million on homelessness services in 2024/25 – a £330 million overspend. London has as many a 12,500 hidden homeless people each night, the Greater London Authority estimates. Hidden homelessness is thought to disproportionately affect women and young people aged 16 to 25. Young LGBTQ+ people are at particular risk, with almost 136,000 people aged 16-24 homeless in 2022/23. Nearly a quarter of them are LGBTQ+, according to akt. Mayor of London Sadiq Khan has vowed to end rough sleeping in the capital by 2030. With £17 million from the government, he plans to refurbish 500 empty homes and launch a homelessness hubs to offer support to new rough sleepers. Meanwhile, the government has said it is taking urgent action to end homelessness after inheriting 'a serious housing crisis' from its predecessor. It is pumping £1 billion for councils' homelessness services across the country, with London boroughs given a funding uplift of £78 million. While Ali's spokesperson has insisted that the tenants were not evicted but were told their tenancy would not continue beyond the fixed-term, this is generally called a 'no fault eviction.' Mairi MacRae, the director of campaigns and policy at Shelter, said: 'Labour made a cast-iron manifesto commitment to 'immediately' ban no-fault evictions when they came to power. It beggars belief that after months of dither and delay, the government's own Homelessness Minister has profited from the underhand tactics the Renters' Rights Bill is meant to outlaw. 'This story serves as a damning reminder that the cards are fundamentally stacked against renters. Unscrupulous landlords cannot be allowed to continue the practice of 'fire and rehire' evictions, where they slap renters with a Section 21 only to hike up the rent a few months later and relet the property at a higher price. 'The government has the power to prevent this, and renters cannot wait any longer for meaningful change. It must make good on its manifesto commitment by passing the Renters' Rights Bill as soon as possible and name an implementation date so renters have certainty on when no-fault evictions will finally be relegated to the history books.' It means landlords do not need to prove that the tenants have done anything wrong to end a lease at its fixed-term end date by giving two months' notice to the occupants. Officially, it is known as a Section 21 notice. The Renters' Rights Bill, which will become law next year, is set to reform this by abolishing no-fault evictions. However, landlords' representatives have warned that the plans to scrap the Section 21 rule has caused many landlords to race to get possession of properties before the abolition, which could reduce the number of homes available to rent. While tenants in London might have a roof over their heads, it doesn't guarantee quality. Around 1.1 million private rented homes in the UK didn't meet the decent homes standard in 2022/23, according to the official English Housing Survey. This includes hazards like damp, mould and excessive cold. London housing activist Kwajo Tweneboa has been campaigning over standard homes plaguing tenants living in social housing after his own experience of living in 'slum conditions' with his dad who had cancer. Kwajo said he started posting on social media about the mould and damp-riddled conditions because 'I was angry to find out people were dying in their homes – from asthma, skin conditions and other illnesses related to damp, mould and disrepair,' he told the Guardian. He told New Statesman: 'It's hard to even describe some of the conditions I've seen people living in and subjected to. I've been in homes where I've had to cover my shoes with Sainsbury's bags before I went in because they were absolutely flooded with raw sewage… [I've seen] cockroaches, mice, ceilings collapsing, leaks… the list could go on. It's endless.' More and more private landlords have sold up and exited the sector, with analysis by Trust for London showing 45,000 rental homes were lost between 2021 and 2023. Ben Beadle, the chief executive of the National Residential Landlords Association, said: 'Private renters across London are facing the brunt of the housing crisis. The shortage of homes to rent is a one-way street toward higher rents and even less choice for tenants. 'London needs more of all types of housing, and that has to include homes for private rent. It's high time for policies that support investment in the homes renters desperately need.' There is also a lack of new homes, which the government has pledged to fix with 1.5 million new homes built in England by the next general election. London alone needs around 88,000 new homes over the next decade to meet demand, according to the City Hall. The Mayor said on Tuesday that work has started to build over 8,000 new homes, thanks to his land fund, five years ahead of the schedule. Deputy Prime Minister and Housing Secretary, Angela Rayner, said: 'We're facing a housing crisis which has stopped our young people from achieving the dream of homeownership, especially in London where there is a real demand to build the affordable homes we need. More Trending 'That's why we welcome the Mayor of London pushing ahead to build these homes, and we will continue to work hand-in-hand with him to deliver on our stretching target of 1.5 million homes through our Plan for Change.' The London skyline is changing rapidly with brand-new high-rise developments being built left, right and centre. However, many of the apartments will be out of reach for many people despite the London Plan mandating that 35% of all new housing developments have to be affordable. The affordability rule has been criticised for not being genuinely affordable. Shelter said that in 42% of local authorities in England, the 'so-called affordable rent is in fact unaffordable.' Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at webnews@ For more stories like this, check our news page. MORE: What I Own: We paid £125,000 for our London houseboat — we charge our lodger £1,200 a month MORE: Banksy London Map shows where to see street artist's best graffiti MORE: The Minister for Homelessness' gaffe has proved MPs should never be landlords