Latest news with #Lewisham
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
The Lewisham pubs that are an asset of community value to locals
Lewisham is home to a number of pubs recognised as assets to the local community. The ACV designation, under the Localism Act 2011, allows communities to nominate buildings or land that further the social wellbeing or interests of the local population. Once registered, owners must inform the council if they intend to sell, giving community groups the opportunity to bid for the property. Alongside the three pubs currently open for business, The Baring Hall Hotel in Grove Park is also currently registered with an ACV, although it has been closed since 2020, as well as The White Hart and The Dirty South which also both closed that year. Here's a closer look at three Lewisham pubs that have earned this status. The Bell, Sydenham 59 Bell Green, SE26 5SJ Registered since 2019 by the Sydenham Society, The Bell has been a long-standing local pub that has served Sydenham for generations since it opened in the 19th century. The Bell has been a long-standing local pub that has served Sydenham for generations. (Image: Google) The pub was awarded an ACV after being nominated by The Sydenham Society, recognising it for its historical significance and as a community space and meeting point for locals. The Perry Hill, Catford 78-80 Perry Hill, SE6 4EY Another pub nominated by The Sydenham Society, formerly named The Two Brewers, this pub was added to the list on account of its community-focused program and role in revitalising the area. This pub was added to the list on account of its community-focused program and role in revitalising the area. (Image: Google) Today the pub offers an outdoor beer garden and space for events and is valued for supporting local creatives. The Birds Nest, Deptford 32 Deptford Church Street, SE8 4RZ Known for its eclectic music scene and artistic flair, The Birds Nest has been a part of the community for decades. (Image: Google) Known for its eclectic music scene and artistic flair, The Birds Nest has been a part of the community for decades, offering a creative space for artists and musicians. It was nominated as an asset by The Deptford Society in 2020, who highlighted its cultural significance as well as its accessibility to a wide cross-section of the local community.
Yahoo
5 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Thousands in Lewisham could be owed millions in council tax refunds
You could be entitled to claim council tax according to a new FOI, which revealed that Lewisham Council currently holds nearly £8 million in overpaid council tax. An information request to Lewisham Council revealed that a total of £7,863,925.04 (between 2000 and 2025) remains unclaimed across 57,977 households. The figure represents 25 years of overpaid council tax, with credits left on closed or inactive accounts during that timeframe. The figures, released in response to a Freedom of Information request, show that many residents could unknowingly be entitled to refunds worth hundreds of pounds. The unclaimed money dates to the year 2000 and includes overpayments made as recently as 2025. Between the year 2000 and 30 June 2025, Lewisham Council collected £2,686,604,331 in council tax, and the amount currently left in unclaimed credits represents 0.2927 per cent of that total. According to Lewisham Council, 67.89 per cent of council tax accounts are paid by Direct Debit as of June 30, 2025. Of the total £7,863,925.04 in overpaid council tax held by Lewisham Council, 18.2 per cent relates to the last three years, at £1,433,477.29. In the 2023 financial year, £573,502.38 was overpaid, representing 0.0213 per cent of all council tax collected between 2000 and 2025. This increased in 2024, with £802,060.72 in overpayments, equating to 0.0299 per cent of the total collected. In the first half of 2025 alone, a further £57,914.19 was recorded as overpaid, making up 0.0022 per cent. The majority of Lewisham's council tax accounts are paid by Direct Debit. As of June 30, 2025, 67.89 per cent of all council tax accounts used Direct Debit as the primary payment method. In most cases, overpayments made via Direct Debit are refunded automatically, however refunds can be missed if an account is closed - such as when a resident moves house - or if payment details are no longer up to date. A Lewisham Council spokesperson said: "Lewisham Council is committed to ensuring our council tax collection processes are transparent and fair. "We appreciate that overpayments may occur from time to time for a variety of reasons. When this happens, residents can be sure that any overpaid council tax is accounted for and can be refunded upon request. "Anyone who believes they may have overpaid or who wishes to query a council tax bill should get in touch using our dedicated online form. "We review every claim and, where a refund is warranted, payments are processed within 20 working days. In many cases refunds are sent automatically once an overpayment is identified."
BBC News
6 days ago
- BBC News
Habiba Naveed detained for killing landlord and his cat
A woman who said she had been "sent to eliminate evil from the world" after she killed her landlord and his cat has been given an indefinite hospital Naveed, 35, admitted the manslaughter of lawyer Christopher Brown who she attacked at the home they shared in Lewisham, south-east London, on 14 August 2024. His cat Snow was found with a stab wound to the Old Bailey heard that following the attacks, she told her brother she was Jesus, and later told police "the devil attacked me last night and I won".Naveed, who has paranoid schizophrenia, was "psychotic", and her mental health had "deteriorated" in the days before the attack, the court heard. Prosecutor Kerry Broome told the court Naveed believed she had connections to the royal family and was the daughter of Diana, Princess of Wales and Dodi Fayed. 'Slept in coffins' After the attack, Naveed told her brother "she was Jesus and had been sent to eliminate evil from the world", and later said to police "the devil attacked me last night and I won," Ms Broome court heard Naveed had told police she "slept in coffins", and Jesus had raised her from the Broome said of a previous account of the attack given by the defendant: "She believed she had seen the deceased kill his mother and that the deceased was evil.""She heard a voice telling her to kill him three times," the prosecutor said, adding Naveed hit Mr Brown with a pan and then strangled him."She believed the evil spirit had jumped out of the deceased and into the cat. She got a knife and she cut the cat," Ms Broome Metropolitan Police launched an investigation after Mr Brown's body was discovered under a dressing gown in the living room of the home they shared.A post-mortem examination found he had died from blunt-force trauma. Family concern The pair had lived together at Polsted Road for several years, during which Mr Brown was persuaded to put the property, which he had inherited from his parents, in both his and Naveed's names, the prosecutor house was refurbished and lodgers were taken in, which Naveed orchestrated, the court the days leading up to the attack, Naveed's family were concerned at the state of her mental health, leading them to call 111 and an ambulance, the hearing was sentencing, Judge Sarah Munro KC said two psychiatrists agreed on the diagnosis of paranoid schizophrenia and that Naveed had "no insight" into her mental health, diagnosis or repeatedly became aggressive during previous hospital admissions and had been off her prescribed medication for a year at the time of the killing, the court defendant was a frequent user of cannabis which exacerbated her symptoms but did not cause her psychosis, according to psychiatrists, the judge said. 'Kind man' In a tearful statement, an unnamed colleague from Mr Brown's law firm told the hearing the victim would have helped anyone if he could."He wasn't just a 72-year-old-man tragically killed by his housemate, he was a solicitor, a boss, a partner, a kind man," she a statement read out by Ms Broome, Mr Brown's cousin described him as a "kind and caring person" who would go out of his way to help his family and his attended the hearing via video-link and only spoke to confirm her identity. Judge Munro imposed a hospital order under Section 37 of the Mental Health Act and a restriction order under Section 41 - meaning Naveed can be detained indefinitely.
New York Times
7 days ago
- Entertainment
- New York Times
Jim Legxacy Makes Music That Sounds Like Memory
When it came time to share the release announcement for his new album earlier this month, Jim Legxacy was sitting on the bulbous black leather couch inside his family's modest apartment in the Lewisham area of London, posting the info himself. For a few minutes, he was fully absorbed in his phone. 'My head is on fire, bro,' he gasped, excited at the intensity of the response. Texts and calls were coming in. His Discord channel was losing it. Bingo, the family's mini dachshund, wandered around the room, looking for a rope to gnaw on. 'I'm not a celebrity yet — I'm still on the ground level,' he said a little bit later in the afternoon, getting some air after the thrill of sharing the news had subsided a touch. He was dressed plainly, all in black, no extravagances besides a crisp pair of red and black Nike Shox R4. 'I still live here. I'm with the people, so it's like why would I try to like auramaxx, or like, try and pretend there's a gap, bro? There's not a gap.' And yet just a couple of weeks earlier, Legxacy, 25, had been walking these same streets alongside Dave, one of the country's most revered rappers, filming scenes for the video for '3x,' their collaboration from Legxacy's new album, 'Black British Music (2025).' 'They was in shock,' he said of his neighbors. 'It was like Tupac, bro, it was mad.' Being able to bring one of England's biggest stars to a quiet street in southeast London would suggest that Legxacy — born James Olaloye — already has capacities far beyond the circumstances of his raising. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
The Guardian
17-07-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Jim Legxacy: Black British Music review
On Father, the first single to be taken from Jim Legxacy's third mixtape, the listener is offered a vivid image from the author's past. The teenage James Olaloye, as he was then, is on the streets of Lewisham, the south-east London borough where he grew up. He is 'rolling up a blunt, scheming for the funds … trying to come up off the roads on my own two / I never had a father'. Inevitably, this means he's up to no good: 'Making money off a phone … a key's what they want.' It's a familiar scenario in the world of UK rap, a genre in which you seldom want for bleak descriptions of the life its stars have left behind on often deprived council estates. But in the case of Father, it comes with a small, but striking detail. 'On the block,' he attests, 'I was listening to Mitski.' The self-examining sad-girl alt-pop of Mitski is an intriguing accompaniment for the lifestyle he's describing. But in Jim Legxacy's case, it makes sense. His rise has been a deeply unorthodox one, buoyed up by music that suggests he is almost entirely uninterested in the way things are usually done. You would broadly have described his 2021 mixtape Citadel as UK rap, but it sounded like UK rap that was fraying at the edges: the backing tracks frequently unravelling; his aggressive flow occasionally dropping out of the mix entirely, or suddenly scrambled until unintelligible. His contemptuous boasts were abruptly disrupted by guitar-driven tracks on which the mask slipped and he sang, in a sweet, plaintive voice, lyrics expressing a strikingly raw vulnerability that seemed to have more to do with emo than hip-hop. In 2023, Homeless N*gga Pop Music leaned even further into the latter mode. Featuring more singing than rapping, it pitched grumbling electric guitars against chattering Afrobeats-inspired rhythms and Miley Cyrus samples, the overall mood heartbroken and despairing. It really didn't sound like anything else, including Sprinter, the huge hit single Legxacy co-wrote and co-produced for Central Cee and Dave the same year. You might expect his debut mixtape for an actual label to be even more heartsore and introspective, not least because the first track, Context, details what has happened to Legxacy since Homeless N*gga Pop Music's release: his sister died, his mother suffered two strokes, his track Candy Reign (!) was removed from streaming services after a copyright dispute. These events clearly have an impact on the record. But the adversity seems to have spurred him on. Black British Music is brighter, poppier, bolder in its stylistic leaps, lurching without warning from idiosyncratic pop R&B – laced with sped-up vocal samples that inevitably evoke Kanye West's early 'chipmunk soul' productions – to the alt-rock of '06 Wayne Rooney. The song New David Bowie tempers a series of head-scrambling musical jump cuts with a succession of nagging hooks. It feels like the work of someone who has grown up with the all-you-can-eat buffet of streaming as standard, hurling contrasting ideas and inspirations at you in a way that recalls someone continually pressing fast-forward in a state of excitement. There are booming, distorted beats worthy of the Chemical Brothers, a hint of Frank Ocean about Legxacy's vocals, staccato strings on SOS, bedroom pop on Dexters Phone Call, the latter a collaboration with singer-songwriter Dexter in the Newsagent. It's a risky approach. That it doesn't result in an annoying mess comes down to Legxacy's skills as a producer, which allow him to weave it all into something coherent, and to his songwriting. He turns out to be far more adept at nagging melodies than you might have thought given the hazier approach of his previous mixtapes. There's often something unplaceable and confounding about the results: the cascade of keyboards, vintage soul samples, restless beats and panicked-sounding rapping on the amazingly titled I Just Banged a Snus in Canada Water contrives to be thrillingly intense and euphorically poppy at the same time. A voiceover regularly booms out between and even during tracks, telling you how wonderful the music you're listening to is: 'Somebody tell that bastard to turn that mediocre bullshit off – we're listening to Jim Legxacy now.' It's surplus to requirements: a unique world constructed out of an array of musical fragments, the mixtape doesn't need cheerleading. But perhaps Legxacy does. 'I've always been scared of being myself,' he sings over the acoustic guitars and scraping strings of Issues of Trust. Without wishing to minimise the difficulties he's overcome – or indeed what he has to say about Black masculinity, a regular theme in his work – you hear that line amid Black British Music's giddy rush of sound and think: you could have fooled me. Jessie Murph – Heroin An orchestrated ballad that starts out stately, as if Lana Del Rey relocated to the deep south, but then takes off into raw-throated catharsis, to stunning effect.
