Earlier this week the Mayor opened London's largest new park since the 2012 Olympics. It's Springfield Park in Tooting, and given Sadiq went to school less than half a mile away he was surely* well chuffed. Springfield Park covers 32 acres around the rim of a new health campus, so is a substantial chunk of recreational space. It has grassy bits, wetland bits, humpy bits, wildflower bits and also a pavilion cafe for the purchase of coffee and croissants. It's not a cross-the-capital must-do but it is very pleasant and a proper local boon. It also has quite a history. Springfield Mental Hospital after WW1. At its peak it had over 2000 patients and also an adjacent dairy farm to keep several of them occupied. Parts of that farm were sold off for housing, then the remainder for a girls' secondary school and a 9-hole golf course. The Central London Golf Centre opened in 1992 (polo shirts and smart tops only) and proved a popular destination for inner city golfers, even Michael Aspel. You can perhaps see where this is heading. ageing buildings, so 15 years ago a decision was made to rebuild and restructure. A modern health campus was planned intermingled with over 1200 new homes, literally embedding mental health services within the community. What we have now is Springfield Village incorporating Springfield University Hospital... and on the site of the old golf course is Springfield Park. Springfield Village's focal point is Chapel Square, one side of which is the Victorian hospital chapel which is now occupied by a proper gymnasium (i.e. for doing gymnastics rather than grunting and pumping). The square would be a nice place to sit were most of it not occupied by a zigzagging ramp, leaving space for just three long concrete perches. What is nice is that those mingling outside the cafes could be medical staff, could be mental health patients or could be flat-owning professionals from around the corner, and everyone just gets on together, or at least appears to. The original hospital building still stands and from the park resembles a huge stately home with multiple branching wings. The NHS has entirely evacuated leaving room for an exclusive collection of luxury apartments, obviously, because something's got to help fund all this regeneration. It's been branded The 1840 to help emphasise its historic provenance, although only the central hub with 1 8 4 0 written in the brickwork is really that old and one wing should more accurately be called The 1874. More awkwardly it creates a vast gated enclave in the heart of Springfield Village, making it unnecessarily awkward for those in the plebbier flats on Springfield Drive to reach the park. wetland stripe along the western edge. I don't think these are converted water hazards, they're a bit deep for that, but I did spot dragonflies from the footbridge and also copious butterflies in the long grass alongside. One large grass oval is essentially an amphitheatre, or alternatively a picnic terrace, while a web of paths weaves throughout making this a good spot for a jog or stroll. The obligatory fitness circuit has been included, although each piece of apparatus is really no more than a few chunks of wood so probably cost the developers less than installing a couple of fitted kitchens. Intriguingly it is still the developers who have long-term responsibility for the park, Wandsworth council having turned down the offer of buying it for £1 because they couldn't afford the upkeep. A word about the local bus service. Route G1 has always dropped by, in a ridiculously contorted way, and back in May route 315 was extended to terminate here as well. Absurdly only one bus stop has been provided within the whole of Springfield Village, despite two being shown in the consultation documentation. Alas the proposed stop near Chapel Square never materialised, the pavement's edge instead occupied by parking bays, so the bus goes over 900m without stopping straight past where most people work and live. I don't know who didn't liaise with who but it is a criminal waste of public transport opportunity. look down towards a sensory garden, a cylindrical shelter, a playground area and the inevitable cafe which opened last Saturday. Toast Stores are offering a very limited menu at present but the pavilion was packed out yesterday suggesting Springfield Park's already sprung to life. * never risk a surely "This is an extremely disappointing decision and a slap in the face to thousands of local residents whose views have been disregarded by the Secretary of State, Eric Pickles," he said. "I am delighted to join the local community and pupils from my old primary school to open this incredible new park," he said. "Springfield Park is a great new facility and a key part of the transformation at Springfield Hospital that is providing much-needed affordable homes and green spaces for local people." But that's politics.

Yesterday Ofcom agreed to Royal Mail's request to deliver 2nd class mail slower and on fewer days. Great, said Royal Mail, we'll start doing just that from 28th July. You'll either have to post your letters and cards earlier or shrug and put up with it. a) Saturdays will be excluded The Saturday thing This means if you want a letter to arrive by Saturday, you'll have to readjust your posting date so it arrives by Friday. For example if someone you know has a birthday on Saturday 26th July, posting it three days before on Wednesday July 23rd should be adequate. But if someone you know has a birthday on Saturday 2nd August, it'll need to go in the box a day earlier on Tuesday 29th July. change won't affect letters posted on Sundays, Mondays and Tuesdays because these should continue to arrive before Saturday. But it will affect letters posted on Wednesdays, Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays, all of which should arrive later because Saturday's no longer a "working day". do still have to be collected on Saturdays and Royal Mail doesn't know which is which until they've been collected. However although 1st class letters will continue to enter the sorting process immediately, 2nd class letters can now be set aside on Saturday and sorted on Monday. The alternate weekdays thing Here's their graphic. Effectively Royal Mail will split their delivery routes into two halves, A and B. On any particular day only one or the other will get 2nd class deliveries. This means only half the staff will be needed, hence considerable savings. Previously you'd never go more than two days without a potential 2nd class delivery. Now you might go four days without one, with either Friday-Sunday or Saturday-Monday skipped each week. Also the A/B pattern won't always be rigidly stuck to. In weeks with a Bank Holiday Monday the same delivery pattern as last week will apply, so Week 1 will be followed by Week 1 or Week 2 by Week 2. It means the usual gap of '2 working days' will still apply, even if in reality that means no 2nd class post from Thursday to Tuesday or from Friday to Wednesday. The eased target thing At present Royal Mail have three potential days to deliver 2nd class mail and still hit their target. In the future they may have two potential delivery days or they may have just one, depending on which Week it is. For example a 2nd class letter posted on Monday could currently be delivered on Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday. In future the delivery window will either be Tuesday/Thursday or just Wednesday, which doesn't leave Royal Mail much room for error. 1st class targets are also being changed. Currently 93% should be delivered the next day and this is being reduced to 90%. Ofcom argues this should aid efficiencies and is still higher than comparable European countries. Again there's a new 'tail' target, specifically that 99% of 1st class mail be delivered in three days.  within 1 daywithin 3 dayswithin 5 days 1st class90% (was 93%)99% (new)  2nd class 95% (was 98.5%)99% (new) An example A few other snippets from the Ofcom consultation In summary Ofcom wants you to know two things... ✉ Unless there are 1st class or other priority letter or parcels for you, you will not receive letter deliveries on Saturday. ✉ Any 2nd class letters posted on Wednesday to Saturday may arrive a day later than now (excluding Sunday).

Often the best value travel comes from a rover ticket, and this is an absolute bargain. Senior Rover allows unlimited train travel on the c2c network beyond London, i.e. all the stations on this map, for the measly sum of £7. It can only be used after 9.30am on weekdays, not at weekends, and a £10 option also exists allowing travel into London too. Full terms and conditions here. The man in the ticket office at Upminster didn't ask for proof I was eligible, merely glanced at a flash of railcard, maybe even didn't look at all. Ockendon → Little Belhus Country Park (add photo) postwar estate I headed west, past the Next depot, toward the former landfill site. It's now Little Belhus Country Park, a half-open partly-decontaminated scrubland sprawling down to the M25. A few hardcore paths stretch off to a big loop round a reptile-friendly wetland area, although I didn't manage to get that far, only to the scattered logs, stacked tyres and fenced-off turbine. It's all a bit bleak frankly, also I'm a bit nervous of a park that says "keep to the designated path at all times", although it might be a decent dog-walking loop if you've already done all the nicer local circuits. If nothing else the daisies are great at the moment, there must be tens of thousands across the lumpy crust of hard-baked topsoil, and essentially there is nothing else. My Senior Rover opened the ticket gates no problem. Chafford Hundred → Thames View Hill (add photo) My Senior Rover failed to open the ticket gates. A member of gateline staff let me out, no questions asked, and someone in the ticket office pressed a button to let me back in. Grays → Grays Beach Riverside Park (add photo) My Senior Rover failed to open the ticket gates. The bloke on the gate said he'd never heard of it and was bemused it didn't show a destination, but I talked my way through (and back in again). Tilbury → Civic Square (add photo) cruise terminal, Windrush jetty and Tilbury Fort but that was too far to hike in the time available. Instead I walked to the heart of the real Tilbury, the shops at Civic Square, at the centre of the lowly web of streets built for dockers and portworkers. I passed bleach-blonde mums with pushchairs, baked-bronze blokes in t-shirts, hopeful ladies standing in the doorways of their empty shops and vaping teens loitering outside shuttered takeaways. By contrast Civic Square looked well-scrubbed with recently-revamped parking spaces, bright paving and pedestrianisation continuing apace around the war memorial. It's all part of a £23m grant from the last government's Town Fund, not that it worked because they came third at the General Election behind Labour and Reform. To better understand downtrodden Britain, come to Tilbury. My Senior Rover failed to open the ticket gates but another gate was open so I just walked out. By the time I got back the gateline was staffed again, and he knew exactly what I was clutching. East Tilbury → Bata Factory (add photo) Modernist houses exists between Coalhouse Fort and Mucking Landfill, located here because in 1932 Czech shoe magnate Thomas Bata chose this site for his first British factory. Once 300 high streets had a Bata shoeshop but foreign imports inevitably led to the factory closing in 2006, and the landmark buildings are now marooned inside a private industrial park. I got inside in 2016 as part of the inaugural Essex Architecture Weekend, but on this occasion got no further than Thomas's statue on a parched lawn outside his main office and leather factory. If you do decide to follow in my footsteps read the council's Conservation Area plan first and enjoy exploring properly. My Senior Rover failed to open the ticket gates again and I was beginning to feel somewhat oppressed. Nevertheless the member of staff opened the adjacent gate and let me out without checking what I'd used. Stanford-le-Hope → town centre loop (add photo) There are no gates on the eastbound platform, only pads, so my Senior Rover proved unnecessary. Pitsea → Pitsea Mount (add photo) My Senior Rover failed to open the ticket gates again. I pushed through the sidegate instead, and on the way back in the bloke in the ticket office gestured that I should push through the sidegate again so I did. Basildon → Town Square (add photo) in 2018. The anchor department store is now a shell with DEBEN half-written on the roof. The whimsical mechanical clock inside Eastgate is increasingly ignored. Freedom House has been demolished and replaced by a less thrilling modern development primed with restaurants and a cinema rather than shops. Brutalist Brooke House survives, its V-shaped supports overlooking a blanker East Square. The Market has been relocated to not many cabins in St Martin's Square. An entire block opposite Greggs has been flattened because housing will be more useful than retail. Effectively the town centre's still busy but the 20th century is inexorably being replaced by the 21st as regeneration funding allows. Oh and the WH Smith has unapologetically evolved into a TG Jones, this in the last few days, but I think that's happened everywhere. My Senior Rover failed to open the ticket gates again. On my way out of the station the bloke at the gateline insisted I inserted my ticket again before nodding and beckoning me through. On my way back in a different bloke looked at the ticket after he let me through and said "ah, zones 1 to 6, you want that platform up there", despite the text very clearly saying 'excl. Zones 1 to 6'. Staff training at c2c is clearly inadequate. Laindon → Laindon Hills (add photo) Flickr is yours. My Senior Rover failed to open the ticket gates again. I was waved through both times. The code which flashed up on the gate was '07', which I looked up later and it means "magnetic code unreadable", suggesting the stripe on the back failed in the five minutes between Ockendon and Chafford Hundred. I think this means my gateline travails were atypical and a Senior Rover should normally work seamlessly. West Horndon → (add photo) By this point I was a bit tired so merely hopped out onto the platform and hopped back in before heading home. Don't worry, I'll be returning to West Horndon as part of my One Stop Beyond feature (assuming I can find anything here to write about).

The opportunity has arisen to spaff your brand across the Waterloo & City line. Bring your dosh, share your collateral, own the journey. To be clear you don't get to rename the line. TfL's commercial mavens would love to do that, prostituting their most iconic assets to the highest bidder, but instead killjoys embedded in reality always kick up a fuss at the thought of deliberately inconveniencing the travelling public. But substantial tangible assets remain for full-on brand takeover, from all the platforms and trains to all the experiential spaces (which is the posh name for every possible surface we can smother). Please note that the Network South East branding on the edge of the platform will remain in place, so if you run a train company or if your corporate colours clash with blue and red this may not be the opportunity for you. A true prize in this takeover will be the opportunity to rebrand the interior of the trains. Passengers are often crammed in like cattle staring at the walls for six minutes at a time, so imagine the cut-through of your message on a twice-daily basis. Also don't underestimate the impact of reupholstering a bespoke moquette throughout the train. Nobody will see it during peak times because every patch of fabric will be arsed-over, but rest assured that influencers will descend en masse during quieter periods to share fawning reels of seating with a global audience. Also this is nothing new. The travelator at Bank has long been a fully-stickered brand tunnel, replaced every few months by another financial company in need of wider visibility. Nobody who uses the line regularly will blink if another all-encompassing message appears instead, it's been their everyday experience for years. Also this is really nothing new. TfL rebranded an entire tube line last year as part of promotion for a new smartphone feature, earning £830,000 for a two week takeover. This limp splash has been the exemplar for tube line renaming in TfL's Commercial partnerships Opportunities catalogue since April 2024, so don't look all surprised when it's suddenly proposed to do this to the Waterloo & City. Remember that every penny earned in sponsorship is ploughed back into London's transport system, which has often been used as a reason to do a lot more of this kind of thing. However it's worth remembering that a million quid is peanuts in the world of London transport, not even enough to keep the cheapest Superloop bus route on the road. Also a lot of the money effectively pays the salaries of TfL's commercial flunkeys who churn out brand-obsessed bolx and social media posts sprinkled with emojis, so is essentially wasted. And if you do decide to go ahead with a bid, remember that smothering a few platforms with sloganed vinyl with isn't always the word of mouth success your planners hoped. Nobody recalls last year's rebrand of the Circle line, nor the underlying campaign, nor dashed out to buy a new phone as a result. Sponsor the Waterloo & City line and you may just end up pouring millions down the Drain.

31 unblogged things I did in July 1985 They didn't have blogs or the internet forty years ago, indeed my Sinclair ZX81 wasn't capable of much, but here are 31 things I didn't digitally publish at the time. To help you get your bearings I was 20 and July was the start of the summer break between my second and third years at university. I apologise that I wasted the opportunity and did nothing of any interest whatsoever. Mon 1: I'd arrived home from university yesterday so today I walked into Watford and signed on. I also dropped off one of Mum's films at Boots for developing, and dripped an ice lolly down my t-shirt on the walk home. Tue 2: Dad brought a copy of New Scientist home from work, also a copy of Time Out. New Scientist contained details of yesterday's leap second, while Time Out had some really intriguing small ads at the back. Wed 3: Walked down the road to see my grandmother. She showed me the scar on her leg and I made her some tea and watered the plants. As a reward she gave me £5 which I promptly spent on the new Scritti Politti album, Cupid & Psyche 85. Thu 4: My brother finished his A levels. I walked down to the butchers and we had mince for tea. The Liberals won the Brecon and Radnor byelection. Fri 5: Took my Scritti Politti cassette back to Our Price because it had chewed up during the first play. The replacement cassette chewed up even worse. Sat 6: Scored 94 in Scrabble by playing EQUALITY. Sun 7: Mum and Dad went to Uncle Sid's Golden Wedding anniversary party, leaving my brother and I to attempt to cook lunch. The Yorkshire puddings were more successful than the lumpy gravy. Mon 8: Had to go into Watford twice, first to sign on, then six hours later to go to the dentist. I got £28.50 per week. No fillings. Tue 9: The new series of V wasn't as good as the first, especially now the aliens ate tarantulas rather than hamsters. Wed 10: My new Girobank cheque guarantee card had a hologram on it. Thu 11: Bought six Berol pens in Tames the stationers in Rickmansworth. Bumped into my old headmistress in Budgens (not in Bejam, I don't think she'd have lowered herself to shop there). Fri 12: Today's TV included a) Television Scrabble on Channel 4 [Richard Stilgoe continued his winning streak] b) Swank on Channel 4 [a fashion show presented by Dawn French] c) Live Aid Preview on BBC2 [Noel Edmonds looked forward to tomorrow's concert] d) An Audience With Dame Edna Everage on ITV [she savaged David Steel, but nicely]. Sat 13: Watched Live Aid from Status Quo at noon to Paul McCartney at ten. Took advantage of the stereo headphones option. My college flatmates actually had tickets - I'd said no thanks. The Beach Boys looked very old. My diary says "Queen did a fab little set". Once the Philadelphia-only section started I gave up and switched over to watch The Stepford Wives instead, then set my alarm for the USA For Africa finale. Sun 14: My Dad and brother went to the athletics at Crystal Palace as guests of Kodak, so I was left with Mum to go round to my grandmother's for a non-roast chicken lunch. Mon 15: Watched our tortoise eat a heck of a lot of cucumber (40 years on, nothing's changed). Tue 16: Dad rang from West Berlin where he'd flown for a conference. I'd given him 4 marks I had going spare before he caught the 724 this morning. Wed 17: Bobby Ewing died in a car crash in tonight's episode of Dallas, a death which would later prove to have been a dream when he walked out of the shower at the end of the next series. Thu 18: Tried loading up my Sinclair ZX81 with a game off cassette but it wouldn't work, so I typed in a worm-wriggling program instead. Fri 19: Watched the birds eating some stale chocolate sponge on the lawn. Dad was back from West Berlin with tales of life inside the wall. Sat 20: My brother went to see the Royal Tournament with a group from Youth Club, then came home in time to watch the Royal Tournament on BBC1. Sun 21: It being July, preparations for Sunday lunch always involved shucking the peas. Mon 22: A young yellow-beaked bird smashed into my bedroom window and slumped dazed on the sill before flying off. Later we found it hopping around the lawn with its mother, learning how to be a proper bird. Tue 23: ITV were rerunning Fireball XL5 as one of their summer holiday morning shows and I was hooked. On Brookside it was the day of the incredibly unlikely nurses siege. Wed 24: Took my grandmother a loaf of bread and we sat in the garden while she told me stories of her time working in a glove factory. Thu 25: The latest unemployment figures were 3,235,036, and would have been one lower without me. Fri 26: My friend from Cheshire rang unexpectedly from Euston at 8am, could she come round? She'd been on a science course in London and was being spontaneous. If she was hoping for an exciting visit, what she got was a trip to the allotment, a roast pork dinner and a lot of watching TV. Sat 27: Between us we were planning a 'Snowdonia spectacular' walking holiday in September so we used my typewriter to write up some notes. We needed an Ordnance Survey map of North Wales so drove to WH Smiths in Rickmansworth (no luck), but they did have the second Adrian Mole book so I bought that. Found the map in Watford instead. Sun 28: Finished the Adrian Mole book at 2am, lying on a mattress on the front room floor. My friend finally set off home from Watford Junction at 5pm and I got a peck on the cheek. I bet my parents got their hopes up there. Mon 29: Back to normal. Coco Pops for breakfast. Wrote up some lecture notes. It rained a lot. Tue 30: Mum had bought me some new clothes from her catalogue. I hated the pullover but thankfully it was the wrong size. They'd also sent the wrong jacket. I did however now have a blue check shirt and a cool pair of grey trousers. I loved the trousers. Wed 31: We've reached the last day of July and I hadn't been more than three miles from home all month. Looking back I can't believe how unadventurous my life was back then, but at the time I thought nothing of it.