45 45 Squared 25) MARKET SQUARE, N9 Borough of Enfield, 70m×50m Market Square in Edmonton. New not old, enclosed not open, basic not aspirational, blouses not yogawear, also you can't drive a vehicle into it which I think is a first in this year-long series. Come with me to the heart of Edmonton Green Shopping Centre, N9's sinuous concrete stripmall. fairly typical town centre until the late 1960s when the newly-formed Enfield council decided to bulldoze the majority in favour of full-on retail redevelopment. Frederick Gibberd & Co (of Harlow fame) came up with an innovative brutalist concoction mixing tower blocks with shopping opportunities and car parks, while Edmonton Green was substantially remodelled for through traffic. A new bus station replaced the old marketplace and all the stalls were moved into a large covered square at the core of the new development. North Mall bears off from one corner, South Mall from the opposite corner and a lowlit connector to the outside world from one side, all feeding shoppers into Market Square. Five parallel bands of glass let the light in. The original stalls are long gone, replaced by brighter permanent units with standard fascias. Some are small with space for key-cutting, engraving or a nail bar, a few are substantially larger and the majority appropriate for medium-sized traders in luggage, Caribbean groceries or dried nuts. The three prime corner units are all occupied by greengrocers, such is the demand for low-priced fruit and veg hereabouts, all neatly arrayed in bands of red, orange and green across hundreds of plastic bowls. Why walk all the way to Asda or Lidl when Letherbarrow's has all the loose tomatoes, peppers and grapes any family could need? Then there's Crystal Meats who are from the shrinkwrapped tray school of butchery, any three for £10, also Fashion Express who sell those huge checked bags ideal for taking washing to the launderette. It's all impressively tidy. outer edge of the square, the remaining beacons including JD Sports and William Hill, although the draw was considerably higher when Superdrug was still a Tesco. As for the Railway Tavern this claims to be a traditional pub, and indeed the original did stand by the level crossing on the Green for years, but this glum replacement has all the character of a dingy unit in the corner of a postwar market. Oh and there's also an upstairs, assuming you can get there. For some impractical reason it's only accessible up a single tissue-strewn staircase, or an adjacent lift, so first floor businesses must suffer terribly from low footfall. That said if you want the Turkish accountants, the special needs theatre or the local MP's office, you're more likely to be on a mission than just ambling by. What's unexpected is that after you've walked round the balcony a separate passage heads out onto the open roof... and into a street in the sky. A lot of councils tried mall-top living in the 70s, notably in Wood Green, but it's still surprising to see a row of eight townhouses on top of Clarks and Cardfactory, complete with washing hanging on the line and a lady sipping coffee in her front garden. My initial conclusion was that Edmonton Green Shopping Centre was a postwar success, still very well used and with a minimum of empty units. Then I remembered that there is essentially nowhere else for Edmonton's shoppers to go, the exterior retail offering having been so comprehensively extinguished, so of course tumbleweed has been held at bay. At least Market Square itself remains a cut above what most towns of this size offer, still appealingly blessed with everyday essentials, so long as you don't look round the edge or go upstairs.

45 45 Squared 24) THE SQUARE, TW9 Borough of Richmond, 60m come together beneath a zinc-scaled dome. One of the main streets is The Quadrant, one of the passageways is The Passage and stretching briefly to the east is The Square. This isn't square, just as The Quadrant isn't part-circular, although it may once have been more rectangular than it now looks, perhaps. Sorry, I thought the centre of a historic town would be easier to research, but rest assured there is a history behind all this somewhere. the Old Fire Station and the Dome, and I believe once passed behind the former and now loops round the latter. The Dome is everything a prominent Victorian building should be, especially if you need activewear for your next yoga session because the lower storey is now a branch of Lululemon. Excitingly the top floor is currently up for lease as open plan office accommodation, including a boardroom inside the dome itself offering 360 degree views in case your meeting content is particularly tedious. Saffron with a reassuringly dense menu pinned up outside, should you fancy an al fresco skewering. Even smarter is Major Son & Phipps alongside, a thin estate agents with a chic Parisian feel to its signage, one of whose staff is a dog called Scooby who merits his own page on the company website. Across the road a plaque above the Nationwide Building Society references The Imperial 1890, this being the pub that once occupied the building before a pizza chain moved in in the 1980s. The bubble tea shop isn't original either, ditto the Argentinian steakhouse and pizzeria in what is now The Square but used to be The Passage. Do try to keep up. The final standout building is the Old Fire Station, an overtwiddly redbrick number from 1870 with a distinctive clock tower that would have looked right at home in the centre of Trumpton. Look out for the carved heads of two moustachioed Victorian firefighters above the ex-entrance. When fire engines grew too big the main body became a shop and is currently yet another estate agents with a solicitors' office perched above. Meanwhile the front end became public conveniences, but Richmond council don't believe in those any more so it's now a coffee shop whose slogan is "Every single step is artisanal", so still very much taking the piss. only brief but everyone who heads south round Richmond's one-way system passes very briefly through half of it, and now you know what it's called even if it's hard to discern precisely where it starts and why it finishes.

As part of this year's Railway200 celebrations, special events and community get-togethers with a rail connection are taking place across the country. And yesterday a very special one took place at Motspur Park station because, coincidentally in this 200th anniversary year, it was celebrating its 100th birthday. It even said so on the platform. sidenote How did I know this was happening? Joe Brown always posts a London rail anniversary on Twitter and Bluesky every morning and yesterday it was that Motspur Park was 100 years old. Ooh a centenary, I thought, and on a Saturday too. I wondered if anything special was going on... and it was. Motspur Park is a full-on cliché of a suburban railway station in that before it opened there was nothing here but farms and fields and within ten years, hey presto, ubiquitous commuter avenues. It was also an afterthought in that trains ran direct from Raynes Park to Worcester Park for 60-odd years but only in 1925 did the railway company add an intermediate halt to exploit the area's potential. very good exhibition with an extraordinary centrepiece, and several very important people turned up to celebrate. There was also cake. The local MP turned up. This is southwest London so he's a Liberal Democrat, but he hoped Labour's nationalisation strategy went well and urged us all to get behind rail travel and rail expansion. He also praised the strong community connections in West Barnes and Motspur Park. Mayor of Merton turned up. He admitted to being a railway fan and urged everyone to watch Jago Hazzard's new video about Motspur Park station. He said the recent completion of step-free access at the station was a gamechanger locally. He also praised the strong community connections in West Barnes and Motspur Park. sidenote Did the Mayor of Merton come by train? No he came by car (a chauffeur-driven black Ford Mondeo, registration M1 LBM). An hour after the event the car was back in its special space outside the entrance to Merton Civic Centre. To be fair there aren't any direct trains, and I wouldn't risk coming by K5 bus either. The two of them also cut a ribbon outside the station. All yesterday's speeches were supposed to take place outside the station but they moved most of them inside the library instead because of the hot weather. After cutting the ribbon Paul and Martin held up an original station sign for the cameras, this too exactly 100 years old to the day. The Vicar of the local church turned up. She blessed the station, which arguably is a strange thing to do, but she got away with it because her prayer was also addressed to all those who pass through the station. "May they go to places of joy, may they all find seats". sidenote Do any other rail stations have a 100th birthday this year? According to Wikipedia, only four surviving British stations opened in 1925. Two are Croxley and Watford on the Metropolitan line so they don't count for Railway 200 purposes. The only genuine railway centenarians this year are Motspur Park and Penmere in Cornwall. SWR's Community Manager turned up. She said SWR had decided to focus all their Railway200 celebrations around station birthdays, but Motspur Park was the only one to have a proper 100th birthday this year. She loved the celebratory bunting around the station and across the local shops. She also said she was amazed and impressed by quite how many people had turned up. One of Railway200's top brass turned up. He seems to appear where the best anniversaries are, so yesterday it was Motspur Park's 100th and today it's the 50th anniversary of the reopening of the North Norfolk Railway. He said a proper centenary plaque would be installed in an appropriate location later. He was also inspired and humbled by how the campaign he joined two years ago had inspired this local community and so many others. sidenote When exactly is the proper 200th birthday of railways in Britain? It's arguable, do you go with Stockton and Darlington in 1825 or the Rainhill trials in 1829 or some other event? But essentially who cares. If you disagree you're just an opinionated bloke in an armchair whereas the Railway200 team have picked a date and made great things happen. Christian Wolmar turned up. He gave a talk in the library before the ribbon cutting and the speeches took place. He also hung around to sign some books. well over 100 people had turned up. This is part of the layout of the Green Valley Railway, a model layout based in a back garden in West Barnes. They only had room for a small proportion of it here, a representation of the line through Motspur Park as it was on its opening day, complete with ropey footbridge, Hornby island platform and specially-commissioned model gasometers. The modern Motspur Park station sign in the centre was the perfect final flourish. in the middle of a library complete with two trains circling round, and I think everyone was fairly blown away. sidenote The Green Valley Railway holds three open weekends each year and the next is in two weeks' time. The Edroy Garden Line's Summer Gala Open Weekend takes place on 26th and 27th July from 1pm-5pm at 173 Westway SW20 9LR. Elsewhere within the library was an exhibition about the history of Motspur Park, also a scale model of the local estate in the 1920s, also a table selling local history books and centenary fridge magnets, also a framed board for Motspur Park Monopoly (not for sale). A separate Picnic in the Park had been scheduled for the afternoon. The effort here was off the scale and it was a privilege to drop in on a cohesive community that bothers to turn out in large numbers for events like this. And all because a station opened here 100 years ago, because railways have truly shaped Britain, not just Motspur Park.

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).