City Hall has invested £1.8million alongside the National Lottery Community Fund to create a network of 30 new community spaces which will host activities for Londoners to combat loneliness and social isolation.
By Kumail Jaffer, Local Democracy Reporter
Credit: City Hall/GLA
The Mayor of London said Manchester United co-owner Sir Jim Ratcliffe deserves to be “called out” for his “offensive” comments suggesting that immigrants had “colonised” the UK. While Sir Jim later said “sorry that my choice of language has offended some people UK and Europe,” Sir Sadiq deemed this “not an apology”.
The Mayor was speaking to the Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS) as he vowed to bring Londoners together to “break bread” as he said hate crimes are still “too high” across the capital. City Hall has invested £1.8million alongside the National Lottery Community Fund to create a network of 30 new community spaces which will host activities for Londoners to combat loneliness and social isolation.
Recent Greater London Authority (GLA) polling showed that while 73 per cent of Londoners think community centres are important, just 12 per cent have ever visited their local one. While hate crimes fell by almost a fifth between 2023-24 and 2025-26, Sir Sadiq Khan admitted the figures were still “too high” and said City Hall were working to “tackle those that are perpetrating the hatred”.
“We know that the seeds of hatred, fear, division have been sown online and on our streets,” the Mayor told the Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS) during a visit to one of the new spaces at the Albany in Lewisham.
“One of the things we’re keen to do is to provide Londoners with safe space where they can come together, but also to ensure Londoners from whatever background, ethnicity, age, religion, do feel loved and wanted.
“They can come together to have a conversation, curate difficult conversations, break bread. You can’t have a hands-off approach when it comes to integration. You’ve got to have a hands-on, proactive approach.”
Research carried out by Foundation for Future London has revealed that closures of local authority-run community spaces are now outpacing new openings in some boroughs, with 46 permanently shut down between 2018 and 2023.
The Loved and Wanted campaign has already worked with more than 140 organisations across London to bring people from all backgrounds together. This latest expansion, announced on Friday (February 13), will see the new community spaces offer mentoring, community meals, multilingual support, disability support and help with digital inclusion.
Asked how those who harbour divisive opinions will be attracted to the venues, Sir Sadiq said: “These community spaces will have a ripple effect in terms of somebody may come here, leave with a good impression, may go home and be speaking to one of their families – so you’ll see this sort of snowballing effect of what I call community cohesion – but frankly, it’s mixing and mingling.
“The places people used to meet – the community post office, for example – have disappeared. Fewer people for a variety of reasons, so we’ve got to provide those spaces, those social hubs, for people to come together.”
The latest figures from the Met Police show that there were 22,178 hate crime offences recorded between February 2025 and January this year. The vast majority of these were racist and religious hate crimes, while Islamophobic offences went up by seven per cent.
While Sir Sadiq has himself been a victim of hateful rhetoric, especially on social media, London as a whole has seen hate crimes rise against some communities, and spike on public transport following the Israel-Gaza war which started in 2023.
Public figures have also been accused of whipping up sentiment against certain communities in recent years, including Sir Jim suggesting that immigrants had “colonised” the UK before later apologising for his choice of language.
“It’s possible to talk about immigration without denigrating migrants or their children,” Sir Sadiq told the LDRS. “I think when you use words like colonise, that is offensive. I think his apology is not an apology and I think he should be called out.”
Fearing a return to 1970s-style racism, the Mayor added: “We’ve got to tackle those that are perpetrating the hatred, [make sure] arrests are being made, charges are being brought. We’ve also got to take on those that create a kind of climate where it is normalised.
“When I was growing up, the P-word, the N-word and the Y-word were used against people of Asian origin. Black people and Jewish people. That disappeared and it’s come back again and so we’ve got to take that on.”
The venues receiving funding as part of the Loved and Wanted programme are spread all over London, and include Crystal Palace Community Trust in Bromley, London Tigers in Ealing and Pembroke House in Southwark.
Vicki Amedume, Co-CEO of The Albany, said: “At The Albany, we see how essential trusted community spaces are to bringing people together and supporting local wellbeing.
“This new network recognises the vital role venues like ours play in strengthening communities at a time when connection matters more than ever. This investment will help ensure that community spaces remain open, welcoming, and responsive to the needs of Londoners.”
The National Lottery Community Fund’s England Director Phil Chamberlain added: “London’s diversity is its lifeblood; the city can be very proud of that. As the UK’s largest champion of community-led change, we’re proud to partner with the Mayor of London to help bring people together and build stronger, more inclusive communities across the capital.
“This truly life-changing funding will enable an invaluable network of local spaces that support communities to build trust, help one another, find solidarity, and forge the connections that make our communities a force for good.”
