Our best work · July 2025 – June 2026
The SW15 Files
One year of original local journalism — the investigations, the FOI battles, the reversals, and the stories only a paper that lives here would find. Flip the pictures. Tap the map. Follow the sagas.
Jun 2026
Asbestos, an explosion, a deadly fire: seven refused FOI requests. We mapped the pattern of concealment.
Read the story →
Jun 2026
Our scoop revealed an unconsulted decision to cut the pool. The council reversed it within hours.
Read the story →
Apr 2026
Episode 18 of our prison accountability series — coroner findings, ombudsman reports, questions put to HMPPS.
Read the story →
Oct 2025
Verbatim correspondence revealed a leisure operator’s unexplained pressure on a family-run café.
Read the story →
Jan 2026
Cabinet papers showed the council admitting years of failure to implement Grenfell-era fire safety reforms.
Read the story →
Mar 2026
FOI notes, released after two refusals: the council secretly rejected a bridge-funding offer and said nothing for a year.
Read the story →
Dec 2025
From the trust’s own board papers: a ten-month fault in maternity risk scoring the regulator had not been told about.
Read the story →
May 2026
The council’s own records show Putney Bridge is in structural trouble — known since 2023, never announced.
Read the story →
Sep 2025
Our FOI request and a leaked timeline showed TfL stalled promised safety works at the site of a fatal collision.
Read the story →
Nov 2025
Transcripts, minutes, Ofsted findings and a staff survey exposed the gap between councillors’ words and the record.
Read the story →
Feb 2026
Our reporting prompted 66 residents to write to the committee. Its dismissive reply became the next story.
Read the story →
Jul 2026
Fourteen months of FOI persistence ended with the ICO ruling the council broke the law over Denmead House — twice.
Read the story →
Jul 2025
An exclusive data investigation into the council’s £40m overspend and its reliance on off-framework agency staff.
Read the story →
Aug 2025
How a legacy PFI contract drives service closures at Queen Mary’s, built from primary NHS financial documents.
Read the story →
Mar 2026
Four openings, one rotting landmark: we walked the High Street and took its temperature.
Read the story →
Apr 2026
The pop-up wine bar that keeps selling out — and the people behind it.
Read the story →
Jun 2026
When a much-loved dog was stolen, the neighbourhood organised itself to get him back.
Read the story →
May 2026
He learned to row on this river, went to Berlin, and beat Hitler’s Olympics. From the club’s own archive.
Read the story →Hover — or tap — a picture to turn it over. Each one tells you the story behind the story.
Explore by place
Every pin is a file
Our year of journalism lives at real addresses. Tap a pin to open its file.
Follow the sagas
We stay with the story
The long-running investigations, told episode by episode.
The Junction Files
£1m of roadworks chaos — and the paper trail nobody wanted us to find.
Exposed: How TfL faked bus data to cover up Putney Bridge delays
Our FOI data investigation showed TfL’s bus performance figures had been manipulated to hide the impact of the junction redesign.
Who broke Putney's junction? The untold story behind £1m of chaos
Obtained documents and meeting minutes let us reconstruct the decision-making failures behind £1m of roadworks chaos.
Council buries the truth: even with fixes, traffic is twice as bad with new junction
FOI-obtained TfL data showed the council’s own paper concealed that journey times remained roughly double pre-redesign levels.
The councillors who promised to fix Putney’s junction produced nothing. We can now prove it.
A 14-month, three-request FOI investigation proved the councillors who promised to fix the junction produced no documented work at all.
The Kitchen
One woman, her café, the operator that squeezed her out — and the settlement the council paid for but won’t disclose.
'This is my community': Putney café owner fights to keep business as Leisure Centre plans major refurbishment
Verbatim correspondence and evidence from other sites revealed a leisure operator’s unexplained pressure on a family-run café.
‘They wanted me to give up everything’: Putney café owner fights back
‘They wanted me to give up everything’: the café’s owner told us, in her own words, what she was asked to sign away.
Putney cafe takes council to court
The fight escalated past the leisure operator to the council itself — and into court.
‘This is my community’: the end of The Kitchen at Putney Leisure Centre
After months of fighting, the shutters came down. We were there for the end of The Kitchen.
Wandsworth spent public money to settle a café dispute. It won’t say how much.
The postscript: the council spent public money settling the dispute — and won’t say how much.
The Pool
A pool cut without consultation, reversed within hours — and the contract dispute members were never told about.
Putney Leisure Centre pool to be permanently cut without any public consultation
Our scoop revealed an unconsulted decision to cut the pool. The council reversed it within hours of publication.
Council hid legal dispute when it approved Putney Leisure Centre contract
An FOI forced open a confidential Cabinet annex: the contract was approved without members being told of a live legal dispute.
Inside Wandsworth Prison
An accountability series 18 instalments deep, told one death at a time.
The man who saved himself: Ex-Wandsworth inmate's final prison tour
A former inmate walked us through the prison one last time — the human story behind the statistics.
Another death at HMP Wandsworth as ombudsman opens 27th investigation
Another death, a 27th ombudsman investigation — and we kept counting when no one else did.
Three men died at Wandsworth Prison within eight days
The 18th instalment of our prison accountability series, built on coroner and ombudsman findings and questions put directly to HMPPS.
Wandsworth closed a prisoner’s suicide watch on his word alone. Four days later he was dead
His suicide watch was closed on his word alone. Four days later he was dead. We set the ombudsman’s findings against a previous death.
The Fire Safety Files
From the Grenfell admission to two ICO rulings: the records the council fought to keep hidden.
Years of failure exposed as council admits ignoring Grenfell reforms
Cabinet papers and a Root Cause Analysis showed the council admitting years of failure to implement Grenfell-related fire safety reforms.
60 residents lost their homes in the Fox House fire. Wandsworth Council won’t release the safety records
Sixty residents lost their homes in the Fox House fire. We documented the council’s refusal to release the safety records.
Buildings with asbestos. A near-fatal explosion. A deadly fire. Wandsworth is hiding the records.
Asbestos, a near-fatal explosion, a deadly fire: seven FOI requests, each refused a review. We mapped the pattern of concealment.
The council claimed praise for its Fox House fire response. It was hiding the safety report
The council claimed praise for its fire response — while an FOI showed it was withholding the safety report.
Wandsworth broke the law twice over Denmead House repair records
Fourteen months of FOI persistence over Denmead House repair records ended with the ICO ruling the council broke the law — twice.
The “Britain’s Best” Sham
The council boasted. We asked for the evidence. The ICO made them hand it over.
The £5m programme Wandsworth won’t let you verify
The council spent a year refusing to release the usage data behind its £5m Access for All programme. We took it to the ICO.
The sham that was “Britain’s Best” concession scheme
Our ICO complaint succeeded: the ‘Britain’s Best’ boasts had no released evidence behind them.
“Britain’s Best Concession Scheme” reached 0.7% of Wandsworth residents
The data, once forced out, showed the flagship scheme reached 0.7% of residents — after years of press releases.
Maternity at St George’s
Ten months of wrong risk scores — and the regulator left in the dark.
St George’s Hospital has been getting pregnancy risk scores wrong for ten months
Revealed, from the trust’s own board papers, a ten-month unresolved fault in maternity risk scoring the regulator had not been told about.
St George’s didn’t tell safety regulator about serious maternity computer problems
An FOI revealed maternity risk scores were downgraded — keeping IT faults below the threshold for mandatory reporting to the CQC.
Explore by topic