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For annual Mental Health Awareness Week from 14-20 May, this year Tower Hamlets Council is encouraging residents to look out for one another to help reduce loneliness and isolation. Every year the campaign, led by national charity the Mental Health Foundation, aims to raise awareness, promote positive mental health and wellbeing, and address mental ill-health issues. Good mental wellbeing is fundamental to our physical health, our relationships, our education, our work and to achieving our potential. Evidence shows that connecting with people and forming positive relationships are important for our wellbeing and help give us a sense of belonging, self-worth, security and a greater sense of purpose.¹ Inspire, a group of local mental health services, is hosting an interactive event as par...

Bike Life now covers 14 city locations totalling 20% of the UK population Tower Hamlets Council has become the first London Borough to participate in Bike Life, the UK's most comprehensive assessment of cycling development. The report, produced by the walking and cycling charity Sustrans, has previously covered seven cities outside London. Tower Hamlets staff will be working with Sustrans, funded by The Freshfield Foundation, to capture data on how people want to travel, infrastructure, travel habits, public attitudes and the impact of cycling. The project is designed to help UK cities normalise cycling and reports will be published in 2020 and 2022.  Bike Life was founded in 2014 in seven major UK cities but has grown significantly since. Between 2018 and 2022, more cities and regions ...

    A painting of Grenfell Tower is to be displayed in Downing Street after being presented to the Prime Minister at a meeting with survivors and families. Theresa May spoke with a group of people affected by the fire tragedy at Number 10 on Thursday evening. Among them was artist Damel Carayol, who lost his niece in the fire and presented the PM with a print of his painting Grenfell Tower: Eyesore!! Final Straw. We all hope and pray that nothing like this will ever happen again. Mr Carayol told Sky News that the painting was a painful expression of anger. A Downing Street spokesman said the painting would go through the usual process for any artwork given to Number 10 to decide where best it fits. Asked if it would be displayed somewhere in the building, he said: Y...

    Julian Assange's doctors have said that his health is at risk due to his six-year confinement in the embassy. Ecuador has banned WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange from taking visitors and phones, it has been claimed. The whistleblower website tweeted that Mr Assange was being refused most forms of contact with the outside world by the Ecuadorian embassy in London. He has been living at the embassy since June 2012 to avoid extradition to Sweden to face questioning over allegations of sex crimes, which he always denied. But Mr Assange is facing increasing isolation inside the embassy, with officials announcing in March that he was having his internet access curtailed. The Ecuadorian government said they were taking the measure in response to Mr Assange's recent activ...