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Photo by sinister pictures from the Londonist Flickr pool A truce between the Fire Brigades Union and London Fire Brigade has barely been agreed, but Fire Authority chief Brian Coleman has ordered an investigation into whether London’s fire service could do without 27 fire engines. …

Stadium exo-skeleton by Andy Wilkes, 22/10/10 LOCOG’s belt tightening and cost trimming in light of the Coalition’s spending review has resulted in the Olympic Stadium losing its decorative wrap. The icing on the original cupcake was to be a fabric curtain enclosing the bones of …

Photo by Gary Kinsman from the Londonist Flickr pool Many investment projects are at risk as the London Development Agency is set to lose around 90% of its budget, it was announced yesterday. Last week’s CSR confirmed the LDA would be scrapped by 2012 and …

The National Theatre is renaming its Cottesloe Theatre the Dorfman Theatre after Travelex chairman Lloyd Dorfman gave £10m towards the NT’s refurbishment. With arts funding cut and government plans to encourage US-style philanthropy to fund culture, we should probably expect more of this kind of …

Photo by roboxley from the Londonist Flickr pool Boris Johnson and 12 Tory MPs for London are pressing for exemptions to housing benefit caps. In the wake of news that up to 82,000 households could lose their homes in the capital, the Mayor and parliamentarians …

Hundreds of scientists, medics, engineers and other researchers will assemble in Whitehall tomorrow to protest about funding cuts. The Science Is Vital campaign has secured support from over 20,000 petition signatories, who believe that funding for research is vital to the UK’s economy and should …

Whether it’s the final word on the matter, we can’t be sure, but noises out of Crossrail today suggest that the project will go ahead with no deleted stations or branches. There had been fears that financial pressure would lead to a scale-back in the …

One of the first visible signs of council cost-cutting has been announced in Lewisham: if you want to see the famous fireworks on Blackheath this year, you’re going to have to pay for it. Lewisham Council has launched an appeal to secure the display, claiming …

Photo by pfig from the Londonist Flickr pool Harrow Council is proposing replacing up to 40 librarians with self-service check-out machines in an effort to cut costs. Along with other councils placed in difficult circumstances by massive government budget cuts, Harrow needs to save money …

Image by steve angelkov from the Londonist Flickr pool Today’s the last chance to offer your views on scrapping the Western Extension of the Congestion Charging Zone and changes to the payment scheme (including increasing the daily cost from £8 to £10). Plans to remove …