A new concept from Housebites.com brings Cuban cuisine to the Colliers Wood area. The fantastic tastes of Cuban food can now be enjoyed by ordering online through the housebites website. But beware – it took us three attempts to place an order, as the website although it looks professional doesn’t work too well. We sent a follow up email but got a dismissive response and had to order another day! The food, however, when it arrived was simply fantastic, so lets hope the site can get its act together as its a great concept.

The Olympic torch is coming to Colliers Wood so expect big delays and disruption on July 23rd. More information here. While small businesses and individuals have been told to brace for disruption those working for London transport and other public sector companies will receive big bonuses for doing their jobs.

The River Wandle which runs through the heart of Colliers Wood now “the healthiest for over 20 years”. Officially declared a sewer in the 1960s the Wandle has been transformed. With help from Defra’s £110m funding extensive work has been done by the Environment Agency, water companies and landowners, and we’re now seeing fish and mammals, including salmon and otters, thriving once more. Visitors to Merton Abbey Mills will often see Anglers at weekends.

The are signs of a new curry restaurant ‘Coming Soon’ to Colliers Wood.

This has just come to our attention. A decade-old Italian establishment in Colliers Wood  has been given new lease of life by the Channel 5 restaurant inspector. More here http://www.channel5.com/shows/the-restaurant-inspector/episodes/mama-rosa

We are not sure why they bothered as Mamma Rosa is a great restaurant by the river Wandle at Abbey Mills. The colour scheme has changed and the new colour doesn’t feel Italian.

Boots is Open

After several days Boots at the Tandem Centre is now open. Dispite the windows remainig boarded up the store proudly decares it’s open for business once again.

In a similar move Ladbrokes, also ransacked by the maurauding hords, reopened with boarded windows on Tuesday.

The Tandem centre Colliers Wood

The public can now visit the Tanden shopping centre once again. Access to the shopping centre was blocked by police during Tues 9 August.

Several of the shops are now closed and boarded up following the disturbances on Monday evening. These include Game, Boots, JD Sports, Argos and TK-Max.

Police block access to the Tandem shopping centre

Police are restricting access to the Tandem Centre site this morning, Wednesday 9 August.

Shoppers are denied access to visit the shopping centre today.

Looters have raided the Priory Retail Park in Colliers Wood. Stores including PC World,
Mothercare and Harvey’s have been wrecked by an out of control crowd of around 100 people. JD Sports in nearby Tandem Centre was also targeted.

Shops in the retail centres closed early on Monday evening leaving the area with an unusually empty atmosphere. This wasn’t to last long as a crowd gathered about 9pm, which was then followed by full scale looting. An eye witness reported that the looters had free rein to do what they wanted as there were no police to be seen. A similar thing happened in nearby Clapham Junction