East Village Hub, one year on: what's new, what's changed and what's coming

East Village Hub went live in September 2025 with a few local stories and a list of places. A year on, it has had its biggest change yet: a new look, a home screen built around today, and a site that works like an app on your phone. Here's what's new, what's changed and what I'm working on next.

Why it changed

Most people come to EVH with one of a few questions. Is the heating off for everyone or just me? What's on this weekend? Who do I call about the bin store? Has anyone used a good cleaner? The old site could answer them, but you had to dig. The relaunch puts those jobs first.

A new look

EVH has a new mark, a joined-up e2O, set beside the name. It has one colour, Park magenta: the pink London 2012 used to sign the Olympic Park, which you can still see on the fingerposts. It appears on the mark and on one main button per screen, and nowhere else.

Everything else is black, white and grey, so when something is red or amber it means something. It works in light and dark mode.

A home screen built around today

The bar at the bottom of the screen now reads Today, What's on, Ask EVH, Live and Explore. Today opens with anything you need to know about, like a heating outage or a flood warning, and says nothing on a quiet day. Below that come this week's events and the latest news. My E20 has moved to the top corner of the screen.

Living here now opens with six tiles for the jobs that come up most: Heating, Bins, Fobs and keys, Parking, Report it and Who do I call.

Live: nine trackers, in plain words

Live is where EVH's trackers sit: district heating, Hyperoptic, phone and bag snatches, parcel theft, foxtail, Sippi parking, flood watch, roadworks, and should I open my windows. Each one now tells you what's happening in a sentence, not a page of numbers. Reporting takes a few taps.

If you're signed in, My reports shows every report you've made and where it stands: counted, part of a live alert, or in the past.

Ask EVH

Ask EVH answers questions about life in E20 from what EVH holds: the guides, the trackers, events, places and residents' recommendations. It doesn't search the web, and every answer links to where it came from. If it doesn't know, it says so.

What's on, every week

Every Monday, This Week in E20 rounds up the week's events in one post. What's on shows where each event is (Village, Park, Lea or Stadium), and every event has buttons to add it to your calendar, get directions and share it.

It works like an app

You can add EVH to your phone's home screen and it opens like an app. It also works with a weak signal or none at all: pages you've visited and the last tracker readings stay on your phone, with a note of how old they are. On an iPhone, adding it to your home screen is also what lets alerts reach you.

Smaller things

• The dogs page lists 13 dog-friendly places nearby and what each one offers dogs, from water bowls to treats.
• No business in the directory is labelled or sorted first because it pays. EVH takes no sponsors.
• Who do I call puts emergencies first, with a Call 999 button.
• A new What's new page, linked at the bottom of the page, lists each change as it goes live.

What's coming

These are what I'm working on next. There are no dates yet, and each one will appear on the What's new page when it lands.

• Recommending someone. Lots of people ask EVH for a cleaner, a plumber or a hairdresser, and there aren't enough residents' recommendations to answer them. I want it to take one tap to recommend someone straight after you've asked.
• Your first 30 days. A short checklist for people who've just moved in: bins, registering with the GP, parking, heating, plot numbers and local groups.
• All of E20. EVH started in East Village, but Chobham Manor, East Wick and Sweetwater are E20 too, and I want it to be as useful there.
• Neighbours answering neighbours. When Ask EVH can't answer something, a way to put the question to other residents instead.

If there's something you'd like EVH to do, or something that doesn't work, tell me. That's how most of this list started.

Photo: Entrance to Victory Park, East Village, Stratford, London by ArtemSmartenko, via Wikimedia Commons, CC0 1.0. Cropped.