Credit to you for your five year old understanding it that way. gaijingirl
Out with the Old... Network Rail tell businesses to vacate Atlantic Road arches
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ViolentPanda
Hardly getting over it.
Sounds like my kinda t-shirt!
BigMoaner
What A Load of Old Bollocks
most unsettling GIF of the week
friendofdorothy
Solidarity against neoliberalism!
make it stop! please...
friendofdorothy
Solidarity against neoliberalism!
It was lovely to see you there with the family. Start'em young...I want to get a t-shirt.... should have bought one yesterday or today - I hope there will be some left. We have our Sunday lunch many Sundays at Cafe Max after swimming at the Rec. Yesterday we took part in the hand-holding with my kids. Today at lunch the penny dropped with my 5 year old.. she started to cry when she realised that the cafe might go. "but this is my favourite cafe in the whole world!". It was heart-breaking.
organicpanda
cat herder extraodinaire
if you haven't got one yet the traders have ordered another 250I want to get a t-shirt.... should have bought one yesterday or today - I hope there will be some left. We have our Sunday lunch many Sundays at Cafe Max after swimming at the Rec. Yesterday we took part in the hand-holding with my kids. Today at lunch the penny dropped with my 5 year old.. she started to cry when she realised that the cafe might go. "but this is my favourite cafe in the whole world!". It was heart-breaking.
Tricky Skills
Well-Known Member
This is worth a look: Helen Hayes, the Labour candidate for Dulwich and West Norwood (she'll win...) is a senior partner at Allies & Morrision. This is the architectural firm that drew up the Supplementary Planning Document [pdf] for Brixton.
Contained within the SPD was the recommendation to Lambeth Council that:
“In conjunction with Network Rail, more railway arches should be brought into active use and the appearance of existing commercial arches improved.”
Cabinet approved this back in June 2013.
I've spoken with Helen. She has stated that she didn't personally work on this project. She has denied all knowledge about the recommendation that the company in which she is a partner put forward.
Plus to be fair the recommendation doesn't include rent hikes. It was Network Rail that seized upon the idea and took the process a stage further.
It does raise some issues though about gentrification and representation.
BBuzz piece.
Contained within the SPD was the recommendation to Lambeth Council that:
“In conjunction with Network Rail, more railway arches should be brought into active use and the appearance of existing commercial arches improved.”
Cabinet approved this back in June 2013.
I've spoken with Helen. She has stated that she didn't personally work on this project. She has denied all knowledge about the recommendation that the company in which she is a partner put forward.
Plus to be fair the recommendation doesn't include rent hikes. It was Network Rail that seized upon the idea and took the process a stage further.
It does raise some issues though about gentrification and representation.
BBuzz piece.
editor
hiraethified
Great bit of research here:
What’s the impact? Research on Brixton business evictions and local community
What’s the impact? Research on Brixton business evictions and local community
Pickman's model
Starry Wisdom
yeh, that when she wins the gentrifiers will be well represented.
technical
stripey
That's pretty impressive. Shows the depth of feeling as well as adding evidence to what is an emotional subject.
Dil Green
Member
Have just drafted a letter to the Standard after they got it so wrong on Tuesday and then again yesterday. Anyone want to co-sign . Need to be quick.
If Simon Jenkins (Tuesday) and Richard Godwin (Wedenesday) had bothered to do more than read headlines before their opinion pieces on Brixton, they could have saved themselves some embarrassment. Jenkins basically admitted he hadn't been to Brixton since the early '70s, and Godwin simply made up Network Rail's objectives in issuing quit notices to 33 Brixton shops (it's nothing to do with improving the station, and everything to do with upping the rents).
The rally on Saturday was a coalition of several campaigns, about housing, about local businesses, about the council's seeming inability to understand what it is that makes Brixton work. It was frustration at the lack of options for developing a meaningful debate on these issues that no doubt underlay the violence.
Since the (real) riots of the 1980s, Brixton has become an incredibly successful model of an urban centre that supports and integrates communities from an incredibly wide range of backgrounds; west indian, yes, but also ordinary londoners (who have always been in the majority, Simon), portugese, chinese, west african, central american, east african, and of course the bohemians and other wilful misfits. This isn't by means of some muddy multicultural mush, where we all join in some tepid middle ground. Rather, each community stays strong and identifiable, each with its own culture and habit. It works because the centre of Brixton has spaces which work for all of these communities, spaces where they have businesses, where they shop, where they work and socialise.
Crucially, it is also where we rub up against each other in a shared space, dominated by none. It is here that we learn to appreciate that we are all humans, that our differences are just as much a source of fascination as of frustration, that we all have interesting aspects of our culture to share. Brixton is one of the few places left in London that has this open-ness to difference truly integrated with and supported by the diversity of the businesses and communal spaces that make up the centre.
This is what Saturday's event was really about, and if the bland forces of ill-managed gentrification are allowed to thoughtlessly whitewash it, their will be one less place left for active tolerance in this great city.
The rally on Saturday was a coalition of several campaigns, about housing, about local businesses, about the council's seeming inability to understand what it is that makes Brixton work. It was frustration at the lack of options for developing a meaningful debate on these issues that no doubt underlay the violence.
Since the (real) riots of the 1980s, Brixton has become an incredibly successful model of an urban centre that supports and integrates communities from an incredibly wide range of backgrounds; west indian, yes, but also ordinary londoners (who have always been in the majority, Simon), portugese, chinese, west african, central american, east african, and of course the bohemians and other wilful misfits. This isn't by means of some muddy multicultural mush, where we all join in some tepid middle ground. Rather, each community stays strong and identifiable, each with its own culture and habit. It works because the centre of Brixton has spaces which work for all of these communities, spaces where they have businesses, where they shop, where they work and socialise.
Crucially, it is also where we rub up against each other in a shared space, dominated by none. It is here that we learn to appreciate that we are all humans, that our differences are just as much a source of fascination as of frustration, that we all have interesting aspects of our culture to share. Brixton is one of the few places left in London that has this open-ness to difference truly integrated with and supported by the diversity of the businesses and communal spaces that make up the centre.
This is what Saturday's event was really about, and if the bland forces of ill-managed gentrification are allowed to thoughtlessly whitewash it, their will be one less place left for active tolerance in this great city.
trabuquera
Modesty Bag
^agree totally with your sentiments but please don't use the word "incredibly" twice - or even once - just to mean "very" or "extraordinarily". It means UNBELIEVABLY and it's entirely believable that Brixton should be multicultural and successful.
editor
hiraethified
Yeah, add me!
Gramsci
Well-Known Member
I had a chat with a Council officer recently who recognised me taking part in the Brixton Central Masterplan consultation meetings before Christmas.
I said i was upset that the Council knew that Network Rail were going to give notices to quit before Christmas but kept it quiet.
He said at the consultations no one objected to idea of improving arches. I said that if people had known about NR intentions during the consultation process I was sure that people would have had a lot to say about it.
So its that way of using consultation responses in way not intended by someone like me who is not against all changes. Make me even more sceptical about attending consultation events. I did tell the officer that I and others had made a point of saying that existing business should be kept.
He then said that the business in the arches had been there on cheap rents and that NR would bring in a lot of investment to Brixton and this would result in a lot of new jobs and housing. And did I not want to see that. So I am now one of those who can be labelled as against change.
This was a more junior officer and he probably said more than he meant to in answer to me. But imo it shows the thinking of the Council long term. They know the arches are a big political issue. They are trying to find a way to keep NR happy whilst saying in public they support the small business.
Tricky Skills
Well-Known Member
Cllr Hopkins is due to update Full Council on Wednesday about the arches situation. His pre-written response states that he is uncertain about the level of rent rise, as well as the amount of compensation that traders not returning can expect to receive.
BBuzz piece.
BBuzz piece.
ViolentPanda
Hardly getting over it.
So he either knows fuck-all, or is saying fuck-all, the useless twat!
Gramsci
Well-Known Member
Good article.
Council do have power. I think that the Council should tell NR that the Brixton Central Masterplan "consultation" ( which I attended) findings are now binned.
That the Council is withdrawing from any talks with NR about the future of the area due to NR actions over the arches.
Its a straightforward thing for the Council to do.
Gramsci
Well-Known Member
Also read this latest news
Is it just me or has the Council response to this been feeble?
The Council leader Lib Peck was quick to criticise Reclaim Brixton but was is the Labour Party alternative? I do not see one.
Is it just me or has the Council response to this been feeble?
The Council leader Lib Peck was quick to criticise Reclaim Brixton but was is the Labour Party alternative? I do not see one.
Not just you. Why am I hearing echoes of "we'd love to help but can't do anything" and "we didn't know" from the council yet again?
editor
hiraethified
Photos from today's event
Save Brixton Arches campaign brings live art and music to Brixton Market – photos
Save Brixton Arches campaign brings live art and music to Brixton Market – photos
Gramsci
Well-Known Member
The T shirts are good. They did say this one may go on sale online.
Design of the T shirt is by www.pinspired.com
Design of the T shirt is by www.pinspired.com
