Tell me about BrixtonGreen - a "community led development" on Somerleyton Road

[toblerone3]

brad seems to have as much of a grasp on what's actually happening round here in terms of the business, buildings and community as I have of the rules of etiquette in deepest Mongolia.

Perhaps you could help to consult and educate with Brad by actually talking to him. But no you just prefer to slag him off and his organisation. Its almost as though you've pre-judged him as coming on this whole thing with a particular dodgy agenda. Do you?

Or do you just think he is naive ? In which case consult and educate why don't you?

 

[toblerone3]

That's not "continuing the debate," that's sending a private email and I've already done that, thanks.

I'd like the discussion about this local community development to be public so everyone can see what's on offer and debate the proposals.

And how was I being rude? There is no facility to debate anything on their site. That is simply a fact.

Maybe they are not as clever as you technically and socially. Can you not be kind to them?

 

[editor]

Maybe they are not as clever as you technically and socially.

Actually, they seem to have been very media savvy thus far, garnering mainstream media coverage on the BBC, Guardian, Independent and elsewhere.

I think I've been polite from the start, but there is something rather frustrating to have this group talking about wanting to engage the community, but then seemingly only wanting to have that debate on their terms.

This is my area and my estate, and when people rock up and start talking about changing things and commercialising my neighbourhood, I've every right to ask questions. Lots of them. And they're clearly necessary too, seeing as this thread has shown that a lot of locals are rather in the dark about Brixton Green's plans and motives.

I think that's something they should be looking at if they genuinely want the local community involved.

 

[Mrs Magpie]

Also I have asked people all over the the estate if they've heard of them and apart from the Golden Age Club no one knows anything about them. There are large covered notice boards on the estate. They haven't availed themselves of those. I've looked in the Community Centre. Zilch.

When I, or other tenants are alerting the estate to something we go around and put info through the letter boxes. It's called footwork (unfortunately we can't in Southwyck because you need security fobs and it's a different landlord). It's also clear from what brad posted here that he hasn't a clue about the area.

The estate shop gets in one copy of the Guardian, only on Saturdays. It's for me. Most people on the estate, if they get a newspaper at all, read the Metro, Standard, Sun or Mirror so alerting the broadsheets isn't going to reach the tenants. Also someone clearly didn't give the broadsheets the correct info. The Guardian and the Independent aren't the Sport and just print stuff from the ether. They use the info given. OK, they make mistakes but the info Brad said they got wrong was very specific & came from somewhere and I strongly suspect it came from Brixton Green, who clearly don't know the area from the guff brad has said here.

It is not the tenants job to act as detectives and go forth and seek out info from people who don't actually come and engage with us. That's not Community Consultation. Community Consultation involves going and knocking on every door because that's how it works on Estates, not sticking something in the Broadsheets, or waiting for the tenants to come to them. If they can't even be bothered to put something on the notice boards the tenants won't know.

 

[Mrs Magpie]

Perhaps you could help to consult and educate with Brad by actually talking to him. But no you just prefer to slag him off and his organisation. Its almost as though you've pre-judged him as coming on this whole thing with a particular dodgy agenda. Do you?

Or do you just think he is naive ? In which case consult and educate why don't you?

I think he's pre-judged where I live. Seriously. He's the one proposing to do something on a bit of land empty for thirty years. Except it isn't empty at all and wasn't and businesses already operate there.

He's going on about consulting with the community. Except from what I can tell he hasn't.

He's the one saying we want a hair and beauty salon but all I can find out about that is someone on BGs board runs a hair and beauty salon. Funny, that.

It's not my job to consult with him. I'm not interested in starting a business in front of his house, wherever it is.

It's not my job to educate him about the area. It's his job, if he wants to do a business venture here, to do the research. I've got too much on my plate to do his research for him.

 

[Mrs Magpie]

...and how can it be a 'community led development' when I can only find about 15 people (one of whom has since died) who've ever heard of BG when there are are over 525 houses and flats here (not even counting Southwyck).

 

[Mrs Magpie]

Right, quick proposal to Brixton Green. Instead of taking away the green space and trees in front of Southwyck and the businesses on the 'empty' space on Somerleyton Road (and especially not meals on wheels and community transport. Vulnerable people rely on those) why don't they develop the shops opposite Southwyck on the parade that are already empty, plus the boarded up units under the new flats and the empty space where the Labour Exchange was. Just a thought. These places are on Coldharbour Lane. It's a road that runs through Brixton, Loughborough Junction, past KCH and into Camberwell.

 

[toblerone3]

Fair points Editor and Mrs Magpie it does sound like totally inadequate consultation but the consultation is still going on, and its perfectly valid for you both to say your consultation methods need to improve before even beginning to talk about the substantive points of the proposal. While 'community-led' clearly remains an aspiration rather than a reality, I am still not convinced that its not just general incompetence rather than some fully fledged scheme that the developers want to foist on the locals with minimal (aquiescence-like) consultation.

 

[Mrs Magpie]

Oh, I have no illusions that it's anything other than sheer incompetence. GCSE Business Studies students could do better consultation.

 

[editor]

Fair points Editor and Mrs Magpie it does sound like totally inadequate consultation but the consultation is still going on...

That's the problem. I don't believe any real consultation is going on. I've only ever seen one poster in all the years this outfit have been claiming to be heading up a 'community-led' project - and that was in the super-trendy part of Brixton Village, a place where I doubt most of the residents in my block choose to hang out.

BrixtonGreen wants to bring about big changes to the lives of residents yet almost all of them remain blissfully unaware of what's being proposed under their name:

BRIXTON GREEN is about local people leading the development of the neglected site along Somerleyton Road, central Brixton, London.

No one knows what an area needs more than the people who live and work there.

I'm a member of the residents association, so an open discussion here would have been most beneficial to their understanding of the project, but now it seems brad wants to keep the debate private via email. I find that a little odd, to be honest.

 

[Mrs Magpie]

I'm sure they're well-meaning rather than rapacious, but this area is littered with well-meaning but failed initiatives. The road to hell and all that.

 

[Mrs Magpie]

BrixtonGreen wants to bring about big changes to the lives of residents yet almost all of them remain blissfully unaware of what's being proposed under their name:

Well, I'm no longer unaware, and as brad has no doubt discovered, I'm not blissful right now. I'm a sweetie really, and slow to anger but, as editor can attest to, when someone really riles me, I am quite terrifying.

 

[Mrs Magpie]

I would add, in case anyone gets hold of the wrong end of the stick, I was thinking of an incident in the Queens (long gone pub) where I was verbally laying into someone who had been winding me up all evening and suddenly editor was there smoothing things out and saying "Mrs M is very nice normally...."

 

[Brixton Hatter]

Like I said at the start of this thread, I think this is a profit-making property development disguised as a community initiative. I've not seen anything that has changed my mind on this since.

Having the "community stamp of approval" and good write ups in middle class newspapers will help ease planning applications and the transfer of this site from council ownership.

Brixton Green will probably not be interested in improving the shops on coldharbour lane because they can't build flats there and make a profit. Just remember that - according to the documents posted up by gramsci - Brad, as a director of Brixton Green, potentially stands to make some serious cash from this deal, whereas the buyers of the £1 shares won't get anything, aside from some vague promises about shops. Brad has been asked to answer the question about his own role and making money, but he has chosen not to respond to it.

I will be going to the open meeting on 5 may and I hope others will come too.

 

[Mrs Magpie]

I have no idea whether you're right in that. I just assumed brad was just completely inept from the evidence on this thread. He didn't come over as a ruthless businessman at all, just a total plonker.

 

[Mrs Magpie]

Is that a workable business strategy? Let everyone think you're an utterly hapless wanker, but really you're tough & hard-headed and ride roughshod over the disadvantaged?

 

[Winot]

I don't know anything at all about Brixton Green, but I do know Philippe Castaing. Not well, but as the owner of Opus/Upstairs cafe round the corner from us. He's a decent bloke and I'd be very surprised indeed if he were (knowlingly) involved in a money grabbing nefarious venture.

However, despite the fact that he has been talking about various Brixton Green projects for quite a few years, I have never really understood exactly what is involved. He is rather - how can I put this - hand-waving about the whole thing. So my best guess on this very sketchy evidence is that this is ill-thought through and incompetently executed rather than being a clever ploy to make money.

 

[Crispy]

The lack of street frontage discourages activity which reduces economic activity and community safety and so discourages access.

Absolutely. That bit of CHL is horribly bleak and that strip of grass never gets used for anything. Streets with actual frontages onto them are much better.

 

[editor]

Absolutely. That bit of CHL is horribly bleak and that strip of grass never gets used for anything. Streets with actual frontages onto them are much better.

That strip of grass is used for people to exercise their dogs, kids run around there and people often take in the sun there in the summer or enjoy an al fresco lunch break. More than that, it provides an attractive green view for residents and supports wildlife (walk past there in the early morning and you'll hear a loud chorus of birds).

I don't find anything 'horribly bleak' about a well maintained small park and I appreciate the grass and trees. However, what is bleak is the vast expanse of waste land opposite (where Cooltan used to be) and as MrsM pointed out, there's already a large strip of empty shop properties underneath the new block of flats, as well as several empty shops further along Coldharbour Lane. I don't see any overwhelming community need for more shops when so many are already lying empty.

I'm beginning to wonder if this development isn't more interested in engaging with the new trendy affluent Brixton that's sprung up in Brixton Village rather than the less fashionable Brixton formed of local, long term, poorer residents. That might explain why the only poster I've ever seen for Brixton Green was in the Village.

 

[OpalFruit]

I'm not getting that the proposal is to develop 'commercial activity' on the green strip between S'ck House and CHL, but in an amongst new housing and creative hub along Somerleyton and overlooking the alley?

I know someone who works in quite a senior capacity at EGA and they said that they had had to organise escorts and sometimes even a suttle bus to transport staff from the temporary building to the new school because of a spate of assaults, and that the Head had observed constant daytime crack dealing outside his office window in the temporary building. I walk between Mayall Rd and CHL using the alley but avoid it at night, and think it would be great to have more activity and people facing out onto Somerleyton Rd from the 'tracks' side of the road, and to have more training and community projects between the school and CHL.

But it needs to be community housing of some sort (HA or other social housing) or a large proportion needs to be, and it does seem odd to have started selling shares before the residents have been involved in real dialogue.

Edited to add I think BG have been formulating this since long before the new developments in the market so can't have been influenced by that.

But as someone who included Federation Coffee, Franca Manca and Bellantonis in my ideal day in Brixton, maybe I've been the 'wrong kind of resident' for these 25 years!

 

[Mrs Magpie]

Absolutely. That bit of CHL is horribly bleak and that strip of grass never gets used for anything. Streets with actual frontages onto them are much better.

Yeah, but Crispy, I seem to remember you're the bloke who thought Somerleyton Road was a cul de sac.

 

[Crispy]

I'll shut up now

 

[Mrs Magpie]

But as someone who included Federation Coffee, Franca Manca and Bellantonis in my ideal day in Brixton, maybe I've been the 'wrong kind of resident' for these 25 years!

It's OK. You didn't say Starbucks!

 

[editor]

Here's that "horribly bleak" view:

 

[Mrs Magpie]

I love all the crocus in Spring.

 

[editor]

I love all the crocus in Spring.

And the daffodils! It can smell lovely when they've just cut the grass too, and the dawn chorus can be deafening in the morning. Lambeth do a pretty good job of looking after this little park.

 

[Mrs Magpie]

Hey editor, fancy a 'save the horribly bleak bit' picnic?

 

[Mrs Magpie]

Lambeth do a pretty good job of looking after this little park.

Shame about the rest of the borough!

 

[editor]

...I think there is a way in which on-street activity is reduced for the length of Southwyck House on Coldharbour Lane. There is no friendly bustle, no-one looking out over balconies, no-one going in or out. The effect, for someone who doesn't live there, is that it seals Moorlands off. And it has ramifications for the 'natural survelliance' ...

Actually, the green space and the perimeter wall at the eastern end of Southwyck House (by the old garage) are often full of people sitting outside, enjoying a drink, chatting, playing with their kids, having a barbecue and the like. They've been there all day today in fact, and there's about 10-15 still sat out there now.

Or are they the 'wrong' sort of people?

 

[Mrs Magpie]

What about the bloke with (I think) Parkinsons who spends hours watching the world go by? It's the other side of the street that's blighted (plus it would be nice to grass over the old garage).