NEWSLETTER Summer issue, July 2005 No.178, Quarterly, distributed free to members Registered with the Civic Trust and the London Forum of Amenity Societies, Registered Charity No.1058103 Website: www.brixtonsociety.org.uk Our next appearance: Sunday 25 September: Lambeth Country Show Ferndale Walk 16 & 17 July weekend Meet at 2-30 pm outside Clapham North Underground Station for a Once again we will be joining in with guided walk around Ferndale Ward, this big event in Brockwell Park, with led by Alan Piper. This will be a the Society’s stall in the usual area, circular route, based loosely on Brixton forming a block with kindred groups Heritage Trail No.2 but also including covering different parts of Lambeth. new or topical material. Do take the opportunity to check out our current publications, renew your membership and chat about your own interest in Brixton. Thursday 8 September: Revitalizing Brixton Caroline Townsend from Brixton Town Centre Office will update us on the Council’s big “Revitalize” package How well do you know your way around Ferndale which we first reported last October. Ward? The flats on the left recently replaced a Nearly a year on, how are the Brixton former prefab office at the corner of Hetherington parts of the plan shaping up? We hope and Kepler Roads, off Acre Lane. To the right is members will take the chance to one of the “pentagon blocks” of flats built by comment and ask questions. 7-30 pm Lambeth c.1968. Photo from James Toohill. at the Vida Walsh Centre, 2b Saltoun Road (facing Windrush Square) SW2. Regular readers should receive a full programme of all the Summer Walks with this issue, and a few of these are Saturday 24 September: highlighted on the next page. Lambeth Archives Open Day Thursday 13 October: Open from 10 am to 5 pm at the Minet London Lives Library, at the corner of Burton and Recent Archaeological discoveries Knatchbull Roads, SE5. As usual there will in London, including Brixton area. be a series of short talks linked to displays An illustrated talk by Sophie Jackson and stalls run by amenity societies and history groups. of the Museum of London, 7-30 pm at If any member can spare an hour or two the Vida Walsh Centre, 2b Saltoun to help staff our stall, please speak with Road, SW2. Glyn Kyle (Chair) on (020) 7326 5070. Further details in our Autumn issue. 1 Adv\ BSN\ July 05 front Diary of Events, Late Summer 2005 Brixton Society Tower outside Clapham Sunday 4 Sept. Common Tube Station. Meet at 2 pm outside All Saints’ meeting dates Clapham Society. Church, Rosendale Road, In addition to the dates SE21. Guided walk around highlighted on the front Herne Hill’s Dulwich fringes, led page, our Executive Wednesday 20 July (Hastings) and by Robert Holden. Committee usually meets Herne Hill Society. on the second Thursday Wednesday 24 of the month to plan August (Brighton) Sunday 11 Sept. – events and activities, and This summer, Brixton agree our responses to Sheltered Street Scheme House History: local developments. is opening up its seaside Illustrated talk by Alan All meetings at 7-30 pm coach trips to all groups Piper on dating your at the Vida Walsh Centre like ourselves who meet house and ways of (BSSS) 2b Saltoun Road, at the Vida Walsh Centre. researching previous SW2 – near corner of Cost is £7.50 a head and residents. Effra Road, facing please book as early as 2 pm at the Vida Walsh Windrush Square. possible – contact Centre, 2b Saltoun Road, Contact the Secretary to Sharon Marks at the SW2 (Effra Road end). confirm arrangements. Centre on Tuesdays and Lambethans’ Society. • 14 July Fridays, (020) 7326 1780 • 8 September (messages can be left at Saturday 17 & Sunday • 10 November. other times). 18 Sept. – Open House Brixton Sheltered Street London Links with Scheme (Young at Heart A range of interesting or historic Club). buildings open their doors to the other groups public –details from (020) 7383 Check with organisers 2131 or see: www. first in case of changes openhouselondon.org since news reached us. Some events may be Thursday 6th Oct. charged for, and most Brain of Lambeth: groups would welcome This year’s general donations. knowledge quiz will be Future entries to Alan run on a team basis, so Piper (Secretary) at 82 Wednesday 17 why not join in? You can Mayall Road, SE24 0PJ, August – Park Hill be confident that at least tel/fax (020) 7207 0347 & Clapham Park one of you will have an [email protected] An evening guided walk answer to those awkward around Park Hill, led by sport or TV questions, Monday 18 July: Peter Jefferson-Smith while you deal with the Brixton Area Forum and John How. Meet at history stuff - or vice - Tulse Hill group 6-30 pm by the Clock versa! 7-30 pm at 10 am at High Trees Tower outside Clapham Lambeth Town Hall, CDT, St.Martin’s Library, Common Tube Station. Brixton Hill, SW2. corner of Tulse Hill and Clapham Society. Lambethans’ Society. Upper Tulse Hill, SW2 th For other meetings of the Sunday 21 August: Friday 7 October: Forum and its working Old Deptford Celebrating Age groups, contact the Town Meet at 2-30 pm below 10-30 am to 4 pm in the Centre office on (020) Deptford DLR Station, on Assembly Hall, Lambeth 7926 1077. the south side of Town Hall. Exhibits and Deptford Bridge, for walk entertainment, part of a Wednesday 20 July led by Alan Piper. month’s programme of – Clapham (Buses 47, 53, 177, 225) events for over 60s – An evening guided walk Lambethans’ Society. details from (020) 7733 around Old Clapham, led 0528. by Mary Coales. Meet at All Saints’ to Age Concern Lambeth 6-30 pm at the Clock St. Faith’s: Adv\ BS\ News\ July 05 Diary.doc 2 Planning & Regeneration It’s Simple raising hopes and then reinforcing cynicism and apathy when people are unable to Away with opaque consultation, influence the decisions that affect their lives. Myriad meetings, confabulation. Over the past 30 years we have often seen Make level the playing field, Lambeth Council persisting with flawed proposals long after reality should have Open up the tent dawned. Old habits die hard and current Let us all enter examples spring to mind all too easily. All one intent. Close to Brixton Windmill, allotment users are threatened by proposals to add their Bring on the councillors, cherished plots to a proposed school site. Their experts, their kit Now this narrow triangle can hardly provide useful games pitches - which really need a And make of our talk big rectangular space like the covered Not improvements a bit reservoir of the adjoining waterworks, which will soon be redundant anyway. Only last But a great whopping change year a narrow strip alongside the railway in For the better - not shit. Somerleyton Road was being suggested for a secondary school. Why is the planning of We all come together in a big open schools in this borough done in such an place amateur way? Where all’s for discussion, not set in For years Lambeth has lacked any kind of concrete. Advisory Panel for its many Conservation Areas. Once a Conservation Area has been “There’s an idea! My goodness, how created, there is no mechanism for involving sweet!” residents or shopkeepers in enhancement Comes it from a tenant? a landlord? schemes or design guides, or for keeping Who cares? the Planning Department in touch with the local residents’ groups which somehow The point is it fits and I’ll show you manage to survive on a shoestring and where. goodwill. One of the groups in Norwood has made a ABC Brixton [email protected] fresh proposal for a system of Advisory It’s simple so let’s keep it that way. Panels, based on experience from neighbouring boroughs. Other amenity Editorial societies are now responding positively to Yes, there’s a distinct feeling of consultation the idea. But the Planning Department has fatigue in the air at the moment. Enormous set its collective face against the concept, effort and cost has been going into frightened that it might mean extra work in publicising and consulting on several major telling residents about local planning initiatives such as Brixton Central Square, applications – a legal obligation on the the Lambeth Community Strategy and the Council anyway! “Revitalise” initiative, but there is a If you have a particular concern over a widespread feeling that comments fed into development or regeneration plan, tell us the system will make little difference to the and we will try to help. We will air issues outcome. here if our quarterly publishing and page- In recent years, projects like the Town space permit. Our Committee members are Centre Forums and the Lambeth First involved in a range of meetings and boards Assembly have clearly encouraged a fresh for this and that, so we want to keep in touch input of people to get involved in community with local problems, even if we cannot issues, but if it all turns out to be a waste of always do as much about them as we would their time, the credibility of the whole like. But at least we know what works and democratic process is undermined. what might be changed. Consultation in itself is never enough – it Alan Piper, Secretary. can even be counter-productive by first 3 Adv\ BS\ News\ July 05 Planning.doc Tate Library Gardens Re-opening A Multicoloured Fantasy Brixton Society hold strong with Alan and Co As ever at the core.