And on the other side of Brockley Cross from Martins Yard, the site formerly known as the Ajax Flooring Company is now called Malpas Mews and is also supposed to be ready for occupation in spring 2012, although construction is yet to begin above ground.
The Brockley Central Interview: Martin Nash, MacDonald Egan
MacDonald Egan are the company building Martin's Yard, the new live / work development on the site of the old scaffolding yard, off Endwell Street, Brockley Cross. Brockley Central believes this is the single most important development in Brockley since the East London Line so we spoke to Martin Nash, about the project, which is nearing completion:
The Ravensbourne Arms says:
Our kitchen will be open as of Tuesday the 4th October, which is just 5 days away!
Next week’s opening hours will remain the same, however, from Monday 10th October we will be opening from 12pm every day. Food will be available between 12pm and 3pm and then 5pm till 10pm (9pm on Saturdays). On Sundays we will be serving food from 12pm till 6pm. If you would like to reserve a table for any date please phone in on 0208 613 7070!
NHS card holders will be entitled to 20% off food from Monday to Friday between the hours of 12pm and 3pm.
In other news, we now show Sky Sports. Don’t worry though, we’re not a football pub! We have one medium sized LCD screen and will only have sound on for the very big games! We also now have a retro games table top machine in the pub, and a bar billiards table on the way! I’m also looking to get a darts board up ASAP. Basically, you’re not going to run out of things to do here!
October is full of events! So full in fact that we’ve renamed it Rocktober (we’re cool like that).
Click here for the full list of the Ravensbourne's events on the Ladywell Forum.
Last weekend, at the Brockley Cross Action Group AGM, the Council provided the details of their new plans to redevelop the area around the junction.
Jack has sent us the details of a consultation being carried out in relation to a proposed new substance misuse treatment centre. The link to the site is at the end of the article and we have reproduced the Q&A they provide below.
The current service
Lewisham Council and NHS Lewisham jointly fund a drug and alcohol treatment service. The service is currently based at New Direction, 410 Lewisham High Street. This is backed up by a service for users in the south of the borough at Dartmouth Road, Forest Hill. Many service users will also get regular services - such as repeat prescriptions and needle exchange - through their local GP or pharmacist.
The service has had some real successes but we think we could achieve much more if our sites were better located - so that service users from the south and the north of the borough were better able to access them. In particular, we have many service users in Brockley, Deptford and New Cross that would benefit from a site more local to them.
The proposal
We are proposing to establish a new treatment site in Shardeloes Road, Brockley. This new site would be the main service site for users in the north of the borough and, together with the Dartmouth Road site in the south, would mean service users from all over the borough would be able to travel easily to access the service.
The New Direction site would become the main site for after-care, helping improve the overall service further by reducing the numbers of service users who relapse. We welcome your views on this proposal.
Why Shardeloes Road, Brockley?
As we want to cover a larger area of Lewisham to help more people access treatment, we aim to have a treatment service in the north of the borough. Most areas of the country have drug services based within local communities and Brockley has been identified as being in need of services to provide help and support to local people.
The building is on the main road and has good public transport services. The railway station is close by, and bus services are frequent. It is therefore an ideal location, making the centre accessible to local residents. The building is appropriate for drug and alcohol treatment, as it offers space for the kinds of services and interventions required.
How can local people get involved and find out more?
We intend to provide high quality, effective services that improve the lives of both individuals and local communities. In order to ensure that our services meet the needs of the community, we continuously seek the views and opinions of local residents and people that use our services.
New Direction staff will be organising opportunities for people to discuss the centres and their activities, which you are very welcome to attend.
For details of drop-in sessions, venues, dates and times please go on to the Council's website at www.lewisham.gov.uk/consult .
We are also happy to come along to other local community events to tell you more about the consultation and give you the opportunity to share your views.
You can contact the service via the local council:
Jason Browne: Drug and Alcohol Action Team, 23 Mercia Grove, Lewisham, SE13 6BJ.
Telephone: 020 8314 3263
E-mail: DAATAdmin@lewisham.gov.uk
Website
Pat-a-cakes is a new cake shop opening at 358 Brockley Road, in what used to be the old Gas Shop, opposite the Co-op next to Crofton Park Station. Owner Stacie Maile is aiming to open in the first week of November and tells us about her plans:
Happy Mondays, the Amersham Arms comedy nights, are back and there's a quid off for people who say how much they like Brockley. Organiser Ed has sent us this list of upcoming headliners, with Holly Walsh the MC for all six shows:
3rd Oct
Tom Deacon
As seen on Rob Brydon Show and Dave’s One Night Stand and heard on Radio One
17th Oct
Nick Helm
Russell Howards Good News, Fosters Edinburgh Award Nominee 2011
31st Oct
Tony Law
As seen on "Stewart Lee's Comedy Vehicle" and "Russell Howards Good News"
14th Nov
Arthur Smith
As seen on "QI" and "Grumpy Old Men"
28th Nov
Isy Suttie
Dobby from "Peep Show"
12th DecJosie Long8 Out of 10 Cats, Never Mind the Buzzcocks, Fosters Edinburgh Award Nominee 2011
Tickets are £6/£4 (NUS) in advance or £7/£5 (NUS) on the door. Available behind bar or at
www.happymondayscomedy.co.uk
£1 Discount on tickets for all shows; ilovebrockley offer ends 3rd October
The owners of the Surrey Quays shopping centre have released initial plans for a major expansion and refurbishment of the 23 year old building.
Telegraph Hill theatre school Centre Stage is celebrating its 10 birthday at Haberdashers Askes with the start of the new term this month. Principal Andrea Rose says:
"George Lucas was once told there were no sounds in airless space. He didn't believe it. Today, George Lucas is a billionaire."
Brockley Market's Toby wants to leave nothing to chance for tomorrow's big day. He offers the following advice if you're planning to visit it tomorrow:
In Brockley, life is beautiful. The girls are beautiful. Even the orchestra is beautiful!
Ladywell fooderie El's Kichen is hosting an autumn wine tasting on September 26th, starting at 7.30pm. Wine, food, expert tuition and some award-winning British cheese for £10.
Full details on the Ladywell Forum
“The New Cross Federation” is a local campaign group that opposes the opening of a new Sainsbury’s Local in New Cross, opposite Goldsmiths. They will be protesting on Thursday 20th October, outside Sainsbury’s Head Office, 33 Holborn, London EC1N 2HT 12-2pm. They say:
If you are worried about the destruction of small shops and the takeover of our communities by corporations, then please come and join us, and please sign the petition at http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/no_to_newcross_sainsburys/
All the usual full disclosure is necessary before we proceed: Our employer, Edelman, does a small amount of work for Sainsbury’s, helping with the developing their annual CSR report. So you can discount whatever we have to say on the matter if you like – as you can discount what we have to say about pretty much anything.
We asked one of the campaign organisers, Chris Boddington, who owns Cafe Crema in New Cross, about a couple of the key assumptions behind the campaign.
The first of these is that the New Cross retail economy is a zero-sum game. According to this logic, the revenue that this Sainsbury’s makes must be generated by reduced revenues for other local businesses. We don’t think that’s true – we think New Cross currently does a pretty poor job of catering to local people’s shopping needs and there is a lot more money to be made locally. Chris said:
At a meeting in August with New Cross Federation members (local traders and councillors) Sainsbury’s management stated that the reason for opening a small store (a ‘Local’) in addition to the large store already operating in SE14, is to pick up the ‘top-up’ trade – i.e. shoppers who do their weekly shop at the big store, but who may need to top-up with a few items mid-week. This is exactly the trade that small, independent shops rely upon for their living.
They conveniently ignore the fact that in any community there is a finite amount of money that residents need to spend on groceries each week. A new shop opening does not mean that business will be drummed up out of thin air.
At least 50% of the shoppers in New Cross are students at Goldsmiths College. The new store will be opposite the main entrance of the college. In addition to groceries, it will sell ready-to-eat takeaway food, which will take trade away from the two cafes immediately adjacent to it, as well as the many other independent cafes and takeaway counters in the area. It will also sell alcohol, taking trade from off-licences.
The second assumption is that this will cause displacement, with existing shops forced out of the area. But this is a unit that has been empty for years. By opening, it might encourage more people to shop locally and more shops to set up nearby to capitalise on the extra footfall. Chris said:
It is true that it's a shame to have a shop standing empty for years, but it doesn’t follow that it’s better to put it to any use whatsoever. Large corporations are willing to pay much more in rent than small traders or other organisations are able to, so landlords will jump at the chance to have them as tenants. Once this becomes the trend in any given area, why would any landlord settle for poorer tenants?
I’d rather see one empty shop than that kind of corporate Stalinism, and I’d rather see the money I spend going into the pockets of local people rather than being hoovered up by distant millionaire shareholders and corporate directors.
The campaigners believe that this is bad news for
local business and that the people of New Cross don’t want chain stores. Today’s
news of a planned opening of a new independent food store just down the road
and the quiver of local excitement about New Cross’ new TK Maxx suggest that
neither of these propositions is necessarily true. Time will tell.
We don't know anything about this one, other than what someone has posted on the site, which is that the New Cross House team have this picture of a new shop opening next door to them.
When we first wrote about TK Maxx's plans to open in New Cross, Twitter's south east London synapses lit up like a Christmas Tree. We never realised that it excited such passions among so many. Well the big day arrives tomorrow and the new store, next to Curry's, will sell men's, women's and children's clothes, accessories, shoes and toys.
The Brockley Market team have revealed the 17 stallholders who will feature on their opening day this Saturday.
They promised to raise the bar for local foodies and he has not let us down, as this saliva-inducing line-up of local heroes and exotic delicacies proves:
Dark Fluid Coffee – Serving award winning coffee and retail beans ground on site for home brewing – Schrödinger's cat Blend
Sugar and Vanilla Cakes - Breakfast treats: baby banana loaves; corn and raspberry's jam muffins; friands; zucchini and marmalade bread, cheddar and scallion scones. Cookies: choc chip and macadamia; melting moments; giant peanut butter; assorted shortbread shapes (vanilla, rosemary etc).·Cakes and tarts: little flour-less chocolate cakes; blackberry and cinnamon cake; carrot cake; hummingbird cake; chocolate and chestnut torte; lemon and pine nut tart; orange and almond cake (gluten free). Other: cheesecake brownie.
Aston Bakers - A selection of breads and french pastries - Including Seeded Cob, London Rye, Malted Grain Cob, Pain au Levin, Cibatta, Sourdough Rye
Norbiton Cheese - Week 1 selection, Montgomery's Cheddar, Keens Cheddar, Sharpham Rustic, Garlic Yarg, Colston Bassett Stilton, Cropwell bishop, Tunworth, Barkham Blue, Lancashire Bombs, Brie De Meaux, Donge Manachego, Ticklemore Goats, Cornish Blue, Blue Monday, Gubbeen, Smoked Gubbeen, Poacher, Doddingtons
Hand Picked Shellfish Company - Fish caught on the Friday sold at the market on Saturday
Bank Farm - Seasonal Game, Kent Grown vegetables, Eggs
Independent Trotters - Rare Breed Pork Farmer - Bacon, Sausages and all things porky
Marsh Farm - Beef, Lamb and Poultry - A wide selection of breeds and cuts (can order large joints etc in the week and pick them up at the market on Saturday)
Wild Country Organics - we specialise in producing a wide variety of tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, aubergines, and salad leaf. We now have over 5 acres of glasshouses and grow organic salads and oriental vegetables year round and without heating, improving their flavour and making our protected crops the greenest available.
Perry Court Farm - Vegetables, Fruit, Apple Juice and Flowers - Perry Court Farm has been growing wonderful fruit and vegetables in a responsible and environmentally friendly way for three generations now. Traditional methods of farming have been passed down, and mixed with modern know-how on sustainable agricultural practises, to give a way of producing food that really works in the long run.
Box Chillies - Culinary Plants and fresh flowers - Chillies, Plants and a range of vegetable plants including cut and come again lettuces, sweetcorn, aubergines, asparagus, peas, beans and many more are available at shows and markets.
Browns of Brockley - Browns will be providing dairy products direct from the farmer/farm they use for the shop.
London Particular - Week one Sourdough Donuts with homemade fillings, then breakfast sandwiches the following week.
Red Herring Smoke House - We smoke free range and rare breed meats, and fish - in Hackney. Will also be serving there great bacon buttie with home made ketchup and brown sauce.
Honey from Brockley - Local Brockley Bee keepers Noa and Daniel will be selling there honey and will also be bringing some bees and also bee! on hand to answer any bee related questions.
The Bowler Meatballs – Gourmet Balls on the go, quality ingredients, free range meats. Mixed with love, balled by hand.
A G Brookman - Kent's first organic and bio-dynamic farm selling Vegetables, Salads.
Mike Hall - Brockley's artist laureate will sell some of his work
The Brockley Market will be held every Saturday in the Lewisham College car park, Lewisham Way, 10am-2pm.
www.brockleymarket.com
The Ladywell Ward Assembly on Thursday will discuss plans to create an ice rink in Hilly Fields as part of a "Winter Design Festival" in November.
We've no idea how this would be commercially viable, but it's a cool idea and one we're looking forward to finding out more about it. BrocSoc report:
'Would you like to see an ice rink on HIlly Fields? If you live in the Ladywell ward, please come and vote for it:
Ladywell Assembly, Thursday 22 September, 7pm, St Andrews Church Hall, Brockley Road, SE4 2SA Several excellent community projects have applied for funding from the Ladywell Assembly fund.
Brockley Society is involved in the Winter Design Festival, including an ice rink (synthetic ice) for two days in November on Hilly Fields. If you live in Ladywell ward you are entitled to vote for what you would like to see funded in your area.'
With thanks to Tressilliana.
Jennifer writes:
The Hilly Fields Lunch Club is a club for freelancers, homeworkers, and small business owners around Hilly Fields. The club brings together local professionals for a regular monthly informal meet-up to
• support local small businesses and freelancers
• build a network of potential collaborators amongst locally based professionals
• provide “water cooler moments” for people without a water cooler!
The Hilly Fields Lunch Club is friendly, informal and welcoming to anyone who wants to come along. We meet at a local venue to be announced each month on our blog. The few of us starting this are involved in IT and design so I would think it would be of interest to professional services, technology, design, copywriters, marketing but it would be great to attract a rich mix.
The inaugural meet-up of the club is on Friday 7th October, 12.30pm at The Ladywell Tavern, 80 Ladywell Rd, Ladywell, Lewisham, London, SE13 7HS.
If you can make it, leave a comment on the blog introducing yourself to the group.
http://hillyfieldslunchclub.wordpress.com/
http://twitter.com/hillyfieldsclub
As the unofficial live music correspondent for Brockley Central, we felt it only right we try out London's first ever Overground-based music festival, Sound Tracks, which took place on Saturday night.
Picking up our wristbands at the Amersham Arms at about 7.30, we were met with a wall of sound that we can only imagine was Eighteen Nightmares of Lux. It was pure rock n roll but a bit much for our ageing ears at that time in the evening, so we took refuge in the main bar while we waited for the rest of our group to turn up.
Planning to return to the AA later (we never did), and keen to try out the party train, we headed to the station at about 8.30 to make the journey to Cafe Oto in Dalston. The platform was silent, but various hi-viz vested folk were lurking so we knew we were in the right place. Once on the train we located the Sound Tracks posters and watched Toodar belt out a number of acoustic and Casio-accompanied tracks all the way to Dalston. Despite some mild heckling from a Millwall fan (at least, we think that's what he shouted?), the reaction was brilliant, with people coming down the train to watch and record it on their phone.
Toodar playing the priority seats
We'd never been to Cafe Oto. A wide frontage spills out onto a quiet side street by the station, surrounded by red brick warehouses and bikes chained to anything screwed down, this place is Hackney meets Amsterdam.
Although bands had been announced at each venue, set times hadn't been published online, so it was pot luck. We turned up to Elen Tamara on stage, who was great, and keen to see some more of the same we decided to hang around for the next group. It was a long wait, made longer as we knew we had precious little time to try to get to all the venues. Finally Shabaka & The Sons of Kemet came on, and pushed our musical boundaries with screaming saxophones, wobbly tuba-driven basslines and two drummers battling for supremacy.
Our friends were keen to catch Fantastic Mr. Fox at Concrete (on at 11.30, as relayed to us by some mates already at the venue). We were happy to tick off all of the stops, so, at about 10.45 and mid-saxophone solo, we made the move, hoping to be entertained on the way down. At Dalston Junction we boarded a train bound for New Cross, but it was eerily quiet - where was the party? There was no band or even revellers to be seen. At least it's only a 5 minute journey down to the 'Ditch.
We'll fess up now, Concrete isn't our favourite Shoreditch venue. It's a soulless box underneath Pizza East, minimally furnished, lacking identity and a coherent music policy, meaning that its normally either hosting a private function or full of Shoreditch tourists who weren't sure where else to go. Tonight was no different - a random mixture of curious Pizza East diners, and East End wide boys, this is where we hit upon one of the Sound Tracks problems. The venues are still open to Joe Public, so you don't always get that 'united by a wristband' feeling like other festivals. How was Fantastic Mr Fox? Well, we gave it until last train time (12.15), by which point there was no sign of him. Should have stayed in Dalston.
And here lies a logistical nightmare that even the East London Line can't solve - the distance between the venues (especially from New X to Shoreditch) meant that changing 'stages' was a big decision, especially if you're trying to rally a large group of people with beer in their hands. With the festival only lasting for a few hours that evening, there wasn't really time to go back should you decide you'd made a bad move. We couldn't help but wonder if we might have better spent our night choosing our own venues, and simply making the most of the live music on the ELL trains. A day-long festival would have given more scope for moving up and down the line, exploring the venues, or a wider distribution of artists at different venues might have made it easier to hop up and down the line.
We don't mean to sound negative. Brockley Central knows exactly how difficult it is to organise a live music event, let alone a festival, so we can appreciate these teething problems, and we also appreciate the obvious time and effort that the organisers put into it. The branding was slick, the all important 'feel' was generally spot on, and most of all this was a massive success in terms of concept, so bravo to the organisers and TFL for actually making it happen. This was a positive start to what we hope will become a larger annual event, that might well spread to some other stops along the line - next stop, Brockley?
Wyclef: Yo Rock I sold like seventeen million records
The Rock: It doesn't matter how many records you've sold!
Wyclef: Alright I'm with you, yo check it out, you wanna go get diamond rings?
The Rock: It doesn't matter if the Rock wants to go get diamond rings or not!
- It doesn't matter, Wyclef Jean
Brockley's Rock, the new fish and chip restaurant on Brockley Road, has found a way to appeal to all of Brockley's tribes.
We were in there on Friday night and as we sat and worked our way through two enormous fishcakes (they eventually gave us a doggy bag for the second) we were struck by the fact that of all of Brockley's cafes, the Rock appeals to the widest cross-section of the community. Black and white, young and old, gay and straight, families and singletons, achingly cool and painfully uncool. All of Brockley life passed through their doors in the space of about half an hour.
Perhaps it's because fish and chips are still the great British leveler, but Brockley's Rock shows that the presence of brushed aluminium and a commitment to quality don't have to be elitist.
“Then they set out along the blacktop in the gunmetal light, shuffling through the ash, each the other's world entire.”
- The Road
Ben writes:
The South East London Dads Group is three years old and has over 100 members.
We’re mostly based in Lewisham and Greenwich boroughs with a few others to the west and further south. We have a homedads stay and play every Tuesday 09:30 – 11:30 at Hatcham Oak Children’s Centre on Wallbutton Road, Telegraph Hill, where the kids can play and the dads can chat and have a cup of tea. We run two other stay and plays on other days in Charlton and Lee. We also meet regularly on other days in parks or cafés or each others’ homes. Dads can check the website, join the email list or Facebook, Twitter and South East Central:
www.selondondads.org.uk
info@selondondads.org.uk
www.facebook.com/SElondonDads
@lewishamdads
Southeastcentral
We’re happy to chat about anything and share experiences, or just have a laugh. Sometimes dads looking after their kids can feel isolated in a world of mums and miss the social aspect of the work environment – we can help! We also run free courses on first aid, cooking for kids, parenting skills and others. And we have a drinks evening every couple of months or so.
Obviously, most dads work full time and there are other groups which run on weekends – wherever we get information of these we’ll post about them on our site and through emails. We’ve chosen to focus on homedads, but once we have more working dad volunteers we will be able to offer more weekend things as well.
Annabelle writes:
Just thought locals might like to know that there is a meeting being held with Lewisham Council planners next week about the new building application for the corner of Brockley Road and Sevenoaks Rd in Crofton Park, opposite the Brockley Jack.
The developers have knocked down the old building in the past week without planning permission having being granted for the latest proposed development [although planning permission already exists for an earlier proposal], so lot of people already seeing red - as it was a 1930s block very in keeping with the area.
Workers on site say a Tesco is being built on the ground floor, under three more storeys of flats. The planning reference is DC/11/77384.
Anyway, what the council calls an "informal meeting" to allow planners to "assess the areas of concern before the application is considered" is being held on Tuesday September 20 at 6pm at St Hilda's Church, Brockley Rd (corner of Courtrai Rd).
You can vote on whether you would like to see or use a Tesco in Crofton Park here.
Jimmy Dell: Good people, bad people, they generally look like what they are.
- The Spanish Prisoner
A while back, we wrote about the newly built block of flats on the corner of Harefield Mews and Cranfield Road, just behind Brockley Road. As these things occasionally do, the debate that followed descended into a rather angry exchange, suggesting anyone who didn't think this was going to be a mental health unit was a fool or worse, hiding some sort of secret bias.
Anyway, the flats are now on sale with KFH and described as being "built to a very high standard of specification and ready for immediate occupation. The apartments in Harefield Mews are in a good sought after location within a short walk of Brockley train station and local shops. The apartments come with a luxury kitchen with integrated appliances fitted and wood flooring supplied. The ground floor apartments have the added bonus of good sized private enclosed gardens."
The Hilly Fields Stone Circle, built to celebrate the turn of the Millennium, has been damaged by fire. The Friends of Hilly Fields explain:
A very large fire on top of the flat stones in the centre of the circle occurred. The heat caused the stones to crack. Over time the cracks are becoming larger and smaller parts will dislodge.
They are currently seeking quotes to repair or replace the damage.
BC-ite Monkeyboy has, somehow, spotted this article about the Brockley Rise restaurant Le Querce, which appears in a Sardinian newspaper. Reading it using Google translate leaves a little to be desired but the article is about why the team moved to London and what their experiences have been since they got here.
Is cheese ice cream really the secret of their success? Click here to find out.
Here's a Brockley grow-your-own initiative that even the biggest Clarkson fan couldn't take issue with. Here's a clutch of wild hops growing next to The Talbot.
No, calm down, we know what you're thinking, you're right, Brockley Central would make an excellent Mayor, but our paymasters at Tesco, the Department for Transport, Monsanto and NAMBLA wouldn't hear of it. We're too valuable to them as an instrument of mind control in SE4.
The Boundary Commission for England, the independent body established to review the size and shape of MPs' constituencies, has recommended that Lewisham's electoral map be redrawn. As predicted, it proposes abolishing Lewisham East and Lewisham Deptford and lumping Brockley, Ladywell, Deptford, New Cross, Blackheath and chunks of Greenwich together in a new constituency,' Deptford & Greenwich', which shall henceforth be known as Greater Brockley:
Design for London - the Mayor's design advisers - have carried out a heritage audit of the East London Line's stations as part of the preparation for the modernisation programme due to take place at stations along the line over the next three years.
The report concluded that... Brockley Station has "little of heritage value except for the footbridge linking the two platforms, which is of some interest. There is therefore significant scope for new station facilities to improve passenger amenities."
So while the prefab hut didn't seduce them, they do compliment the recent landscaping and reveal some interesting details about the station's history:
Brockley Station was opened in 1871 - hitherto there were no intermediate stations between New Cross Gate and Forest Hill as the line passed through farmland with little settlement.
In the 1850s and 1860s the area to the east of the railway grew rapidly as large family houses were built on broad tree lined streets. In 1872 the rival London, Chatham & Dover Railway opened a station called Brockley Lane immediately to the east of the overbridge which crossed over the platforms of Brockley Station.
This was served by Victoria to Greenwich Park services until the station closed in 1917.
There was a substantial two storey gabled station building on the west (up) side fronting Mantle Road and another single storey red-brick building on the down platform, both with generous canopies.
The existing station building is a prefabricated 1960s structure on the east side which replaced the 1871 station. The system-built CLASP (Consortium of Local Authorities Special Projects) structure is of a type widely used by the public sector in this decade especially for schools, hospitals and railways. It is a two storey flat roofed utilitarian structure composed of concrete panels.
The lack of architectural merit in what remains should mean an uncomplicated modernisation programme (hinted at by the signs up currently, saying that work has begun to lengthen the platforms to accommodate longer trains - has anyone seen any evidence of this work?) over the next few years.
You can download the report here, including some great pictures of the station and its verdict on other stops along the line. Thanks to Barry for sending it to us.
Take Flight is a new theatre school, launching this Wednesday, September 14th. Run by Stevie and Ahmet, two experienced West End performers, it will operate from St Hilda's Church, Crofton Park.
A quick reminder that the Lewisham Literary Festival is in full swing this weekend, with lots of great events planned today and for the rest of the week. Sunday's highlights include a young poets event for kids, readings by authors Joe Dunthorne and Lee Rourke and a celebration of crime fiction.
As reported by the Ladywell Village Improvement Group and Transpontine, a number of railway station ticket offices in the area have been long-listed for closure in a review by the Department for Transport. The list includes Crofton Park, Deptford, Ladywell, Nunhead, St Johns but none of the stations along the route of the East London Line, nor transport hub Lewisham.
In BC's view, ticket offices at less-used stations are a nice to have, rather than a must have, and if £1 billion can be saved by the closure of these (and the other offices threatened) then that is a powerful argument, given how many of the transactions they were created to handle can now be managed electronically. Yes, there are times when it's nice to ask a human being a question and not everyone has a smart phone to handle route planning, but at a time when cuts are being introduced in many areas, this seems like one of the more painless ones on offer.
We don't really buy the "public safety" argument in favour of their preservation. The scariest times to be on a station are precisely the times when ticket offices are already closed and the presence of other passengers is more important than the presence of someone behind a desk. Good lighting is the best solution, so perhaps the money saved could be reinvested in lighting the exits at stations like St Johns.
No decision has yet been taken by the Government on this issue.
Brockley’s new weekly market starts on September 24th in the Lewisham College car park, Lewisham Way, from 10am-2pm. Ahead of the opening, we spoke to the guy behind it, Brockley resident Toby Allen, about his plans:
“When we open, there will be a total of 19 food stalls, selling a range of meat, fish, fruit and vegetables, hot food and drinks. The plan is that visitors should be able to buy the majority of their weekly food shop or enjoy some brunch.
Lewisham Arthouse
Annual Open Studios
Friday 30th September 6-9pm
Sat 1st & Sun 2nd October 12-6pm
Cara Barry, Richard Buckle, Barry Cunningham, Ali Day, Mary Louise Evans, Val Fox, Amanda Francis, Pascal Furminieux, Anita Gwynn, Charles Hayward, Pat Hextall, Terence Humphrey, Janet Hyde, Julia Mcneal, Nina Necak, Janine Nelson, Mark Nelson, Stephen Palmer, Rosey Prince, Ben Parry, Toby Rye, Joyce Saunders-Diop, Fiona Smithers, Heather Steed, Irene Stewart, Shirley Stewart, Derval Tubridy, Alexandra Valy, Benjamin Varney, Sara Willett, Alma Tishler Wood and Peter Wright.
Have a peek around 30 artists/makers studios and explore 3 floors of beautiful Edwardian building.
On the first floor Sara Willett will immerse you in an opulent halucigenic fantasy inspired by Edgar Allen Poe’s Ligeia. In the bowels of the building Charles Hayward’s projects an archive of sound recordings collected during the midnight hour these ‘silences’ refill an empty space with traces, ghosts. In our gallery artists Zoë Walker and Neil Bromwich present ‘Dancing Borders’ a film work documenting a live event using dance, marching and pollination to transform the psychology of the much besieged border town of Berwick –Upon-Tweed. The film is accompanied by ‘Siege Weapons of Love’; a series of inflatable sculptures, which transform symbols of war into Flower Power.
Derek Frost: Because, the world is hell. But we have a chance to start over in the rubble. But first there has to be a rubble. You're a teacher, you know that. You understand.
- Source Code
The Evening Standard reports that Goldsmiths lecturer Des Freedman, currently promoting the release of a new book, which he has edited, is urging students to 'keep fighting' against University reform.
The article does its best to make him in to the student body's answer to Abu Hamza, but actually his quotes are pretty modest. He doesn't like the changes to the funding model and he wants to encourage action against it, but Tyler Durden he ain't:
Mr Freedman said the student movement was "reawakening" after a long summer holiday and added: "If it means more sit-ins and marches to make sure this issue is back on the front pages then that has to be done."
With thanks to Fintan.
Bill Cosby: Oh, oh: you see, the kids, they listen to the rap music which gives them the brain damage. With their hippin’, and the hoppin’, and the bippin’, and the boppin’, so they don’t know what the jazz…is all about!
- The Simpsons
We recently reported that this area could claim two nominees for the 2011 Mercury Music Prize - Katy B and James Blake. In fact, there were three.
Jazz musician Gwilym Simcock is a Brockley resident and was also on the twelve-strong shortlist, meaning that Brockley and New Cross are responsible for one quarter of all the best music in the UK.
Apologies to Gwilym for the oversight, which we only discovered when we got a text message from a local parent, asking us to vote for him at this year's MOBO Awards, for which he has also been shortlisted in the Jazz category. The site is pretty infuriating to use, but please take a couple of minutes to vote for him.
Congratulations to El's Kitchen, which came runner-up overall in the Deli of the Year award, having won the London heat.
El is interviewed in today's Times, which says:
Eleanor Thomson did because she longed for a local deli that she could shop at herself and thought her neighbours would too. Each evening during her years as a City high-flyer, Thomson would alight from her commuter train at Ladywell in southeast London, survey the familiar row of high street shops and sigh. “It was such a food desert,” she says, “I’d lived here for 20 years and kept expecting someone to see the obvious and open a really good deli. Eventually I got bored waiting and decided I’d have to do it myself.”
El is not resting on her laurels and is continuing to expand the range on offer at El's, but congratulations to the team for how far they've already come.
Goldsmiths academic Tom Henri has written an article in the Guardian today about the recent Lewisham riots, entitled: "Behind the Lewisham riots: It was all about money."
Here's an excerpt:
"My initial plan was to talk to young people about their motivation for involvement in the disturbances. What came out of the discussions was a rather nuanced discussion about the tactics they employed to avoid the police while looting. When it came to talking about their motivations for this, they were clear – "it was all about money", as one young man succinctly expressed it."
As he suggests, this insight doesn't really provide an answer to the question of the underlying causal factors, but opportunism, rather than anger appears to be the catalyst, something we speculated about here.
The Brockley Community Church is organising a harvest festival. They say:
Super Cuts, the Upper Brockley Road off license that had its license withdrawn earlier this year, has appealed the decision.
The News Shopper reports that the decision to withdraw it followed CCTV footage being shown of an:
Illegal street party which culminated in around 600 revellers fleeing in panic as a gun was fired.
The Met police argued the off licence had helped organise the party and had caused problems for residents over many years.
The appeal will be heard in mid-November.
Brockley will get BT Infinity super-fast broadband access by the end of this year, according to the BT website.
BT has brought forward the date for the upgrade of the Deptford exchange to December 31st 2011. The exchange serves most of this area and the timetable for its upgrade had slipped to September 2012. Hopefully, the fact that new year is only a few months away means that December 31st is the final date.
Thanks to Mike for letting us know.
