New Year's Eve from above

Orchard NYE 2009 from Kai Clear on Vimeo.

Kai has sent us this time-lapse film he made of the Orchard on New Year's Eve. Check out his film of the Getliffe mural near Brockley Station being created too.

Hilly Fields playground - work starts this month

The Friends of Hilly Fields report that work to improve the children's playground will begin later this month:


The council received the tenders back for the playground last week. They will be appointing SSG contractors who are experienced and have a good reputation. They should be starting on site in late January...

We have progressed the project for the gates separately... They are now being forged by the artist blacksmith Heather Burrell in Deptford. Children from Gordonbrock Primary School who have been involved in the design work should have an opportunity to see Heather at work and take part in an art workshop and exhibition in late January.

Read more here.

(Hat tip to Green Ladywell)

Don't let's be beastly to the journos

Reader Oli sent us this News Shopper article, which reveals that the war on terror could have been averted, if only we’d listened to a Lewisham psychic. It’s an article that many of our friends in the hyperlocal blogging community have been frothing about on Twitter, suggesting it’s the death rattle of local newspapers.

Sure, it’s abject but it’s also incumbent upon hyper-local bloggers not to be too pleased with ourselves. Having written Brockley Central for three years, I’ve grown increasingly appreciative of the job done by local reporters and of the problems faced by local newspapers like The Mercury, the South London Press and the News Shopper.

The debate about the future of the newspaper industry is a bit like the ones we used to have at university, when we studied modern British industrial history. We came armed with a set of beliefs, inherited from school and from growing up in a period in which it seemed that the country’s infrastructure had been left to rot by successive Conservative governments: the City was short-sighted, choosing to invest in South American railways rather than our own, the quality of managers was poor, with UK business leaders being outmanoeuvred by Americans and Germans, who invested in newer, more efficient technologies.

Session-by-session our tutor dismantled all of our easy assumptions, showing how each decision was perfectly rational, even in hindsight, and that relative decline was largely inevitable. We were like the soldiers in Catch-22, arguing wit h the old man in Rome.

Likewise, bloggers carping about the myopic nature of newspaper businesses don’t have employees, shareholders or revenue to protect.

Perhaps the most rational course of action for these companies is to manage long-term decline, maximising profitability in the short-term.
Consumption of local news is moving inexorably online, starting with the youngest, wealthiest and best-educated people first. Eventually, everyone will be getting their news via screens, but the rump will take years to migrate – newspapers still reach much bigger audiences than blogs do. Until someone works out how to make money from the hyperlocal scene, blogs don't offer a sustainable and comprehensive alternative to newspapers.

Bloggers and local newspaper journalists must (and sometimes do) work together to make sure the important stuff gets reported, so there are fewer stories about psychics in future. Laughing at the slow death of the newspaper industry won’t help.

Christmas Tree recycling

Lewisham Council is once again arranging free Christmas Tree recycling at drop-off points in local parks.

The service is available until the last week in January. According to Councillor Susan Wise, Cabinet Member for Customer Services, last year over 10,000 Christmas trees were collected, mulched and used for compost in Lewisham’s parks.

The drop off points are:

- Hilly Fields - entrance in Hilly Fields Crescent, SE4
- Deptford Park - entrance in Scawen Road, SE8
- Telegraph Hill - Pepys Road/Kitto Road entrance, SE14

Oyster Pay As You Go - Now at Brockley

We had our first experience of using Oyster Pay-As-You-Go at Brockley Station today (or rather, our companion did, as you can't buy Oyster cards at Brockley Station, only top up at the machines). We felt pathetically grateful, like we had been accepted in to the greater London family, at long last.

Cllr Sue Luxton tweeted to say she'd successfully used it at Ladywell Station today too. Have you tried Oyster locally? Did it give you a warm sense of belonging? More importantly, did it work?

Wee Birdy

1. Find a subject you care about. 2. Do not ramble, though. 3. Keep it simple. 4. Have the guts to cut. 5. Sound like yourself. 6. Say what you mean to say. 7. Pity the readers.

- Kurt Vonnegut

With our singular focus, we don't often mention other blogs we like, but we're happy to have an opportunity to put that right in one case.

Wee Birdy is an excellent design, craft and shopping blog written by the deputy shopping and style editor at Time Out London magazine, who also happens to live in Brockley. Her work has recently been celebrated by the Times, who selected it for its list of the 50 best design blogs in the world. Check it out.

Predictions for 2010

Let us start by looking back at last year's predictions, which look less like guesswork and more like cosmic ordering.

We give ourselves five out of five:

1. "One of Brockley's existing retailers will take the plunge and spread their wings on to Brockley Road." (Magi)

2. "2009 will see the rebirth of The Talbot." (Check)

3. "Coulgate Street will have a full complement of shops and cafes open for business by the end of the year." (Thank you Browns of Brockley)

4. "The East London Line will remain on course for summer 2010 and the government will eventually cough up the funds necessary for the extension to Clapham Junction." (Yes and yes)

5. "We're going to bet that the developers decide to press on with Martin's Yard by the end of 2009." (Just about)

So what's left for 2010? This is the year that everything is supposed to change. That's what every property supplement of the last four years has predicted and we've been arguing for years that the ELL project is driving long-term, fundamental change in Brockley, increasing business confidence and footfall around Brockley Station. However, our predictions for 2010 are fairly modest - we think the trends we've seen in 2009 will continue, but there will be no dramatic change.

Most of the action will take place around Brockley Station, we'll see more young people and families living and playing locally, creating more a lively "town centre" and Brockley Road will very slowly improve, until the north end gradually approaches the standards of the Crofton Park stretch. Lewisham Way will remain largely unchanged, despite the best efforts of the Big Yellow storage company.

The East London Line will change the way in which we feel about our neighbouring areas - although places like Honor Oak, Forest Hill and New Cross Gate won't be any quicker to reach, the ability to turn up at the station and confidently expect that a train will be along at any moment will encourage greater travel along the route - like a monorail between two airport terminals. But in terms of specifics, here our best five guesses:

1. The campaign to secure a station at Surrey Canal along the second phase of the East London Line will be successful. That will be the only positive bit of news about local public transport infrastructure in 2010, although of course the Jubilee upgrade which will benefit both London Bridge and ELL users should be finished early this year and the DLR's expansion to three carriages should be finished by the end of the year.

2. Brockley will attract at least one new business which caters specifically for the young family market - whether that be a new nursery, a shop or something else entirely.

3. The final unit on Harefield Road will be occupied.

4. At least one of the existing businesses along the Brockley Barge stretch of Brockley Road will decide it needs to raise its game in the same way that La Lanterna appears to have. This will mean a refit, a reimagining or selling-up to another business.

5. Through the hard work of local people, the Brockley Common project will at last fulfil its potential, flowers and shrubs will replace fag ends and discarded building materials, greenery will hide unsympathetic concrete walls and people will enjoy the meandering walk up the ramp, rather than endure its unremitting brownness.

What do you think 2010 holds in store for us?