The wrath of grapes
Published by Peter | Filed under General, Places
I don’t wish to keep banging on about the less savoury aspects of life in SE5, but here’s a story from the South London Press regarding street drinking in Camberwell.
Southwark Council recently slapped ASBOs on four street drinkers:
The four are banned from drinking or using illegal drugs anywhere within the SE5 postcode area. They are also barred in Southwark from begging, swearing, fighting, using threatening behaviour and urinating or defecating in public.
According to the article, the problem is concentrated around the area in front of Valmar Road and around Nando’s, with frequent violent outbursts and… let’s say, public hygiene disorders.
Maybe it’s just my imagination, but it seems to be a lot better than it used to be. Back in the late 90s street drinking was more endemic than it is now; Camberwell Green was a no-go area, as was the former graveyard behind St Giles’ church. The drinking seems to have been (mostly) successfully moved away from those areas, although obviously the problem hasn’t gone away.
But a total ban on street drinking punishes innocents too, and putting ASBOs on everyone just moves the problem around, it doesn’t deal with it. The ‘wet centre’ at St Giles Trust seems to have been a step in the right direction, although the trial may be ended in September.
Onto another subject, and hopefully the last bit of bad news for a while, a Nursery Nurse hanged herself in Brunswick Park. Laura Perij had been suffering from depression and took ecstacy before killing herself. I thought at first that this was related to the police search that Ben Patio noticed there last weekend, but this took place back in December so it’s very unlikely.
I really need to find some positive stories.
Bloody hell. My daughter climbs on that frame every day.
A while ago there was apparently a hilarious mass brawl outside Nando’s, crutches and Special Brew everywhere. It really did stop the traffic.
I remember that incident just after xmas. Very sad. The police cordoned the play area off all morning, and then were gone by lunch — as if nothing had ever happened…
Regarding street drinking outside Nando’s — isnt the building above Nando’s actually a homeless hostel still? I thought this was where a lot of the street drinkers lived… along with the Maudsley hospital up the road…
On a positive note — only 9 days til Camberwell Arts Festival
Also — this months Southwark Life had a massive feature on the development on the building on the corner of St Giles Road. A landmark architectural building that will be a child dev centre.
We really do have a lot of NHS buildings/orgs in Camberwell dont we…
wow, we have smileys! what a cool blog!
Excstacy-assisted suicide? Is this common, I wonder?
As for positive stories, I assume Camberwell-online readers will have to take this into their own hands by logging off, going out and doing some positive things around the place.
Well i can give you a positive Peckham story!! Did anyone else see the Peckham Petastic on Saturday — a slightly mad dogs fancy dress parage outside the library complete with face painting and dog themed songs — well it made me laugh!
Apparently there’s going to be a feature on it in Junes ID magazine — has Hoxton finally come to Peckham i wonder? I bet we could outdo them in terms of funny haircuts and “urban edgyness” any day.
And the Sun and Doves are having a BBQ and Trojan records sale on Sunday — which is nice.
[Note: Edited by… erm… Editor]
It’s not a particularly positive story as such, but whenever I go into ‘Cruson’, the fruit and veg shop on Church Street near the Green, the owner always calls me ‘young man’ despite the fact I’m comfortably into my thirties. Always cheers me up.
Damn, missed the pet parade…
If you were 187 like the owner of Cruson, you would call everyone ‘young man’ too. Does that guy ever sleep?
Fred — I have it on, erm, good advice that for every high there’s a low, and ecstasy’s low often comes two or three days afterwards. My wife used to work in mental healthcare, and she says 27 December is sadly a busy time.
I’m going to be a dad for the second time. Does that count as a positive story?