I’m still a bit discombobulated after a short break in Barcelona so I don’t have a lot to write about just yet, but one potentially huge piece of news happened late last month/year which needs to be reported.

TfL have announced a grant of £200,000 to pay for the design of improvements to Camberwell town centre. This will pay for a full consultation of local needs & wishes and designs to be drawn up based on the results of that. Mooted improvements include:

… improving the pedestrian crossing at Camberwell Green junction, widening pavements and improved pedestrian crossings at Denmark Hill, creating a “green walking link” from Wren Road to Butterfly Walk and decorating the blank walls of Orpheus Walk.

Now this does sound somewhat familiar (there seems to be a new consultation every other year), but Southwark council are hopeful it could lead to up to £7million of further investment from TfL and “other sources”. If that happens, it would be amazing — especially with the influx of new residents in the new Camberwell New Road development and the Peckham Road Student Village — so fingers crossed it comes to pass.

Congratulations to all of the local pressure groups — including many of the readers of this blog — who have campaigned to make this happen. Let’s hope for bigger things in 2011 and beyond.

I also have some other news which I’ve promised not to tell yet. It’s not on the same scale as this, but is quite a shock. Yes, I am a big tease.

Over the course of Saturday and Sunday 11am — 7pm there is music, dance, food, displays, a flower show, farm animals, charity stalls, owls and all sorts of other things all in the heart of inner London.

Further information is on the Lambeth website including the programme of events.

Update (by Peter): Also it’s the College of Arts MA Summer Show this week; it’s open to the public from tomorrow (Wednesday) until Saturday; details here. And huge apologies to Hannah at the CCA for forgetting to tell you all about the private showing.

Update 16/7/2010 There is also the fabulous Urban Art Fair on Saturday and Sunday on Josephine Avenue, SW2 near to Brockwell Park.
London’s largest annual open air contemporary arts fair will have around 2,000 pieces of work on display from 150 local and international artists. As well as art displays there will be foodstalls, refreshments and a sound stage featuring a mix of local musicians. This is the kind of art event I would like to see Camberwell in the future
www.urbanart.co.uk

(Photo taken last week prior to opening)

I feel that this is a positive addition to the local shopping scene — maybe not clothing to everyones taste but I’m sure useful for lots of people. The best thing is that its increases the diversity of shops available in the town centre and it is not another fried chicken, betting, nails or off licence shop — not that I have anything against these shops but we do seem to have several of these types already.

In other news whilst walking to Sophocles bakery today I see that a new Polish delicatessan is due to open on Camberwell Church Street approximately opposite the Jungle Cafe — this I hope will be a useful addition to the area.

And I read in the South London Press last week (and its been mentioned here) that the Antic Pub Co are considering opening up a microbrewery in  the Tiger Pub. This would be fantastic news for the local area — imagine sipping a pint of Camberwell Tiger as you watch the world go by.  A quick google shows (see the results here) that in olden days (ie 19th century) the Camberwell Brewery Company established in 1860 and owned by Mr Richard Ray was located on Camberwell Green producing beer for the local market — it was taken over in 1895 by the company that eventually became Marstons and closed at some point but it may have even stood on the current Tiger site?

And in other Camberwell news I have just come back from a very sunny Glastonbury Festival where Camberwell’s own Florence and the Machine played an amazing set to 50,000+ people.

And finally do not miss the Big Dance at various locations across London this weekend — including events in Myatts Fields and Ruskin Park. See the latest edition of Lambeth Life (available online or pick up a copy at any Lambeth library or council office) for further details.

We were on our way back from il Giardino in Peckham, a place which should be recession-proof because its staff are so bloody nice that you’d never consider not going. One place which isn’t recession proof (segue!) is The Dark Horse, which as everyone must know by now has closed down. And on the subject of closures, we now have photographic evidence that Somerfield in Butterfly Walk will close on April 29th. I honestly can’t wait to see a Co-op in there; I was in Co-op today and it’s miles better.

Further good news about Burgess Park; as well as the £6m already pledged, apparently there is a further £1m to spend on the Chumleigh Gardens area. Looks like we’re on course to have a radical transformation; I’ll be first in the queue when the zoo opens.

I tried Amaryllis on Coldharbour Lane for the first time on Tuesday, as the wife wanted to watch Volver in the S&D and I wanted to watch Arsenal beat Hull in the FA Cup. It’s nicely decorated inside, and they serve decent Chinese food at reasonable prices — £3.50 for a plate of chicken in black bean sauce and egg-fried rice (I had rice instead of noodels).

Finally: Prince William was in Camberwell last week; our very own Eyechild has the report.

Enjoy the weekend, everyone.

They seem to be advertising an Art Deco fair / sale, but I didn’t have the forethought to take a picture of the poster. Lovely to have them, though; gave me a little thrill as I stepped off the no. 40 bus.

Update: Looks like these are permanent; how lovely. Thanks to Elij for the link.

In other news, there’s a new art space, called Art’s, opening above the Funky Munky in March. I thought the area above the Funky Munky was used for the weekend student crowd; maybe it still is.

And finally, Teamwork (formerly Cube) hairdressers is set to stay open, according to the stern Balkan(?) girl who cut my hair on Saturday. Fingers crossed for that; why don’t you all go and make appointments now?

This was the news.

Now the Green is dominated by a huge, cheap, bright plastic sign, with the name of the place flanked by pale, unappetising shots of bowls of food. Worse, the name is spelled:

NOODELS

Honestly. A garish, mis-spelled monster. Doesn’t the council get any say in approving this tat? Why can’t we have a town centre committee to consult on things like this? As if Christine’s Meat & Fish weren’t enough.

We’re doomed.

Update: And here, courtesy of Luke & Rachel, it is:

Being that side of SE5 provided an excuse to drop in to The Cambria for a couple of beers and some sausage and chips. Nice pub, nice food, but was a little put out at being moved around by the landlord in order to provide more space for customers (who didn’t arrive while we were there). Doesn’t he know who I am? Then a walk back through Ruskin Park, with a lovely haze providing beautiful golden beams of light.

Dwellers in ‘forgotten Camberwell’ and around may be delighted to know that it seems Tesco have decided to open one of their Metro stores on Southampton Way, if this report on the SE5Forum forum is to be believed (and I have no reason not to). That will make five booze shops in a 50m walk, by my reckoning.

The latest Camberwell Quarterly has an article on a saturation policy for licensing. Apparently there are 76 licensed premises within our borders, and a licensing sub-committee recommended that a saturation policy be introduced; the Council decided not to act on it, however. There’s confirmation of what we heard about the three pitches for the development of the Baths as well.

Possibly have another guest post coming soon, and shortly after it will be Christmas!

Update: I forgot to mention that I finally got around to setting up an email address for this blog. Questions, complaints, compliments, notices, money transfers, etc, can be sent to peter@camberwellonline.co.uk. Please use it wisely.

Update 2: Added a link to buy the Fun Factory print, and made some cosmetic changes to the website; removed the ‘reply’ option from comments, as I wasn’t happy with them, and added support for gravatars.

Thanks to someone I can’t remember, I’ve recently found the blog of local councillor John Friary, of the Camberwell Green ward. It’s very useful for local news; for example, his latest post mentions that the future of the Baths / Leisure Centre is not as rosy as it could be -  survival depends on Southwark being able to get £2m Government funding from a pot of £50m — which 200 other local authorities have also made bids on. News on the future of the Town Hall there as well.

The latest installment of My Middle-Class Weekends saw me and the wife check out the Saturday farmer’s market in Oval (which we can probably just about squeeze into Camberwell, as it’s at the very end of Camberwell New Road). It’s bigger than the Sunday market at Peckham, with more food actually cooked and served there. Peckham’s still great for picking up the basics, but for something a little more tasty — such as the delicious venison and mushroom pie we had for dinner — it merits a trip on the 436. And I don’t say that lightly.

Earlier that day we dropped a few items off at the PROS bring & take event at the Synergy Centre. Hope that went well.

Later we thought we’d try The Cambria, which everyone has been raving about, but after cycling over there we realised that a) neither of us had any cash and b) all of the outside tables were in the shade. It looks beautiful inside, but we’ll have to go back another time to review it properly. Instead, we wrang out the last few drops of sunshine in the Sun & Doves garden.

To close, some gossip; my mate at the pub says that the Camberwell Grove development isn’t selling well at all. After having to scale back their plans considerably (due to the opposition of the Camberwell Grove Society) they decided to make up their profits by charging more for the properties. Obviously the current financial climate has seen prices tumble, but St George have yet to follow suit; hence, slow sales. As with all gossip, I cannot vouch for its veracity.

If St George would like some free publicity, I will gladly sing their praises here in return for a one-bedroom flat. For a two-bedroom flat, I will also renounce my dislike of the Vauxhall Bridge development.

* In case you don’t know what feeds are, the BBC have a good overview; they’re much more convenient than visiting loads of sites every day. While on technical matters, the 30% of people who visit this site using Internet Explorer 6 should really consider updating to a modern browser; IE6 is old, slow, and potentially insecure. Ask a web-savvy friend if you don’t know what this means.

Latest casualty in our shopping mecca seems to be Duraty electronics. I noticed the last time I went in there that it had changed hands, and on the two occasions I’ve passed it since then, it’s been closed up. On the bright side, that frees up space for another pound shop to open. Update: Apparently still open. One less thing to be cynical about.

Sunday saw the Olympics come to Camberwell Green, only I can’t find any coverage of it bar this brief reportage from our own Dagmar on the SE5Forum forum. I was away, as usual. Update: Here’s a brief report; is that our very own Drew Mishmash in the first photo?

I saw the ‘million moron march’ walking along Peckham Road yesterday afternoon, with their police escort, apparently walking to Notting Hill for a rumble. Spare us from bored, aggressive, baby gangsters.

I’m still looking for guest contributors; anyone feel they have anything to offer?