Happy Monday

I wish you all a good afternoon. Just a flying update, this:

As I tucked into a satisfying ‘almonds & apricots with yoghurt coating Eat Natural’ bar the other day, I took a look at the company information on the back and was surprised to see the legal address: 95 Camberwell Station Rd, London SE5 9JJ.

Yes, ‘the UK’s fastest-growing snack bar’ (doesn’t that make it sound like Frankenstein food?) is made right here in SE5. And not in a factory or a bakery; no, this snack is made in their — wait for it — Makery. We have a Makery here!

(Whilst I’m being snarky, is it really necessary to advise consumers of an ‘almonds & apricots with yoghurt coating’ bar that it contains nuts?)

A quick reminder that the AGM of the SE5Forum will take place next Wednesday at the Institute of Psychiatry (you don’t have to be mad, etc). This is a bit of a reboot of the Forum, so it’s a good time to go along. Chelsea fans will be unable to attend as that night sees them play Everton, but to be honest we’re better off without them anyway. Ooh! Football humour!

Went to the Peckham Farmer’s Market again yesterday. There’s a new goat’s dairy stall and a smaller vegetable stall with lots of different types of cabbage. Here’s wishing them success.

Author: Peter

Long-time resident of Camberwell, author of this blog since July 2004.

126 thoughts on “Happy Monday”

  1. I thoguth we were talking about single income here not household income? (well as a single person that is one and the same for me!!)

    However i certainly do not think i am entitled to a luxury falt on the river (who’d want to live opposite Vauxhall bus station anyway!) on my income i cannot even afford to buy in Camberwell!! Well correction i can afford a studio or one bedroom on Camberwell New Road if i put all my savings in a house and take out a completely unaffordable mortgage at something like 6 times my salary, however i don’t fancy being terrified everytime the interest rates go up or mt job looks threatened so i’ll bow out of the “housing miracle” for now thanks!

    Also be careful what you wish for with the St George development. Being a bit of a Middle Class Guardian reading ponce myself i have absolutely no problem with higher income people moving to Camberwell — we should welcome all comers. However those type of developments tend not to attect the well heeled young couples of the ads but more like buy to let land lords, property investment consortia — who often leave the places empty, parents buying an investment for the spoilt student off spring to party in and part time londoners looking for a little place to stay a few nights when they are in the “city”

  2. It’s single income, not household:

    “As a single applicant you must be earning a minimum salary of £30,000 or £34,000 as a joint applicant to purchase a 25% share in the cheapest flat.”

  3. JohnnyM, some of London’s regeneration projects remind me a bit of the Tammany Ring and New York’s interminable City Hall build in the 19th Century. Good to keep an eye out.

    I am interested in your idea that Camberwell needs funding.

    1. What would you spend public funds on?
    2. Does Lordship Lane have greater local spending power than Camberwell New Road or Camberwell Church Street?
    3. Is there another way to develop the SE5 economy other than, or in addition to, more St George-style developments?
    4. By the SE5 economy, do you really mean the rate of house price growth or are you also talking about increased concentration of wealth earned and spent locally?

  4. My friend met a guy through Guardian Soulmates who happened to be very rich and had a 2 bed apartement in St Georges at Vauxhall worth a ridiculous amount of money but it was a very pokey 2 bed flat cheaply made it did have a huge deck over looking the river which has fantastic views.
    When they got married she insisted he sold it becuase it was so “naff” now they have a 14 bed Chateau in France.

    The quality of St Georges build is not great if you go there the public areas are not great quality it feels like a 80’s shopping centre. That development is not occupied for the same reasons Hannah says at 102 property investment companies keeping them empty. The place has something like 50% occupancy and that is on the bus station side which is not quite so glamourous. So Mary Datchelor development may not bring the riches and gentifrication that some think.

  5. @103 Interestingly (well interesting for some people at least) there was question in Parliament on Monday about average incomes in London (see http://tinyurl.com/38a7l2) — the answer revealed that the average household income in Southwark borough is £510 a week (around £26,500 per year) before housing costs according to the latest government figures. This is one of the lower figures for inner London boroughs, it is also an average for the whole borough so includes people in the more prosperous areas.

  6. Therein lies your answers. For all the middle class frap on this board, the overwhelming number of our neighbours struggle to get by. So dreams of a Lordship Lane coming here are a bit misplaced.

    Best advice? Get cracking on the Guardian personal ads.

    And apologies Peter. Didn’t realise your household income didn’t reach 34K. My bad.

  7. Figures are median and they are average household income and covers everyone — you can bet that most of the bus drivers, nurses, shopkeepers, minicab drivers, hospital cleaners in Camberwell would not have incomes at that level.

  8. if you are in Lambeth side of Camberwell you are £2,000 richer which would make an average of £27,550 for the area.

  9. On average maybe but the Lambeth bit of Camberwell I believe falls in two of the most deprived wards in Lambeth — Vassall and Coldharbour — so its unlikely that the average incomes will match the borough average. Lambeth’s rich people all live in places like Clapham, Streatham and Kennington

  10. I’d forgotten how tedious Mr M could be. You think you’re a straight-talking realist, pricking the self-rightous collective bubble of this blog. I think you’re predictable, one track and deeply repetitive. Roll on the moment you and your partner move ‘up the ladder’ to whichever crime free, sqeaky clean promised land you hanker after.

    But each to their own, horses for courses etc etc.

  11. @95 eusebiovic. It’s a long time since I was in the brick game but Sunshine is made out of Staffordshire Blues, I think; they are some of the hardest, durable, high temperature fired — and most expensive — bricks available anywhere.

  12. I live next to Sunshine House and I think it looks decent. The colourful touches are pleasingly whimsical and contrast nicely with black brick. It’s modernist, but certainly not brutalist — the windows are way too large for that. Unlike the red brick building behind it which has no redeeming features whatsoever.

  13. @100 JohnnyM

    If the community groups in Camberwell could agree on anything and work together they would be able to lever in considerable funds for SE5. They don’t often see eye to eye on detail though.

  14. The SE5 Forum agm went well tonight. I like the notion of “Smooth Solid” as in the Staffordshite Blue brick context (genuine typo as it happens).

    Peter Gasston got a special mention for the volunteer work he’s done for the Forum.

  15. Herne Hill Forum “Bridging the gap between Lambeth and Southwark”

    Thursday 7th February 2008 — 7pm Herne Hill Baptist Church, 30 Half Moon Lane SE24 9HU

    http://www.hernehillforum.blogspot.com
    hernehillforum@​btinternet.​com

    Chair: Giles Gibson
    Vice Chair: David Cianfarini
    Secretary: Paul Reynolds

    I shall be attending this meeting and I am thinking of putting forward the suggestion that perhaps it might be a good idea to collaborate with SE5Forum on many of the issues that we share in common.

    I think the issues they worry about are much the same as in SE5…

    Well funded transport links

    Improved traffic management

    Better street environment through flora/landscaping

    Encoraging innovative business enterprise

    Less anti-social drinking outlets/establishments

    I think it would be an excellent idea to pursue the possibility of collaborating, I think it is something which the SE5Forum needs — especially bringing together reprsentatives from Lambeth and Southwark councils in the same room (as they are doing), which helps to co-ordinate any plans or initiatives which all the community groups in the local area decide upon.

    Apologies for not being at meeting yesterday (again) — I work until 9.00pm on most weeknights, but hopefully not for much longer…which will be great for me personally, then perhaps I can get my teeth into something which interests me!

  16. mark — @117

    still prefer the Old Red Staffordshire Northern Bricks — The ones that St.Pancras and much of Manchester and the north is full of them…there is just an warm, earthy quality about them that I always like to see…

    Black Bricks? — I just don’t like them there is an estate on the Black Prince Road in Kennington made from black brick stocks and it just looks depressing, like a flippin’ gulag or something…

  17. Do you mean the very red bricks that you find in the Midlands, Eusebiovic, that hardly ever weather? The good thing about the standard London Brick Company bricks is that they weather to different hues of red, a bit like bloggers here, really.

    I wonder if the Sunshine House bricks are the same as the old, dark grey impervious bricks. I doubt it. They were very expensive. If you’d ‘ad one row at ground level on yer ‘ouse, you were posh.

  18. Dagmar — Yes, but those Midlands bricks just have a better quality about them, the modern day bricks try to look the same as the old ones but just end up looking look cheap and very wrong…

    There must be something in the technique of how bricks used to be made that just makes them look better — The Old Yellow London Brick for example is far better than it’s cheap,chalky looking modern counterpart

    By the way if you were really wealthy in Georgian/Victorian times you could get some limestone bricks, they have an off- white appearance…there are still a handful of streets in Kennington with houses made out of them — they look totally unique, even now

  19. Can anyone help? I’m from the bottom of Southwark borough (SE26 no less), and at Sunshine House for a course on Tuesday.

    I don’t know Peckham at all, but understand parking round there is a bit difficult. Have a taxi coming to pick me up — any suggestions where I should get it to wait for me? Think Sunshine House is on a red route…

    Sorry such a trivial question, but any advice very gratefully received…

  20. Sunshine House is a big shiny new set-up which we are very proud of here ‑they themselves are your best bet to ask. This must happen all the time, that people need to get picked up or park there or whatever. Ring them up first thing Tuesday and I’m sure you will get a shiny happy answer! They probably have sunshine pre-put in their tea!

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