Ring In The New

Welcome to 2011, dear reader. I hope you had a great Christmas and New Year’s Eve. I went to the Sun and Doves for NYE, and it was a proper South London jam. Had a great time, so huge thanks to Mark & Nikki for making it possible.

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.

Author: Peter

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

247 thoughts on “Ring In The New”

  2. Ah, yes, the new craze for seagull a l’orange in the gourmet eateries of Camberwell. This austerity fare, sold as the beleaguered banker’s sea bass, is an excellent wheeze — no need to salt the seagull, that’s already been done, the gull has long been marinaded in brine. Just shove a good-sized Jaffa up its arse, bake and Bob’s your uncle. In addition, the feathers may be used as a nice garnish to a hat.

    There is a huge, stuffed albatross at the Horniman in the balcony gallery. It may be albatross al la breadfruit. The exhibition of photographs in the gallery, “Coal, Frankincense and Myrrh”, largely pictures of old boys from Yemen who worked in the Sheffield steel industry before returning home — “Remember me to me mates in Yorkshire” — is just about the nicest show of any sort in London at the moment.

    Peter, is she past the 3 months? If so, hearty congratulations and welcome, so to speak, to the club.

  3. Peter

    You can also add this exciting New development in Coldharbour Lane to the other 2 developments mentioned…

    http://fabrikhomes.com/

    Yes, it is on the Lambeth side of Camberwell — a stone’s throw from the Sun & Doves so I find it a bit cheeky that they are marketing it as Brixton (much as I love it too)

    That’s really poor considering Denmark Hill (Overground 2012) & Loughborough Junction (Thameslink 2015) stations are both nearer…Not to mention Kings College across the road — last time I checked that was still here!

    Perhaps that potential £7Million grant will finally help to change such negative perceptions — Let’s hope it’s not yet another false dawn 😉

  4. Several seagulls a year die at cricket matches at the Oval when they’re hit by fluorescent orange crickets balls during the night-time floodlit 20–20 matches.

    That looks good, Eusebiomate, flats built to have hot sex in!

  5. Dagmar@

    Aye, hot enviromentally friendly sex…

    Trust those likeable Scandinavians to come up with such a superior level of thoughtfulness.

    They are on a single-handed mission to obliterate the phrase “You could freeze ice on his wife’s arse” out of future editions of the Oxford Book of English Language and Vocabulary…(can’t remember the exact title of aforementioned tome)

    😉

  8. Thanks Peter. Happy New Year — South London Jazz Orchestra were a blast and they all loved playing at S&D on the cusp of the decade. Was really good to see you and The Wife at such an auspicious time. And a big Thank You to everyone who came and made the night such a wonderful, warm send off for 2101.

    On matters apart from frivolity and speaking of exciting regeneration the eagerly awaited Bet Fred on Denmark Hill is due fairly soon, to open but a breath away from Paddy Power, following F. Hinds the Jewellers’ closing on 23 January.

    £200K , a huge amount for consultation when sufficient information could be gathered for fifty grand no probs and still leave a few rounds and slap up dinners in the kitty. The remaining £150K is just to be spent showing how serious and important the job is. It will e burned on pointless rehashes of meaningless rehashes of previous rounds of ex0pensive consultation work that went nowhere except to demoralise the community who stand by helplessly as it’s all done to them without anyone taking a blind bit of notice about what they know, say, understand about where they live and what, if they had the energy, the would DEMAND if they felt anyone in Authority would actually listen to them.

    You can be sure that if this all comes to pass, without a Development Trust in place to steer it all, another load of stupidly thought out regeneration and development will happen to Camberwell and achieve nothing.

    Sorry about the typos.

  9. does anyone know when the boris bikes are arriving in camberwell and where they will be put

  10. @sue baird I don’t think it’s even been mentioned as a possibility, has it? Except in the feverish minds of a few of the commenters here.

  12. As I understand it there are no plans to expand the Boris Bikes scheme Southwards so far but we should be applying pressure now to demonstrate local demand so that when they do consider a third phase post 2012 they will bear Camberwell in mind. The London political parties will shortly be thinking about putting together their manifestos for the Mayoral elections in 2012 so the ideal would be to get them to include a commitment to expand the scheme in the manifestos.

    So I would email Boris himself together with our local London Assembly Member Valerie Shawcross and also London-wide Lib Dem and Green Assembly members such as Caroline Pigeon and Jenny Jones who both have Camberwell connections. Contact details at http://www.london.gov.uk/who-runs-london/the-london-assembly/members

  14. No-one likes us but we don’t care.

    One of the nice things about Camberwell is its proximity to the V & A, easily if serpentinely reached on the 345 bus. The Ballet Russes exhibition finishes on Sunday. It is a must.

    If you think you are hard enough.

  16. A mate from the north west visited me recently. He quite liked the food options (Silk Rd, Mangal) but was baffled by the number of nail bars everywhere. I think we were travelling the Walworth Rd at the time.

  17. There are a lot of nail bars in Liverpool.

    Where in ‘the north west’ was he from?

    I went up north recently. I quite liked the coatless, mini-skirted revellers but I was baffled by the lack of private sector employment.

  20. @PK

    This much under-rated piece of architecture is best appreciated from the top of a bus passing up Denmark Hill.

    This view, which I often enjoy, will be wrecked by the proposed development.

    Sad.

  21. Novi Sad.

    It nice if, after Camberwell Green done nice, Camberwell renamed by PEOPLE’S COMMITEE, Novi Happy.

    What say, Lili? xxx

    The best gig adjacent to endz dis weekend is 200th anniversary do at the Dulwich Picture Gallery on Sunday 12 till 5.15pm when there will be fireworks.

    COME ON CAMBERWELL! This will be just poshtastic!

    One of the good things about Camberwell is its proximity to some of the fanciest artiest art in the whole universe on show at the DPG.

    It makes the V&A look like the SLG.

    Get thee down to the Dulwich Picture Gallery on Sunday afternoon. Be square!

    PS Sad news about Gary Mason today. He was a big figure round here. Used to come round our endz. He was a big bloke but had amazingly fast hands.

  22. Mumu — that pub is massively overpriced. It’s being sold by the same outfit who ran down the Lord Lyndhurst before selling it to property developers. Part of the unnecessary ruination of the nation’s pubs.

    When Gary Mason had his office in Camberwell Church Street he was a regular at The Sun and Doves. Real shame he died so young.

    WE are having a Hog Roast at The Sun and Doves on Saturday 22nd January to welcome the New Year in properly. There’ll be a yard sale as well — in front of a Spring Clean so put that in your diaries for the afternoon through until late evening. It’ll be FUN? You can bring your own stuff to sell if you want.

    Oh and bring your used household batteries and any old unwanted CDs while you’re about it. We have a box for each for recycling.

    The pig we’re roasting, by the way, is one of our own from Sussex. He was / is called Admiral. That’s after the last two who we slaughtered and you ate who were called Punch and Enterprise. The fourth has to be called Scottish & Newcastle because vaguely decent names for pigs are running out from the selection of pubcos we have left at our disposal.

  23. The best obituary of Gary Mason is by Steve Bunce in today’s Independent. He recalls that Mason got £10,000 from a benefit after he lost against Lennox Lewis with his retina detached. When Watson was taken to hospital after his disastrous bout against Ewbank, Mason was with Watson’s mum in the hospital, gave the £10,000 to Watson’s family, said they needed it more than him, begged Bunce not to make it public.

    His legendary laugh filled the whole of Camberwell Church Street. God, it is ever so sad.

  25. @Alan. NW is Blackburn and Preston now. But he’s from Liverpool, so he’s no stranger to a shithole. Though I think Walworth Rd tested that.

    Dead right about everyone working for the state in these places. I lived in Wales awhile, and worked in Belfast. I never did work out how it worked. And the answer is that it doesn’t.

  26. Still, doctors and teachers kids from all over the UK are fed into London to become solicitors, accountants and bankers..

    It takes a couple of generations to get a return on that spend..

  28. News Flash!

    Planning application for change of use of Bingo Hall has been refused.

    http://planningonline.southwarksites.com/planningonline2/AcolNetCGI.exe?ACTION=UNWRAP&RIPNAME=Root.PgeResultDetail&TheSystemkey=9537993

    Reasons:
    1) Due to the additional vehicles attracted by the proposed use that would not be able to be accommodated within parking spaces, either on site or within an acceptable walking distance, the proposal would result in an adverse impact upon the road network, road safety, and on existing residents’ parking amenity. This would be contrary to policies 5.2 Transport Impacts and 5.6 Car Parking, of the Southwark Plan 2007.
    2) In the absence of information to demonstrate convincing attempts to enable the building to be used by all members of the community, and limited information on the groups that may have entered into discussions with the applicant, the proposal would fail to comply with policy 2.2 Provision of new Community Facilities, of the Southwark Plan 2007.

  29. That’s great news James!
    What’s the likely next step — I presume they will appeal the decision?

  30. I think it’s more than likely that they’ll appeal. Unfortunately, the appeal process can taken 6 months. Perhaps this decision will force them to really engage in a meaningful way with local community groups, which they’ve failed to do so far.

  31. What a shame, I was planning on Getting On Down with the rest of the congregation soon whereas no doubt now I’ll have to wait many months until after their appeal and interminable changes are made to their plans as the building lies dormant, rotting and empty, useless as a place of worship before I get the chance to share the LOVE of House of Praise.

  32. Seriously, my urge to congregate aside, this is marvellously unexpected on some levels and no doubt, dreadfully unexpected on others. Can’t imagine FOR EVEN A MOMENT that HOP / RCCG will consider even for a moment that it’s worth engaging. Why would they do that?

    There ought to be no stinting in the ambitions of the Camberwell Village Hall to regain use of this building for future use of the entire community — all nations, denominations faiths and creeds.

  34. I like that:

    “Grand Opening Of Camberwell

    All Glory to God The Most High

    The Grand opening of our new location at 262–274, Camberwell Road, London SE5 0DL

    Time: 9:30am”

    No date for the Grand Opening though.

  37. hello. Happy New Year to all. Good to read that there are lots of positive recent developments for the area. Unfortunately I have a bit of bad news in that I just read that the East London Line extension to Denmark Hill is being delayed by about 7 months; this means that its opening will not happen before the Olympics. http://londonreconnections.blogspot.com/2011/01/ell-extension-news-for-both-north-and.html
    Although not altogether surprising, as the timetable was a bit hopeful considering no work has been started, it still a disappointment as it would have meant getting to the games venues would have been easier for us / guests.

  38. James J

    Excellent News!

    Hopefully this organization will now make an effort to engage with the wider community.

  39. James! Joy oh Joy!

    “Night of Joy

    Night of joy present: The New Beginning

    Day1: Wednesday 26th of January

    Day2: Thursday 27th of January

    Day3: Friday 28th of January

    Venue: 262–274, camberwell road, London SE5 0DL

    Door opens at 6:30pm”

    So there is a new beginning BEFORE the grand opening. It maketh senthe.

    The LORD is giving a banquet. And YOU are ALL invited.

  40. Let’s not be beastly to the Christians. Millwall have an excellently presented marketing promotion called “Lions for the Christians” whereby Christians, both players and fans, are given a “special welcome” at the Den.

    It would be nice to have an arts centre which would drain every speck of talent from the Joiners Arms, the Cambria, the St Giles Crypt, the South London Gallery, you name it, to the Gala Bingo so that the whole of Greater London, Hoxton, Clerkenwell, Notting Hill, Berlin, Paris, New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco could bear down on Camberwell to watch “Thatcher, eh?” stand-ups and drool over water colours of Cornish harbours and drink in the honeyed melodies of singer songwriters and so on.

    But.

    It would need a Russian oiliarch to fund it. Whilst we wait for him, or her, we’d better keep swimming else we’ll sink like a stone, for the times they are a‑changin’.

  41. the owners of a listed building are legally obliged to keep it in good condition regardless of whether they’re using it or not.

    as for the celebrations in aid of imaginary friends, there are laws for that too, i am sure

  42. Thanks NickW.

    That is a shame. Is the closure of the London Bridge — Victoria route being delayed too then?

  43. ‘Although early projections indicated that the project would be complete by May 2012, it has never been a part of the Olympic transport plans.’

    Nonsense- the timing linked it to the Olympics. It was certainly part of my Olympic transport plans.

  47. If the £200,000 public consultation leads to a £7million rebooting of Camberwell Green, perhaps the Bingo hall will be melded in with the plans.

    (Is that how we talk in planning policy and the like? POLLissy! Old Ed Mililband makes it sound like poultry science. Or parrot husbandry.)

    Has anyone listened to Resonance 104.4 FM? It broadcasts from and to the South Bank but reached here the other day. Hootingyard (also on the net) is an interesting show, situationist, surrealist and Count Arthur Strongist.

    One of the good things about living in Camberwell is that we can receive BBC Radio 3.

    What a genius is Mozart. The feathery flights of fancy! Intoxicating, addictive! But what was WRONG with him?

  48. Can anyone shed any light on how long the Discussion Board on the SE5 forum is likely to be ‘under maintenance’ for? It seems to have been like that for the last week or so.

  50. BREAKING NEWS.

    Camberwell has a cinema…well for one week only. Camberwell College of Art, in conjunction with the South London Gallery, is showing some films from the 21st-28th Jan.

    http://www.camberwell.arts.ac.uk/67655.htm

    Talking of art schools, got the following email. Does anyone know any more about it?
    Hello all,

    just a reminder to those interested about invitation to join in singing and songwriting workshop, with other singers and musicians, at the weekend of action for Arts against Cuts.…at Camberwell School of Art this Saturday — 15th Jan event starts at 10am songs workshop at 4pm…it will be brilliant! further details & flyer to follow.

    @PK: It is up again, but also has a lot of spam on the first few pages.

    However, a few interesting comments mixed in there somewhere.

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