Cross River Tram is dead. Crossrail might die. Long live the tube?

I made reference, yesterday, to the fact that Lambeth Council had mentioned the Cross River Tram in their Local Development Framework. I think, perhaps, that they forgot to remove it from the document because I doubt (sadly) that the scheme will ever come to fruition.

Today though, I spotted a rather interesting article article in the Evening Standard. The writer, Simon Jenkins, suggests that Boris should kill off Crossrail. Unfortunately, due to the nature of the "limited pot" (now "empty pot") of public money, one always knows that some Londoners will benefit through certain initiatives whilst others won't benefit at all (or will even become worse off). The Crossrail project is one example of a piece of transport that doesn't benefit South London at all. Due to my love of all things public transport, I'm not in a position to oppose it, but Simon's article has made me wonder... Apparently, TfL are close to bankruptcy, and unlikely to stump up their share of cash for Crossrail. If Boris were to eradicate the Crossrail project to plug the hole in his transport budget, Simon wonders whether he'd choose to plough that money into the tube.

The spare money in the pot from ditching Crossrail would be £5.6 billion.

And it was only the other day, (reported in Southwark News here) in early March at the London Assembly that Boris suggested "the potential of extending the Bakerloo Line for instance... is something we should drag onto the agenda". Do we think that any of the spare £5.6 billion could be channelled towards improving the tube connections in South London? It would be great to connect Camberwell, Peckham, Lewisham, Croydon and Brixton. How much does it cost to add tube stations and extend the lines? It certainly wouldn't cost that much to re-open Camberwell tube since the infrastructure is in already.

That would be a project which would mean South Londoners could stop asking "What has Boris ever done for us?"

Additional library for Lambeth... The Library House

At the end of last year, astute local news watchers might have noticed that Lambeth Council was accused of opening "ghost" libraries, shortly before the Council was due to be inspected. It opened temporary book borrowing from three already existing facilities that it ran, but the facilities were never intended to be libraries. Whilst Lambeth Council claimed the "libraries" were pilot projects, some internal emails from staff indicate otherwise...

But the really good news is that Lambeth does have a new library (or at least one that has been given a new lease of life). And guess what? Lambeth Council is trying to close it down. Why are there no headlines? Why no outraged Daily Mail readers? Well, presumably because, like the transport network is at times subject to "the wrong kind of snow", Lambeth Council is now subject "to the wrong kind of library".

According to an article in The Evening Standard (that liberal bastion of merry goodness), about the Library House's occupants,

"Lambeth council had most recently been using it to provide social housing but it had been vacated for renovations.

Yet construction work has not been able to get under way and the squatters have refused repeated pleas to leave during the last six months. The council now faces a legal battle to obtain a court eviction order."

There's a quote by one of the occupants (Simon), who apparently said:

"When we arrived, it was in a real mess. We cleaned up the garden and fixed all the rooms. There were squatters here before us who sold drugs. We are not interested in any of that. We do live an alternative lifestyle, but all we want to do here is something for the community."

Well, how fabulous! I applaud the efforts of all squatters and other anarchist-y types who are attempting to work for the common good, or create that most elusive concept, "community". I think it's really good news that they're offering classes in everything from "Squatting" to "Spanish". And all of that, for no charge at all. Lambeth Council should be encourage such initiatives! It's hardly like they're going to get any money to put all of their empty buildings to good use.

I confess I've not yet visited them because whilst my soul is that of an anarchist, community forming, hippy squatter, my upbringing is one that almost entirely precluded such an anti-establishment option. I think I'm secretly afraid of getting beaten up for sustaining capitalism by doing an ordinary job in a corporate firm. One of these days I might just run away and join one of these self-sustaining anarchist communities. It's so damned tempting. In the meantime, I want the option open to me, so I'm going to unabashedly promote their activites. On Sunday 22nd (this weekend), they're going to be running a Free School. See here for more details.

I've been subscribed to their blog, The Library House, for sometime now and I think they deserve some good publicity. Billed as being in Camberwell, they are actually kind of in no (wo)mans land between Brixton, Camberwell and Stockwell, but it's definitely possible to walk/bus from SE11.

Oh, and I forgot... within the next weeks I'm going to be doing an exposé of some of the Lambeth Council properties in my locality that are currently boarded up because /that/ should act as a good answer to the commentators on the Library House who think that deserving people require housing. Yes, they do, and Lambeth Council doesn't seem to be doing much about it.

Round of News in SE London, and quick note on Brixton market

SE11 is still very quiet at the moment. The only event of note is that the Kennington Association will be having a bazaar on Saturday (21st Feb) from 11am-1pm. More details on the KA blog.

Consequently, I bring you only the pieces of exciting news that have caught my eye in the South East:

The Peoples' Republic of Southwark (courtesy of Camberwell Online) are hoping to set up a Public Meeting to increase Real Life interaction between people in Camberwell to involve more local people with their surroundings. More details on CamberwellOnline blog.

Again from Camberwell Online, funding has been approved for Phase 2 of the East London Line extension which will put more of South East London on the overground/tube. There's a lovely map (for those sad types that like to see coloured lines linking things together) from another blog here. It will be interesting to see how this might create possibilities for better joined up thinking in South London.

I forgot to mention that the nasty, ugly 23 storey building, destined for the end of Black Prince Road in SE11 didn't get the go ahead. London-SE1 did a report on that. There is likely to be an appeal, so we'll keep our fingers crossed. My only concern is that another developer might dream up something worse!

And finally... I'm not too sure how serious this threat is, but I've caught whiff of news which suggests that there is a company who hope to build on Granville Place (part of Brixton market). It's not possible to oppose the plan yet as it hasn't been placed on Lambeth Council's online Planning database. The Friends of Brixton Market have quickly put together some info. and have given instructions about what you can do to keep the market in place and to stop Brixton becoming some sort of trendy shopping mall. I like the market down in Brixton. I think it has great character, and some of the few fresh fish stalls left in London, so I'd be sad to see it turned into a bastion of smart looking chain stores, especially considering that Elephant and Castle will probably go that way any way (and surely with better reason than Brixton). Isn't there a limit to the amount of chain stores that any town centre needs...?

Camberwell Shooting

A 26 year old man was shot dead two nights ago (Friday 19th December) after an incident which apparently began in Coldharbour Lane, Camberwell. Police are chasing two men who apparently ran in the direction of Crawford Road.

There's not much further information on the matter. The Telegraph's report is scant. The Press Association suggests that the shooting started in Coldharbour Lane, Stockwell, but since Stockwell isn't really near Coldharbour Lane, I can only assume that they've incorrectly labelled the area.

My sympathy goes to the family of the man in question.

Lurking about in a generally gay way

On the map above, you'll already be able to see quite a number of LGBT friendly pubs and clubs in SE11. Kennington, but more particularly Vauxhall, is known for its queer vibe, and provision of suitably pink venues. Consequently, we are (apparently) the largest gay (although I doubt lesbian) residential area in London, outside of Soho. I have been inclined to term the whole area "the gaybourhood". However, it appears that Vauxhall and Kennington might just have some competition:

A new site has just sprung up here:

Gay Camberwell.com, and even more excitingly, they're spicing up November by launching a whole month of gay fun and frolics.

Have a look at the site, and you'll see jazz evenings, viewings at the Red Gate Gallery, a Transgender film festival (cunningly hosted in Brixton, and borrowed for the Camberwell events series), a launch party, a special theatre trip, and a new lovely, lively literary book group held in The Castle, for luscious, lovely, literary lesbian (and gay :)) people!

Also, they have a blog: Gay Camberwell Blog, but it's not as good as the SE11 blog so you won't all visit them to the exclusion of my lovely blog here, but you can pop across for a quick visit, if you like.

Another interesting piece of gay news for this area from the Pink Paper, who report that lots of gay clubs have had to move from the West End, due to the soaring rents. A quick snippet...

"From December 2008 the city will have 3 clearly defined gay villages, which is no bad thing.

[There will be] Soho for the Tourists and mainstream, Vauxhall for the late night sweaty dance clubs and The East End for the arty, studenty, wacky, weird and cutting edge stuff."