Bellenden Residents' Group (BRG)

these photos where taken on Bellenden Road during the heavy snowfall of feb 2009

The Big Lunch features Bellenden Road in Peckham SE15, tuba, bunting, birthdays , community, carved water melons, food and new friends what a fantastic day.

A Big thanks to everyone who helped make this year's Big Lunch an amazing community event.

You can watch Bellenden Roads Big Lunch here http://www.youandiskills.com.

On Sunday 19th July 2009, communities all round the UK took to the streets to share home-made food and meet the neighbours. This is a quick little video of the Bellenden Big Lunch in Peckham, South East London. It was an absolutely fantastic afternoon. I can't wait until the Big Lunch 2010! If I had it my way, we'd do this every Sunday! Many, many thanks to the organisers, the musicians and the folks who provided food. Geeky details: Shot on a Panasonic GH1 at 720p50 with the stock lens and a Nikon 17-55mm f2.8 DX. Graded in Premiere Pro CS4.1. All handheld (poorly!) Excuse the shakiness! My Fader ND filter hasn't arrived yet so the shutterspeed was uncomfortably swift.

We had a brilliant time and we hope you all did too.  Thank you so much for involving us, and here's to next year's BBL!

What could be... One (cheap) traffic calming solution would be to allow parking bays on Bellenden road between Chadwick and Choumert road. This disportionately wide section of road allows cars the space to speed. One way of limiting speeding would be to narrow the road by allowing car bays. These need not be ugly as the photos show and could support the local businesses by allowing customers some short-term parking.
This could also be done on Bellenden road between Holly grove and Chadwick road; where again the road is very wide for a single lane of traffic.

The traffic island outside the shops is in the wrong postion. The road is too narrow, and it is too close to the bus stop. It causes a dangerous build up of traffic where people are crossing the road. It is also close to the dangerous junction with Chadwick Road. The cars and buses coming out of Chadwick Road are not fully visible to the traffic coming along Bellenden Road which is often speeding.  It all needs redesigning.

Time was when advertisements like this, on the corner of Chadwick Road and Bellenden Road, were painted all over the gable ends of terrace houses. They are now very rare and fading and so what to do with them? Remove them as eyesores? Unthinkable. Yet to carefully repaint and restore them would be equally crass as it would erase those evocations of the past which we so like about the area.

Most of the area has survived reasonably intact since first developed. So its interesting to note the occasional odd echoes of changes in Peckham's recent history. Although of no particular interest in itself, this little terrace from the 50s looks like a WWII bomb site infill.

This 'nature reserve' in Bellenden Road, fronting the DWP (Department of Work & Pensions) building, has great potential but is sadly neglected and used as a dump by those passing people who eat on the hoof.

Highshore School at the northern end of Bellenden Road: Attractively designed (opposite the 'concentration camp' of Peckham Academy)