Bellenden Residents' Group (BRG)

This is marginally better.  At least the windows are more or less correctly proportioned but there is no disguising the fact that it is a different type of building from its Victorian neighbours.  The bays are clumsily proportioned, the walls are cavity brickwork and therefore stretcher bonded and of course there are no chimneys.  It just doesn't look right.

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.

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!

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.

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.

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On the corner of Holly Grove and Bellenden Road is wonderful Ganapati resturant offering authentic South Indian cuisine

I took these as a record when the Renewal works were completed in 2003. I hope to take some more in the near future which will provide an interesting opportunity to see how it has developed.

See the full montage with links at http://www.thingsmagazine.net/projects/007/index.htm.

A successful social eating and meeting place created in railway arches and surrounded by industry. Hints at what could be achieved with other imaginative enterprises.

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.

If you are going to do it right get it right.  That's the message of this one.  Not the only approach of course but here the existing terrace has been extended by copying it in every detail.  The scale, dimensions and materials all echo the adjoining houses, even down to the stock brickwork with its flemish bond  and coloured mortar giving the illusion of weathering. The gates are not to everyone's taste but so what.  The only real giveaway are the rooflights. Not applicable in every case but this development  works. 

The car park used to have an awful old broken surface. I always like to see the fresh unbroken and clear surface now, on that mad rush to the station to catch a train. I also really like the wide expanse of sky that that car park lets us enjoy. The Council is intent in its Peckham Area Action Plan (PAAP) of removing this car park and having large buildings there that would block the sky, and lose us that feeling of space. It is also an important car park for town centre visitors, that would be lost. Unlike the multi-storey car park it is very well used.

The Rye Lane West area of Peckham is full of hidden surprises. Many people will know what the Almshouses in Choumert Road look like from the front but probably don't peer round the back. The Victorians usually treated rear domestic elevations in a fairly basic manner but here there is real attention to the architectural detail. Note especially the parapet/coping detail, and the roof profiles. And who said chimneys are always boring?

This ugly site in Highshore Road (near the postal sorting office) has been the scene of a number of aborted developments for around two years. It would be interesting to know what is going on. Meanwhile, waste bins frequently block the pavement. Complaint to Southwark Council (which is hot on cars that do no harm) has been unavailing.

This view shows the pleasant curve in this part of Nigel Road, and shows off well the clean up that the houses had in the Bellenden Renewal Scheme. They were the first in 1999 together with adjacent roads Relf Road and Anstey Road. In this picture the awful street furniture clutter at the junction is well evident. They were the first streets to be chosen for renewal as they are one of the key gateways to the area. It is also unfortunately the key gateway and getaway for the flood of traffic through the neighbourhood rat runs in rush hours.

This is another small terrace of attractive buldings opposite the Nigel Road junction. Just right for the 'facelift' treatment that some Bellenden streets got, but they wait in vain, and this and the other street frontages in this important gateway to the town centre remain so neglected.

Peckham Library at Sunset. A view from the Hannah Barry Exhibition on the top floor of the multi-story car park.
It shows how close we are to the centre of London, yet our transport links to it are constantly under threat.

Christmas 2008/9 in Rye Lane as with previous year showed Christmas lights dowdily arranged without comprehension to any seasonal aesthetic as to 'a glorious promenade of glittering lights' that might easily be achievable. Just witness the haphazard hanging of lights where many in-between posts are ignored making the overall aspect ‘mean and uneven’. Notwithstanding, that on Christmas Eve 2008 when my photos were taken lights were unlit at 3.42pm just as shops are about to close early on the last Christmas shopping day. “Yes” lights reluctantly brighten 5mins later at 3.47pm as ambient light level triggers auto street lights to turn-on. Seems like Mr. Scrooge is alive and well in his woebegone Southwark Town Hall garret switching off and turning on Peckham’s “Bar Humbug” Christmas lights. I will certainly be out again recording Christmas lights in Peckham 2009. Will Southwark’s Ebenezer still have his finger on the switch again one wonders?

Rye Passage as it was after first temporary improvement in early 2008, paid for by CGS funds. Work now stalled, waiting impatiently for completion with new and realigned fencing to open up the passage and to remove blind spots.

On Saturday 26th September 2009 there was a lovely festival in my local park so I filmed it. The festival was called The Warwick Wingding 2009 and was organised by the Friends of the Warwick Gardens.