SOUTH EAST RISING

SOUTH EAST RISING The face of London is changing, and many working-class urban areas are now becoming the focus of property developers. Most know the Peckham from Only Fools and Horses, but the reality couldn’t be more different today - it has become a hub for artists and creatives alike.

But what happens when gentrification goes too far? Summer Brooks meets the residents to find out if there’s more to ‘Peckhamania’

WORDS: SUMMER BROOKS PHOTOS: JOE THORP & SUMMER BROOKS

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or the last 20 years, deprived urban areas have become a hive for artists seeking cheap studio space. The same pattern follows developers notice, buys up studios and pushes creatives out. Luxury apartments in. Is that what the future holds for Peckham?

The residents are torn on the issue, some agree it’s a positive change for the area; juice bar owner Chris Abitbol compares living in Peckham to growing up in New York City. Artist Dirk Larsen worries that the prices will rise so high that current tenants won’t able to afford to stay there. Researcher Jerry Latter used to tell his friends he lived in neighbouring Camberwell – he’s now proud to live in Peckham.

Peckham is a district of South East London, made famous as the home of Del Boy and Rodney Trotter in Only Fools and Horses. Its regeneration has been happening for over twenty years, but only recently has it started to rise to cultural significance. Art galleries, studio space and coffee shops aplenty have made this Southwark borough a hipster hangout. But what does that mean for the people already living there? Great news if you own your house, as Peckham’s house prices are set to keep rising with the demand. It seems everyone wants a piece of Peckham.

Walking down Peckham’s main high street, the infamous Rye Lane, you might think that on the outside nothing has changed. The street is lined with specialist hairdressers, Afro supermarkets and betting shops.

Tucked away behind Rye Lane is the Bussey Building, which has become the cultural community hub for creatives in Peckham. Jon Wilson bought the empty industrial building in early 2000, when it was known as the Note Vision building. The site was saved from demolition for a tram depot in 2009, and since then has put Peckham on the map as a creative community which is encouraging of young start-up businesses. Tim Wilson, Jon’s son, is the assistant manager of Copeland Park; the site where the Bussey Building is located. He is worried about the rate of developments but has faith in the community. “Copeland Park aims to facilitate Peckham’s growth but at a rate that is in line with how the rest of Peckham is developing, rather than injecting large amounts of investment leading to hugely inflated prices, like we see in East London now.”

Why not sell up and make a profit? The Wilsons felt that keeping Bussey as it is was more valuable than selling up.

“We sat around as a family a couple of years ago and decided that building our community was much more worthwhile than selling out to some developers and not knowing what to do with the money”, says Wilson.

What’s happening in Peckham is not uncommon; many places have already undergone this kind of regeneration.

Dr Andrew Tallon lectures in Urban Policy at the University of the West of England and has spent many

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years studying regeneration and gentrification in urban areas. He says that for the last ten years, it’s been the new ‘Creative Class’ who are responsible for regenerating deprived areas: “In the past the key to success was having big industries, factories, coal mines, steelworks, ship building, car manufacturing - but now the key to success for somewhere like Bristol or the East End of London is to have a high number of people in businesses in the creative activities.”

So he sees it’s the young, arty types as holding the key to successful regeneration of an area. Councils are looking to attract these kinds of people to an area, who bring in investment without needing public money. “These creative types give an ambience; they’re not mainstream professionals, like in banking or real estate, they’re more edgy, bohemians types of people that you would get in Stokes Croft in Bristol,” says Tallon. “So they create a whole new vibe about an area, the in vogue thing is culture and creativity.”

“Now the key to success for somewhere like Bristol or the East End of London is to have a high number of people in businesses in the creative activities.”

How does an area become gentrified in the first place?

Dr Tallon says gentrification happens in response to an area in major decline. “There was high unemployment and insensitive policing; various incidents and sets of riots through the ‘80s which were a symptom of an area in decline. They’ve managed to turn those areas around; they’ve gentrified and regenerated.”

What next? How far can it go? It’s very difficult to predict where it will go next, Dr Tallon explains: “Not everywhere can gentrify because that would suggest that everywhere would regenerate and be the same, places have always got to be relative to the average so some places are going to be higher than the average, some are going to be lower.” It’s a debate that splits geographers – half say gentrification is a positive thing, the other says it’s negative.

The regeneration of Southwark was first kickstarted back in the ‘90s with the concept of an artslead regeneration program. Ian Wingfield has been a councillor for Southwark Council since he was first elected in 1989 and is now the cabinet member for business, employment and culture.

“Nobody was interested in coming south of the river, there was high crime rate, communities were fearful in some ways and there was a lot of poverty in the borough and low educational attainments. At the time it was what people would call a borough with typical inner-city troubles and problems,” says Wingfield. After talking to different arts organisations based in Central London and the West End, they finally got the Tate to venture south.

The Tate Modern was built at the old Bankside Power

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ABOVE: The Bussey building is home to local artists, club nights, theatre and film events and faith groups. The famous South London Soul Train nights happen here and attract young people from all over London.

RIGHT: Developments at Queens Road, Peckham. The new station at Queens Road has opened up access to Peckham from Central London.

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Station; the council hoped that this move would attract other businesses to the area. “We’ve continued that regeneration in other areas such as Peckham and Bermondsey and people are attracted here; they want to invest here, they want to open their businesses here. It’s a different scenario than when it was ten to twenty years ago.”

The borough still has its issues, but it’s finally starting to improve. “In terms of education we’ve turned that around. We were a failing authority ten years ago, and now our results are just as good as other schools elsewhere in London and nationally.”

“One of the strongest attractions I think for Peckham is its diversity, and personally I hope, that within the changes which are going on that we don’t lose that diversity. I think if it became very uniform, one way or another, it would be a less attractive place to live and visit,” says Wingfield.

The developments in Peckham and the borough as a whole means new jobs for local people: “We’ve launched the Diversity Standard in which we want the major employers in their work force to reflect the local diversity of the population.”

Councillor Wingfield hopes that new businesses and investment will continue to support the local community rather than push them out. “It’s always difficult trying to get the right balance and keeping that balance going. We knew that if we were going to create employment in the borough then we had to attract

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that outside investment, not just large companies but small and medium enterprises too.” He believes that the influx of young people to the area is thanks to the improved Overground line or the ‘Ginger line’ as it’s known. The addition of a service going from Surrey Quays to Clapham Junction via Queens Road Peckham and Peckham Rye in 2012 meant that people were better connected to the South East from Central London: “I think that’s opened up a whole new world where people can travel – Clapham in one direction and Shoreditch in the other. It’s a convenient spot now for people to live, especially anybody connected with the arts.”

What seems clear is there is no one definition for the area. Peckham has become an example of what is happening in many places in the UK and beyond and it has affected everyone differently.

After living in Bristol for almost 30 years, Jo Boissevain and Dirk Larsen felt it was time to come back to London.

Larsen is an artist and being so far away from London was becoming too difficult for him. They quickly realised they could no longer afford a place in Notting Hill where they lived before and came across a house in Peckham quite by accident. They’d never even heard of Peckham, let alone been there before. But now they’re smitten with the place. “This corner of South East London is one of the last bits of London that’s reasonably near the centre that’s affordable. When we put money down on this house two years ago it was just about affordable. So that’s why we chose Peckham and it’s certainly come up

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LEFT: The creative events in Peckham have seen a rise in young people visiting the area.

RIGHT: Jo Boissevain and Dirk Larsen, both 65, have lived in Peckham for almost two years. Dirk now gets free cocktails for life.

trumps in every way,” says Boissevain.

“Before we started the search I said to my daughter, because I had only ever lived in North London - “I am not moving south of the river!” And then when we found the house prices in East London were going up so quickly, we suddenly couldn’t afford it and so she said try Peckham, which was completely out of the blue because I’d never even heard of Peckham. We’d never been here” says Larsen.

“This corner of South East London is one of the last bits of London that’s reasonably near the centre that’s affordable” When they first moved here in 2014, Larsen was offered the choice of five different studios at Bussey – today there’s a waiting list with around 200 people on it.

“The two DJs who run Rye Wax downstairs came up and said: “If you do our portraits for our PR, we’ll give you free cocktails for life.” And they meant it, so I did their portraits and now I have free cocktails for life.

What’s not to like about that?”

The Bussey Building came under threat last year, when developers were eyeing up property next to the hub to turn into luxury flats and apartments.

Southwark Council received 1300 complaints in a week, with a petition gaining over 15,000 signatures in protest of the plans. Larsen opposed the plans at the time.

“If you spend over a million on a flat you do not want

Bussey’s soul train happening 10 yards away from you.

[The developer] would be knowingly selling unliveable flats to people.” The plans were withdrawn by the developer following the strong feedback from the local community.

Boissevain, who is a freelance writer, says she would never go back to living somewhere like Notting Hill again. “Apart from being very sanitised, you just don’t have that community feel. The sort of people who live there want to hide away a bit, and the sort of people who live here want to be out there having street parties – it’s different. I think this is a sort of South East London thing, a lot of places round here are very, very friendly and the people are really sweet and we’ve found that since we arrived. Everyone’s just great, and they’re all proud to be in Peckham” she says. But there are still issues with integration between cultures, despite being in such close proximity they rarely mix. “It’s a shame… a lot of people here have never heard of Bussey,” says Boissevain.

“It’s very interesting in Peckham there’s this huge contrast. I think I like most things about [Peckham]. The shops aren’t very good – I think the cafes and restaurants are amazing, but there is only one shop I can go to for clothes and it’s quite expensive, so I have to go off into town if I want to buy anything nice. But that might come with gentrification.”

Whilst they may be part of the group who moved to Peckham in the last five years, Boissevain and Larsen

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LEFT: Rosa Thorp works at a gallery in Mayfair. The Overground line means she can be at work in just over half an hour.

RIGHT: Chris Abitbol grew up in New York and moved to London to start a band.

aren’t oblivious to Peckham’s negative past. Boissevain visits an elderly neighbour who’s lived in Peckham all her life. “I couldn’t open the windows in her front room, she told me they were glued up years ago. She told me you can’t open them because of security.”

Are they concerned about Peckham changing? “I think it’s inevitable. It’s just a case of when,” says Boissevain.

They’re concerned about people being priced out of the area they love. “Peckham will go up in value - it’ll slowly all become like Notting Hill it will just go up in value and people will move out to Croydon. Who knows where they’ll go after that.”

Rosa Thorp, a 23-year-old gallery assistant, moved to Peckham 8 months ago. After moving around a lot in her first year in London, she wanted to live where there were young people and events going on that are related to the industry she works in. “It took me quite a while to settle on Peckham. I think the first time I came was actually to the Bussey building for a gig, I spent some time here in the daytime and saw some really nice cafes and bars.”

Thorp has benefited from the new Overground line connecting her to where she works in Mayfair. “It’s really well connected still, it looks so far away on the map but you realise it does actually only take 10 minutes to get to London Bridge and it’s really convenient for work.”

She admits she was warned by older people about moving to Peckham because of its reputation, but she’s convinced them that a lot has changed since then. Thorp studied history of art at university and being able to

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visit galleries on her doorstep has kept her engaged with the industry: “There’s a really good art scene because of Goldsmiths and there are lots of student pop up art events, there’s the South London gallery which is a really cool gallery. Being connected to all the galleries in Central London is really handy, and there are just lots of creative people around.”

“If they’re putting in loads of luxury flats it pushes the locals out and it will stop being such a creative space” Gentrification, for Thorp, comes down to balance: “People love Peckham because it is a bit grungy and you can still afford to do things here, you can afford to live here, you can afford to have studio space; it’s still reasonable. If they’re putting in loads of luxury flats it pushes the locals out and it will stop being such a creative space.”

Born in the south of France and raised in New York – Chris Abitbol calls Peckham his true home. He’s still as in love with the area as he was over ten years ago – at 18 he moved to London looking for a cheap place to live whilst starting up a band. The rest is history. And while the band didn’t work out, Abitbol hasn’t stopped working on projects exclusive to Peckham.

For the last two years, he ran a juice bar with partner Sienna Murdoch in an alleyway just off of Rye Lane. He says the best thing about Peckham is the people.

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“There’s such a huge diverse mix of cultures. That’s what’s amazing about this neighbourhood and that’s what I fell in love with, is that it genuinely is the most multicultural place ever. And it reminds me of growing up in New York City. It’s very similar like the Lower East Side or Harlem. So I feel very comfortable with that, because I moved around a lot in my life and I’ve been in loads of different cultures. So I like that. It feels like somewhere completely unique in this city, that’s changing a bit but I still think if you walk down Rye Lane it doesn’t feel like anywhere else in London or even in the UK. Rye Lane hasn’t changed at all really in about 10 years. It’s just so nuts; it’s just a nuts street.”

But not everyone sees gentrification as problematic.

“The thing that creates gentrification is a cheap neighbourhood. That’s what it is. People moved here because they’re artists or creatives, or like me because I was working in film and it made sense, I was in a band and needed somewhere cheap to live – and I guess that drives a creative person to the area. But I don’t think that necessarily has to be a bad thing all the time, it’s been like that here for as long as I’ve lived here, it’s just this year where it’s gotten weird. There was never any tension, I don’t know what changed this year but now it’s weird,” says Abitbol.

He’s started to notice that things are becoming more expensive, but Abitbol feels it’s just a part of life on the outskirts of a major city. “It’s always going to happen if you live close to a city - it’s every city in the world. It’s

going to happen. You just have to deal with it and take from it what you can, if you can’t afford it then I guess you’ve got to leave and that sucks.”

While there are many opinions around gentrification, Peckham losing its character is a concern most residents have and now that it’s starting to change, they hope it doesn’t go too far. “Peckham’s always been interesting in the sense that there isn’t much on offer; there has been very few places where you can hang out I think we all liked that too.”

“It reminds me of growing up in New York City. It’s very similar like the Lower East Side or Harlem” Abitbol and Murdoch had to close down their juice bar, Ali Baba, because of complications with the land and for them it was becoming too exclusive. “It felt like we weren’t catering to people in the area anymore, we were more catering to our network of people. And we can’t do that forever,” says Abitbol. Their new project involves collaborating with another business in the area, so Abitbol isn’t straying far from the south-east suburb he grew up in.

Born and bred in Peckham, 27-year-old DJ and producer Conrad Kira had a very different experience of Peckham. “I feel like my home upbringing was good. It was really colourful and the area was really nice when I was a kid, but I felt like when I was a teenager it became

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very different living in Peckham.”

Peckham was notorious for its gang culture since the 1970s, but the area was thrust into the media spotlight following the fatal stabbing of 10-year-old schoolboy Damilola Taylor in 2000. Kira started secondary school the year it happened. “It was those times, when things like that happened more. And that’s more what a lot of people knew the area for. It could be quite difficult.”

Kira says that sometimes just being a young black man in Peckham made him a target. “Luckily I didn’t really get caught up in it, but you still go to things and have people threaten you with knives, or they say they’re going to shoot you and you have to contemplate that. I had to contemplate that at a young age, which seemed the norm at the time but now I’m older it’s like, it’s not cool.

It wasn’t good.”

“Sometimes it feels from the outside that it’s black music for white faces” There have been advantages to the changes in the area and Kira and his friends are trying to make the most of the new opportunities. “I feel like I just happen to live in this area that no one wanted to come to and they used to joke around with me about coming and getting stabbed and all that shit. And now, it’s a thing where it’s a hotspot and everyone loves it and loads of people want to come.

And it feels like if you say you’re from Peckham now, people are like ‘oh Peckham, yeah it’s cool’ so I guess me and my friends use that to our advantage.”

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There’s still an issue with integration. There are many communities in Peckham, but Kira doesn’t feel that they cross paths enough. He grew up with friends who are still in Peckham, but the new faces can be intimidating.

“I guess the more people who are getting priced out and the more people who are moving in - you’re getting a certain type of person – the almost ‘gated community’ type that would’ve been living in Shoreditch but couldn’t afford it, the type who don’t really want to integrate. The more people who are priced out, the less community there’ll be,” says Kira. He thinks there needs to be more outreach to get all the cultures and classes together in Peckham. “I like the people. I just hope that gets preserved, you know, the range of people that are around. That’s a great thing about living in Peckham.”

Whilst gentrification has made the area safer and brought in opportunities for people like Kira, he feels like he’s on the outside of it all. He argues the music events in Peckham need to cater to more people.

“Sometimes it feels from the outside that it’s black music for white faces, old white faces, and you’re like come on, something else. That’s one of the worst things. People are still suffering but you wouldn’t know. Just being the only black guy in a bar in Peckham now, it never used to happen. But I’m just used to it now. I think right now that’s the worst thing, the lack of integration and things getting closed down.”

It’s like two worlds colliding; Kira is friends with the creative people who brought in the trendy stuff, but he’s

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LEFT: Conrad Kira grew up in Peckham and had to deal with a lot as a teenager.

Now he’s using Peckham’s rise to help promote his music.

RIGHT: Independent coffee shops are springing up all over South East London.

still confronted with the old Peckham. He just wants the new people in the area to understand its history to appreciate why he still finds trouble in Peckham: “I might be with my arty friends and it’s really fun and you’re having a great night out and suddenly you’ll walk past a group of guys who won’t want to start on your arty friends but as soon as they see you, because of the way I look and the way I talk, they want to start shit with me.” His friend from Lambeth used to be nervous about coming to Peckham to go to these events because of past troubles with people in the area. “This isn’t just for the new people, this is for us too. I just wish that the events and companies here had that ethos too I suppose. This is for everybody. Sometimes I feel like we deserve it.”

Kira remembers a Caribbean pub on the road he grew up on that used to give out free food on a Sunday. “It was really community based. Even if you were an old guy who lived on his own you could get a good meal in that week.” The building has since been turned into luxury apartments.

Artistically, things have improved for Kira’s music with more events and more people wanting to come to Peckham. He used to have to travel to New Cross and Deptford for gigs: “Now there are lots of events and you can put on a thing in Peckham and people will come.”

He’s concerned that eventually the creatives will get priced out when the gentrification goes too far.

“Part of the reason that [Bussey] didn’t get turned into luxury apartments is because everybody felt very

strongly about it not being turned into that and banded together.” The threat of luxury apartments killing off the Bussey building would’ve been a step too far: “There are churches here; they do martial arts which I go to sometimes. It does feel like a thing where lots of people use it for different reasons, it’s not just the art scene; there’s all types of communities. I think it really would’ve been a step in the wrong direction.”

“This isn’t just for the new people, this is for us too. I just wish that the events and companies here had that ethos too I suppose. This is for everybody. Sometimes I feel like we deserve it.”

Will he stay in Peckham? “I hope so. I’ve met people that are in this art/music world but they grew up here and areas like that. I’ve met people along the way that are like me, and that’s helped. I want to stay here if I can.”

Looking to buy a home back in 2009, Jerry Latter, a public opinion researcher, was living in Brixton Road but had his heart set on Kennington and its Georgian architecture. Quickly realising it was out of his price range, he began looking further out and eventually landed in Peckham which then at the time was “a bubble of affordability.” He wanted a character property that was reasonably close to Central London and he found the perfect place in north Peckham, but his perception of the area was far from positive.

“The Camberwell and Peckham constituency has the

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LEFT: Jerry Latter moved from Brixton Road to Peckham six years ago. He used to tell people he lived in Camberwell.

RIGHT: Choumert Road, where there is a clear divide between cultures.

highest concentration of black British people anywhere in the UK. And I knew that when I moved there. It’s always the thing you think about - will I fit in here? Will I integrate? I knew about Damilola Taylor, I knew about crime – muggings, gangs, gun crime – I’d heard of the Peckham Boys. But it was just heard of without really encountering it.”

Since he moved here, Latter has been surprised at how quickly Peckham’s reputation’s turned around.

“There’s a place called the Sun Café in Camberwell – it’s 300 metres into Camberwell it’s on the Peckham road, but it calls itself the Sun Café Peckham – even though it’s in Camberwell. Six years ago when I moved here that would’ve been inconceivable. It would’ve been the opposite – if you’d been in Peckham you would’ve said you lived in Camberwell because it’s slightly less dodgy to say that. That’s how far it’s come in six years and that’s amazing.”

“People shouldn’t just see Peckham as this pristine, hang-out for hipsters with its stripped down art installations and wacky street food and nightclubs which serve Campari until 3 o’clock” His problem with Peckham is that its reputation doesn’t match up with its aesthetic: “Fundamentally, Peckham looks exactly the same as it did six years ago except the media narrative is that it’s totally different –

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it’s an oasis of hipster cool, everyone’s walking around chomping on guinea fowl burgers and drinking mead – and it’s not.”

Latter says that people see Peckham as black and white – when there are many facets to this south-east London district.

“Olivia Coleman lives in Peckham.

Lady Rose from Downton Abbey lives on my street, literally across the road from where Damilola Taylor was stabbed” “What needs to change is that people shouldn’t just see Peckham as this pristine, hang-out for hipsters with its stripped down art installations and wacky street food and nightclubs which serve Campari until 3 o’clock.

Actually the hipsters come in at about 5 o’clock on a Saturday, and stay for a few hours and then they go again.”

“What’s left is the middle class streets with people who just want to raise a family and lead a normal life, versus the estates in the north where its first or second generation African people who are, in a lot of cases struggling to find work and struggling to pay the bills and really living hand to mouth. This idea that Peckham is only represented by one of those two groups annoys me a lot – that’s the issue. People only have room for one opinion of Peckham in their heads.”

Like Kira, Latter has noticed that there are two very

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different worlds in Peckham and they’re complete extremes: “The fact that there people living in genuine Dickensian poverty in some areas in Peckham – people who rely on foodbanks, people who rely on things like Kids Company, people whose health is in an incredibly bad state, people who are in a bad way who have been forgotten about. On the other hand, Olivia Coleman lives in Peckham. Lady Rose from Downton Abbey lives on my street, literally across the road from where Damilola Taylor was stabbed.”

Although he regards himself as a bit of an outsider, Latter does feel invested in living in Peckham.

“I guess it reflects me in a way, it’s very idiosyncratic and hard to define, and that’s what I like about it. I like

that you can see it from a different angle whatever your perspective is.”

“Take Peckham for what it really is, which is a very diverse area where all the things that you think you’re going to find in Peckham exist, but a whole lot of other ones do too.”

Is Peckham the new Hackney? Or the new Shoreditch?

It is obvious Peckham is one of a kind in its own right; the residents will do anything to preserve it.

Maybe it’s time to let these urban areas retain their character instead of every borough in London becoming clones of each other. Isn’t that what makes London such a diverse global city?

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