Save the London Road!
This evening I went to a drop-in session held by the Another London Road group about the Council's SPD (supplementary planning document) regarding the regeneration of this area. That won't mean a lot to anyone who doesn't live round here, but the London Road has a terrible reputation and is generally run down (verbally and in reality). Recently there's been a lot of talk about what to do about it, and several options have been rumoured. Firstly the 'redevelopment' (for redevelopment, see knock down and start again) of the Open Market; secondly, what to do with the old Co-op building (very large and mostly empty, fairly central to the street); thirdly, and most contentiously, the prospect of a *very* large Tesco 'hypermarket' being built at one end of the road. And when I say end, I mean a vast area covering about a third of the London Road, five times the size of the big Sainsbury's that only just opened there two years ago (not to mention the new Aldi, and the not so new Co-op, Somerfield and Iceland).
ALR, with help from Tescopoly, primarily have been concerned with stopping the Tesco proposal (see their websites http://anotherlondonroad.googlepages.com/, and http://www.tescopoly.org/, both have really good information), but also with finding out what people who use the local area actually want (Council seems to have been very quiet on this point - there was a public consultation but badly advertised and I can say as a local retailer that no businesses have been contacted to discuss the plans!). Their ideas seem far more realistic and based on the needs of the people who use the area rather than on the projected needs of fictional yuppies who might potentially use the area if it was knocked down and rebuilt in the style of somewhere else. Cleaning up the frontages down the main drag, opening up the neglected side streets and encouraging local businesses to get their act together are just a few small changes that could be implemented to have a really big impact. The other major hurdle, as far as I can see, is overcoming the general populous' ingrained negative perception of the street and the surrounding area. It seems like a lot of people would find it difficult to concede that the odd tweak would be enough to warrant spending a bit more time there, and unless every trace of its current state is removed they will continue to slander and avoid it.
When I first started working at the BHF shop on London Road two and a half years ago, I shared the opinion (though I suspect this is largely due to having heard nothing but bad things about it previously, then backed up by the people I worked with) that it was awful, needed cleaning up, is dangerous, dirty, full of crap shops, etc. Now I find myself actively enjoying being there. Even on my days off it's where I shop! Once you're under the skin of it, it's a really great area with some fab little shops that you don't find elsewhere in the city. They might not be fab in the sense of avant-garde jewellers and overpriced retro clothing, but there are grocers and butchers and independent organic food stores, lovely cafes, a plethora of charity shops, jewellers, barbers, fabric shops, seamstresses and cobblers - need I go on? Just because they don't have the gloss of Western Road or the North Laine, they are ignored. I'm beginning to particularly appreciate the old fashioned sense of community spirit - even the fact that the ALR exists is proof that people care about where they live, as a group of people who live and work in the area who decided to take action. It's a place where faces are familiar - and bizarrely enough, I think I may have become one of those faces! - rather than the general rotation of anonymous bodies so many cities seem to be populated by. How do we convince everyone else that London Road is actually a good resource with a lot to offer (especially for those on a budget), rather than a dingy danger hotspot to be avoided? It will also be difficult to maintain the integrity of the area and retain the low-cost businesses if a major redevelopment plan goes ahead - and then it'll just be another gentrified, soulless chain-filled bourgeois clone.
I could go on about this forever, but think about it - there's the Level, the Duke of York's, St Peter's Church, St Bartholemew's Church (one of my favourite pieces of trivia - it's the biggest church in England!), the Co-op building, the Open Market, City College, New England House (an eyesore but don't judge a book by its cover), and some really interesting architecture all the way down London Road. If you are a Brightonian, ignore the ground floor shop frontages for a moment next time you're down that way and spend a few minutes admiring the buildings they're attached to! One idea at the ALR meeting was for the implementation of a London Road Conservation Area - I'd be very much in support of that, plus it would stop the Council from razing everything to the ground. Having just had this discussion with one of my flatmates, it does seem like the Council have a bizarre kind of all-or-nothing approach to the various crumbling structures and 'untidy' areas of the city. Instead of doing something about the West Pier while it was still more or less standing, they ignored it until it burned down, and are now building some horrendous modern pinnacle around it with complete disregard for any principles of town planning or popular opinion (ie mass residential complaints about the project). Similarly a large area of the North Laine was pulled down and 'Jubilee Square' (also known as Pizza Express Square) and the new, empty library were built in blindingly shiny glass and metal. Speaking of blindingly shiny, there is also the giant block of flats built opposite the Pavilion (seriously, why?!); and the 'New England' quarter. Now, having ignored London Road for the last few decades, they are going gung-ho for total overhaul. They ought to learn a bit of tact.
ALR, with help from Tescopoly, primarily have been concerned with stopping the Tesco proposal (see their websites http://anotherlondonroad.googlepages.com/, and http://www.tescopoly.org/, both have really good information), but also with finding out what people who use the local area actually want (Council seems to have been very quiet on this point - there was a public consultation but badly advertised and I can say as a local retailer that no businesses have been contacted to discuss the plans!). Their ideas seem far more realistic and based on the needs of the people who use the area rather than on the projected needs of fictional yuppies who might potentially use the area if it was knocked down and rebuilt in the style of somewhere else. Cleaning up the frontages down the main drag, opening up the neglected side streets and encouraging local businesses to get their act together are just a few small changes that could be implemented to have a really big impact. The other major hurdle, as far as I can see, is overcoming the general populous' ingrained negative perception of the street and the surrounding area. It seems like a lot of people would find it difficult to concede that the odd tweak would be enough to warrant spending a bit more time there, and unless every trace of its current state is removed they will continue to slander and avoid it.
When I first started working at the BHF shop on London Road two and a half years ago, I shared the opinion (though I suspect this is largely due to having heard nothing but bad things about it previously, then backed up by the people I worked with) that it was awful, needed cleaning up, is dangerous, dirty, full of crap shops, etc. Now I find myself actively enjoying being there. Even on my days off it's where I shop! Once you're under the skin of it, it's a really great area with some fab little shops that you don't find elsewhere in the city. They might not be fab in the sense of avant-garde jewellers and overpriced retro clothing, but there are grocers and butchers and independent organic food stores, lovely cafes, a plethora of charity shops, jewellers, barbers, fabric shops, seamstresses and cobblers - need I go on? Just because they don't have the gloss of Western Road or the North Laine, they are ignored. I'm beginning to particularly appreciate the old fashioned sense of community spirit - even the fact that the ALR exists is proof that people care about where they live, as a group of people who live and work in the area who decided to take action. It's a place where faces are familiar - and bizarrely enough, I think I may have become one of those faces! - rather than the general rotation of anonymous bodies so many cities seem to be populated by. How do we convince everyone else that London Road is actually a good resource with a lot to offer (especially for those on a budget), rather than a dingy danger hotspot to be avoided? It will also be difficult to maintain the integrity of the area and retain the low-cost businesses if a major redevelopment plan goes ahead - and then it'll just be another gentrified, soulless chain-filled bourgeois clone.
I could go on about this forever, but think about it - there's the Level, the Duke of York's, St Peter's Church, St Bartholemew's Church (one of my favourite pieces of trivia - it's the biggest church in England!), the Co-op building, the Open Market, City College, New England House (an eyesore but don't judge a book by its cover), and some really interesting architecture all the way down London Road. If you are a Brightonian, ignore the ground floor shop frontages for a moment next time you're down that way and spend a few minutes admiring the buildings they're attached to! One idea at the ALR meeting was for the implementation of a London Road Conservation Area - I'd be very much in support of that, plus it would stop the Council from razing everything to the ground. Having just had this discussion with one of my flatmates, it does seem like the Council have a bizarre kind of all-or-nothing approach to the various crumbling structures and 'untidy' areas of the city. Instead of doing something about the West Pier while it was still more or less standing, they ignored it until it burned down, and are now building some horrendous modern pinnacle around it with complete disregard for any principles of town planning or popular opinion (ie mass residential complaints about the project). Similarly a large area of the North Laine was pulled down and 'Jubilee Square' (also known as Pizza Express Square) and the new, empty library were built in blindingly shiny glass and metal. Speaking of blindingly shiny, there is also the giant block of flats built opposite the Pavilion (seriously, why?!); and the 'New England' quarter. Now, having ignored London Road for the last few decades, they are going gung-ho for total overhaul. They ought to learn a bit of tact.