Peckham car park to become ?10m arts centre

[Girl82]

Wow! http://www.standard.co.uk/goingout/exhibitions/bold-tendencies-hannah-barrys-plans-to-turn-a-peckham-car-park-into-an-arts-centre-8615243.html

[edhistory]

The manifesto is the funniest thing I've read today.

Thank you.

John K

[purplehaze]

ha ha yup

[northlondoner]

Uh - think the operative phrase is "launched a campaign " to turn it into an arts centre.

[woodrot]

another nail in the coffin of PEckham WC car park culture. Nazi Hipster hell, damn their fixies and their ironic short trousers

[Sue]

edhistory Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> The manifesto is the funniest thing I've read

> today.

>

> Thank you.

>

> John K

xxxxx

Don't know how you managed to get through it all, I'm losing the will to live :))

[edhistory]

Think "extra-territorial parachutists" as you read it.

It might help.

John K

[stacey-lyn]

It'll still smell of pi**.

[the-e-dealer]

Where will I park for the Cinema now? :-(

[DJKillaQueen]

I think it's a great idea. The car park is underused as a car park anyway. Has been for years, with people using the free parking in Morrisons instead. The Copeland Industrial estate has been a hub for artists and arts for years now, so there's already an established arts circuit with an established audience in Rye Lane anyway. The recent production of Macbeth was a sell out for example and I support anything that makes theatre and art affordable and accessible. So it has my thumbs up.

[Louisa]

Was watching the Mary Portas show on channel 4 about reinvigorating Margate town centre. And she went to the East-End to encourage 'Londoners' to have day trips to the town. Well, what can I say. A bunch of Home Counties 20/30 something hipsters, most of whom were about as London as a sun drenched sandy beach. If these are the sorts of people we will be attracting to Peckham with their arty farty ways, then god help the area. Working class people forced out to the suburbs to make way for trendy lovies. RIP Peckham.

Louisa.

[the-e-dealer]

Get the Wicker out!

[DJKillaQueen]

But there already is an arts scene in Peckham Louisa. It's attended by local people and many of those creating the art are local working class people too. At the same time, some of the out of town artists that have come to the area have run free childrens art workshops at our tenants hall for example, so I'd argue their input into the local working class community is something to be welcomed as well.

It's such inverse snobbery to criticise regeneration because it's not working class enough. Just be thankful that anyone has a vision to do something to bring underused areas back into popular use. Margate had been in decline for decades. It's coming back to life precisely because of regeneration, which includes contributions from the arts world, amongst other things.

You only have to look at the programmes of Bold Tendancies to see they support a wide range of arts from all sections of the community, irregardless of class, age, culture etc. Not only does that mean that the appeal is to all sections of the community, but it also means that any member of the community who wants to make a film, write a play, create some art, dance, sculpture etc has an outlet to show that work. And for a lot of working class people, that's a valuable asset.

[LondonMix]

Agree with DJ on this!

DJKillaQueen Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> I think it's a great idea. The car park is

> underused as a car park anyway. Has been for

> years, with people using the free parking in

> Morrisons instead. The Copeland Industrial estate

> has been a hub for artists and arts for years now,

> so there's already an established arts circuit

> with an established audience in Rye Lane anyway.

> The recent production of Macbeth was a sell out

> for example and I support anything that makes

> theatre and art affordable and accessible. So it

> has my thumbs up.

[*Bob*]

Louisa Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> Was watching the Mary Portas show on channel 4

> about reinvigorating Margate town centre.

Forming a broader view on the basis on a lightweight C4 ObDoc is a bit like watching 'Allo 'Allo to learn all about France.

[edhistory]

DJKillaQueen Wrote:

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> The Copeland Industrial estate

Keep up!

This is now the Copeland Cultural Quarter.

John K

[Girl82]

Anything that helps to regenerate and clean up run-down Rye Lane gets the thumbs up from me. It sounds like things are really on the up around there, with the new station square and now this story.

[DJKillaQueen]

LOL ED...

[Peckhamgatecrasher]

Will no-one think of the cars?

[Louisa]

Regeneration via the arts movement is all well and good, but as with all 'gentrification', it starts off innocently enough with a working class community gaining some funding and self confidence, alongside some aspiring artists contributing to the local community and economy. Before you know where you are, we have inflated property prices, large scale demographic and economic change and a gradual process of the pioneer artists alongside the working classes being priced out, and wealthier people colonising the whole neighbourhood. It always happens. We cannot have a city like Paris where a doughnut of wealth surrounds the touristy centre of the city and working class forgotten suburbia beyond that which no one really cares about any longer.

Louisa.

[the-e-dealer]

Why not A Waitrose?

[LadyDeliah]

Louisa, I don't think you'll find that a few arty types have caused the social apartheid that you talk of. You might want to look at things like the bedroom tax, high residential property prices, low wages and caps on benefits.

[Louisa]

LadyDeliah, I'm not blaming artists for social apartheid, far from it. I'm suggesting that this process of regeneration followed by an art movement followed by inflated property prices is what always happens when gentrification has taken hold. It's a process which has been seen in Notting Hill, Islington, Hackney, Clapham, Battersea, Chelsea, more recently Shoreditch and Hoxton. All solidly working class neighbourhoods which have been 'gentrified' and are now not socially mixed any longer and unaffordable to large numbers of people.

Louisa.

[LadyDeliah]

You have a point.

[titch juicy]

She doesn't have a point- all of those areas are completely socially mixed- all have 'working' and 'middle' class enclaves.