Peckham Rye - how dodgy is it?

[chantelle]

seanmlow - i think your comment is funny because the houses we are looking at are all languishing on the market for sale so the owners have decided to rent. One is on sale at ?489,000 and for rent at ?345 a week.

Please explain how this is dead money when to buy it, i would be paying around ?2,445/month for an interest-only mortgage vs. ?1,495 in rent. So I should pay a 40% premium to buy, in a market where even conservative commentators expect depreciation of at least 15% - 20% over the next two years?!

Now that would truly be crazy.

[chantelle]

Pandora and Binker - thanks for your feedback - sounds like we will be neighbours if we make the move because it's at the station end of B. rd.

incidentally, the heroin guy was white.

[seanmlow]

Pandora -

You sum it up nicely!

Especially in my job, I have people who see SE15 and just say no outright! It is ridiculous, considering Oglander Rd is one of the best roads round here and considered SE15.

I personally think Peckham has more soul and character than Dulwich. Rye Lane on a saturday morning is fun and colourful!

[missd]

Agree seamow - i really like Oglander and Everthorpe as roads to live on, they're lovely.

For me,that little section between ED station and Bellenden Road is great:

its in between the two stations (ED and PR), so you've got the best of both

it's a five minute walk to Lordship Lane

You're not paying extra to live off Lordship Lane, or in SE22 postcode

Unrestricted parking around our house (for now -think this might be changing)

10 minute walk to The Rye Hotel -great pub, Ganapati, The Montpellier, The Gowlett, Bar Story and a cinema on your doorstep

Granted I dont think i would wander around PR too late at night on my own but then i don't think there are many places in London that i would wander around too late at night on my own!

I know my neighbours, we live on a lovely quiet street which has a nice mix of people on it -some old folk who have lived in the area all their lives, some young couples, and families -

i love it. what's not too like?

[snorky]

fuck me

2x drug deals and a skaggie in a Phone box in the first few minutes ?

thats some kudos - I have ben doing Peckham fr so many years I cant count & have never seen anyone doing skag, or indeed buying gear off the street

[Brendan]

Hi Chantelle. If you need to commute to Blackfriars then anywhere near Lordship Lane is also viable as you can just catch the 185, 176 or 40 down the road to Denmark Hill station in the mornings.

It only takes about 10mins from all the way up near the library. Should be quicker once they finish those fucking roadworks too.

Ps. don?t listen to estate agents. It?s the economic equivalent of taking medical advice from a homeopath. ;-)

[Bellenden Belle]

Too true Snorky.... now I don't deny that I'm not that up on skag-taking practices but having lived here for two years, just off Bellenden, I have never seen any drug dealing taking place. But then I don't go looking for it.

I have extolled the virtues of the area far too many times previously - for example http://www.eastdulwichforum.co.uk/forum/read.php?5,121254,121254#msg-121254

As a single(!) relatively young petite woman I have never had any problems walking round the area.

[Big Jim]

Chantelle,

If you need to get to Blackfriars, look at somewhere on the 63 bus route - it goes right past the station. I can do the LL end of Dunstans Rd to Ludgate Circus in 50/60 mins door to door. No matter what people say, Peckham is dodgy and it's not nice after dark. Mrs Jim hates it and I don't exactly feel safe - if you can avoid the everyday stress of walking around a dodgy area, do it. Admittedly, the 63 goes through Peckham but you're through it in ten mins. It's also cheaper and a lot more reliable and regular than the trains and I get a seat every morning. It's worth thinking about.

J

[evelknievel]

Bellenden is great. Been living off Bellenden (towards Camberwell Grove) for a couple of years and never had any cause for concern. Only time I've had an 'incident' was at Goose Green so Peckham, East Dulwich, wherever, it comes down to luck. Place and time. I often find myself walking home late from friends' in Nunhead which means passing through Rye Lane and to be honest, while it's buzzing (great) during the day, there hardly ever seems to be anyone around at night when all the shops are closed.

But anyway we were talking about Bellenden and I'd recommend it strongly to anyone who is thinking about moving there. Maybe not a 'village' per se but compared to most places in London it does feel a bit like that, sort of out of the way, but close to 'destinations' such as LL or Rye Lane. Some good pubs, nice cafes, Review bookshop, Ganapati, Jamaican food, and plenty of the less pretty more practical stuff; late shop, great transport links to London etc. And great bollards.

[snorky]

the only examples of drug taking I see in SE15 are around teh Pulse where n'er do wells hang with their chums and smoke weed and drink Spesh -no threat, even if some of the charachters are a bit unsavory - no skag on view anywhere

whatever the yoof of SE 15 think, the general consensus is that Skag is not cool - the darlings of the chattering middle classes, Doherty and Winhouse, are not exactly role models for the Urban melee that lurk around the manor

The polis take a very dim view of skag.

BTW, the drug fiend skaggie you saw wasnt a short scruffy bearded bloke with gingery hair ? hes a fixture around the station and on the trains to London Bridge - he begs for change, but is harmless to normal commuting citizens - I did see him getting dragged into a City of London van a few months back, he was uttelry ripped to the gills on smack

[chantelle]

snorky - i know, it was a bit nuts. Maybe we were just looking more closely around, as outsiders?

i have seen drug smoking on the street before though elsewhere in SE/SW

[TJS]

I live near Ondine Road and think the road is very nice, one way street, quiet new street lights and all the houses look pretty smart and continue to be improved.....pretty smart cars parked on the road....I would love to own a house on this road.....This poses an interesting question to all. ED and Peckam Rye are practically the same place unless i missed the west bank style wall.....

[snorky]

chantelle Wrote:

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> snorky - i know, it was a bit nuts. Maybe we were

> just looking more closely around, as outsiders?

> i have seen drug smoking on the street before

> though elsewhere in SE/SW

I think you were lucky/ unlucky to witness it TBH - its not normal practice on SE 15

weed is everywhere, but ive never been assailed by weed smoking yoof.

[chantelle]

cheers.

[Pandora]

Well this one can run and run. I'll probably have to defend Peckham to the masses for as long as I live here - Bellenden Belle, we should set up a cheerleading squad together.

Rye lane is great - fun and colourful sums it up well. Hectic sometimes, occassionally a bit stressful when you're in a rush - but you can get a lot of useful stuff on that road and people are pretty friendly. I was struggling down Rye Lane with a massive parcel the other day and every shop I went into, people held doors open, helped me carry it..

I love where I live. If you do move to the area Chantelle, let us know and we'll have a nice night out in SE15 celebrating the fact we're all in on a little secret that it's a great place to live!

[jumpinjackflash]

A few years ago I got off the train at Peckham Rye to see a man 'shooting up' on the platform. It was broad daylight. Anyway, I don't think it's Rye Lane that's particularly 'unsafe'- although it does stink and every time I get off the bus I want to be sick - it's 'frontline Peckham' (what we call it) that I don't like; around Sumner Road/Peckham Hill St etc. I know a few people who used to live around there and are relieved to have moved.

[snoozequeen1]

Hello Chantelle. I take it if you are put off by seeing drugs being sold on the street you are one of the apparently very few people like myself who has never taken an illegal drug of any kind and never will.

I think you are going to be very hard pressed to find anywhere that is drug free to live though.

There is a bar on the ever-so-bourgeois-boheme-middle-class-lovely North Cross Road which has drugged up idiots falling out of the door day and night. Drug use among the city and media classes in SE22 is rampant. Over here in Nunhead we have a new neighbour, the Home Secretary no less, who has admitted to taking drugs at university. Apparently, she was unable to withstand the peer pressure. Sadly her moral capacity and decision taking abilities don't seem to have improved with the passing of the years.

I agree with your observations about what is happening around Peckham Rye station at the moment. There are drug sellers actively targeting and approaching people as they get off the train, I have seen this happen twice in the last couple of months, both times they targeted young men and literally followed them out of the station pestering and trying to sell the stuff.

Otherwise some of the comments on here about Rye Lane are absolute nonsense from people who obviously have never been there and are shot through with racism. I have travelled on the 12 and 63 bus down Rye Lane, or come out of the station and walked down Rye Lane, and changed buses outside the old Co-op there, often at gone 9.30/10 at night and have never encountered any problem. Been doing it for years.

The other week as I took my Oyster card out at the bus stop, there was a chorus of voices. A boy of about 12 pointed out that I had also pulled out a ?10 note which had fallen on the pavement. Guess what, all of those helpful lovely people at the bus stop were, (whisper if you dare), black people. I suspect that some of them were even immigrants.

.

Where I have seen violence and aggression from drug users, directly, is in investment banks, law firms and media companies, in the city and west end, where I can quote you over and over instances where "executives" on their 3rd day or so without sleep, to keep the lunatic macho money culture going, enabled by cocaine, behave like total lunatics.

[chantelle]

thanks snoozequeen. I don't expect anywhere to be drug free, but when you see evidence of it without looking too hard, it makes you wonder about how many addicts might be about to get more gear, and how that can mean more muggings and burglaries in an area.

i've lived in some rough places where i would run down the street going home after dark, but am about to have my first baby so safety seem more important to me now.

[Louisa]

How anyone can defend Rye Lane I have no idea, it stinks, it has no decent shopping area and the people are all rude and ignorant. The area has completely deteriorated in the last 15 to 20 years, and this apparant renaissance of the "Bellenden area" whatever the mothballs that is when it's at home, has only been brought about my regeneration which cost a bomb and will untangle within a decade. The top end of Peckham just north of Goose Green around the St Johns Church area is about the only place which is barely acceptable. Chantelle if I were you i'd take the advice of someone who has lived here all her life, avoud that area like the plague, crime is rife and IT IS DANGEROUS AFTER DARK, I have experienced it many times so this is not scaremongering at all. Obviously take everyones views in on here, but remember that the SE15 area statistically still has one of the highest inner city crime rates in England and Wales, and gun and knife crime around here is also much higher.

Louisa.

[alieh]

Hi Chantelle,

We recently moved from E. Dulwich being our local station to Peckham Rye (though I get a bus from Rye Lane for a few stops up to St Aidans Road area) and I really prefer it! The transport links are so much better, as you already know, and the shops on Rye Lane are so good for grabbing practical things on the way home. Khan's store on Rye Lane is amazing and open late. And there are lots of fresh fruit and veg stalls with great prices - I don't miss having to stop at Somerfield for my last minute dinner essentials. There are some beautiful looking streets behind the station - can't comment on the general vibe walking around there late at night alone because I haven't done it.

You could also consider the streets across from Peckham Rye park - I was worried that the bus from outside the Herne pub to Peckham Rye would be a pain, but it is really really easy. Much easier than the bus from Lordship Lane to Denmark Hill (more frequent buses, less traffic). I don't think I have ever waited longer than 5 minutes for a bus and it is just a few stops to the station. On the way home you can take almost any bus that comes along Rye Lane (63,363,197,12). Having Peckham Rye park so close is also a real bonus.

Good luck!

Alieh

[Klaus]

I feel safe on Peckham Rye at night precisely because of the lack of legal drugs, not illegal ones. The lack of pubs means there's barely ever drunken idiots who are far more likely to give strangers hassle.

Apart from the pot smoking i can't recall witnessing any other criminal activity in the four years i've lived here... not even kids behaving badly after school.

[Louisa]

No offence Klaus but what a load of ball.

alieh do I take you frequently recommend e-coli ridden food products to pregnant women? Half of those fruit/veg and meat/fish stalls/shops on Rye Lane would be closed down if a health inspector dared to cross the boundary into Peckham.

Louisa.

[Bellenden Belle]

Louisa - remind me - which part of SE15 do you live in?

[Keef]

jke Wrote:

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> Please, can no person use the phrases 'Bellenden

> Village' or 'Peckham Village', it is Peckham -

> SE15. Bellenden Road is lovely, it's quiet,

> relaxed, no hassle, loveliest book shop, Ganapati

> etc. For a non E. Dulwich w'end go for it.

> Does anybody remember E. Dulwich 20 years ago?

What jke said!!!

Also agree that I have never seen any drug dealings on the streets in all my years going through Peckham. Og course drug deals happen, but they also happen in the trendiest bars of ED.

[Louisa]

Bellenden Belle how long have you lived in SE15 for?

Louisa.