Rye Lane

[Huggers]

Clapham is all smart but even Clapham has lost Arding and Hobbs - it is now an umbrella building for smaller franchises. Barkers, Derry and Toms and Pontings have also disappeared from Kensington High Street. Instead the old Barkers houses many different shops. Perhaps the Department Store as a concept, except for Selfridges, Liberties and Harrods, is no longer a viable enterprise. Not just Peckham.

[dbboy]

thought Arding & Hobbs in Clap Junction had become Debenhams?????

[Huggers]

Debenhams is usually an umbrella for lots of other outlets, see Bromley Debenhams. Arding and Hobbs was brilliant.

[The Minkey]

Morleys in Brixton seems to be bucking the trend.

[northlondoner]

Jeremy Wrote:

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> People need to understand that peckham is NOT

> predominantly a white middle class area. All these

> shops have a customer base, they are busy, they

> are valuable to the residents of Peckham.

>

> Do people really expect some sort of mass

> social/ethnic cleansing of rye lane, with

> 'appropriate' new businesses conjured out of thin

> air, just to suit their own preference?

Yes I fear that some people do . The OP perhaps ?

[minder]

Just before Christmas I went to Rye Lane to visit H Samuels, the jewellery shop at 71-73 Rye Lane. Persuaded my two girls to go with me too to buy present for Dad. According to my searches for times and opening days it was still there. Last time I had bought something was a couple of years before.

I've been going to H Samuels since leaving school in 1979 when I got my first pay cheque and bought lots of bits for myself (crystal animals etc.) and presents for family and friends.

My girls were embarrassed as I went into next door shops asking where H Samuels was but nobody could give me an answer.

It's now another food shop/market.

[aquarius moon]

Samuels has been gone for over a year.

Nearest one is probably Croydon. There used to be branches in Lewisham & Bromley but don't know if they are still there.

[minder]

Yes, didn't know it was gone till before Christmas! Happened very quickly and if you google Samuels still have a branch in Peckham!

Nearest one now is in the Lewisham Shopping Centre.

[Louisa]

Even H Samuels has gone. Smiths gone too. What's replaced them? One is another butcher, the other is a pound shop. And people have been coming here dressing Rye Lane up as a thriving exotic market place. What a load of tosh. How many of the same thing does one street need?

Louisa.

[DulwichFox]

Think there may still be a H Samuels in Surrey Quays where there is Free parking..

Having said that, it may well of gone now as have some other outlets.

Having been to Surry Quays this morning. Can confirm H. Samuels still there..

DulwichFox

[david_carnell]

Louisa Wrote:

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

> Even H Samuels has gone. Smiths gone too. What's

> replaced them? One is another butcher, the other

> is a pound shop. And people have been coming here

> dressing Rye Lane up as a thriving exotic market

> place. What a load of tosh. How many of the same

> thing does one street need?

>

> Louisa.

Well clearly quite a few "of the same thing" since they are thriving. It gives customers choice and keeps prices competetive.

It serves a demographic majority. I know that's not you, Lou, but is does serve lots of others.

However, I do agree it is a neglected and sometimes unpleasant shopping environment. There is more needed from both shop keepers and the council to make the area more attractive. Vibrant and diverse does not need to mean dirty and polluted.

[Jeremy]

I think that's fair, David. I'd agree that it could use some smartening up, and to that end I hope that the station redevelopment will have some knock-on effect. But when I hear people moaning about the type of shops along there, it's really just one step away from complaining about the demographic of the area.

[PokerTime]

I think it has a lot to do with a dislike of the demographic.

You would have to be 80 years old to have lived through any part of Rye Lane's Golden Age. By the Seventies Peckham was full of crime and unemployment. You daren't have walked down Rye Lane after dark. It was already very much in decline. Where is it now is a kind of regeneration from that. Open all hours, vibtant.

Many of the people who I know that complain about Rye Lane do so because they are white, working class, and see the influx of ethnic diversity into the area as having robbed them of some cultural heritage - let's be honest here and say that.

Well London is a cosmopolitain area. It always has been. It has always had migrants and a reading of the history on any borough or street in London reflects that. Too often we equate 'good' with 'affluence' or 'uniformity', and equate bad with 'poor' and 'foreign'.

When I walk down Rye lane, what I see is life. Vibrant, colourful, busy and people of all cultures working hard to keep their shops open. Let's remember, many of the business that Louisa is so keen to describe as 'smelly' and 'unclean' are small businesses run by people who work extremely hard, all hours. They are an example to the rest of us.

[Nigello]

"They are an example to the rest of us."

Oh, PT, stop being so pompous! It IS smelly and dirty in parts, but not everywhere. It IS down-at-heel in parts, but not all over. I see vibrancy but I also see squalor and inertia, and I hope that a balanced view is one that prevails so that the "shopping experience" can be better.

I shop there but don't jump out of bed, beaming from ear to ear, knowing that my trip down the Lane will be one of untrammelled joy. I can see where it can be easily improve (see my post ^) but don't feel confident that such measures will be implemented.

People are allowed to say the truth without it being code for UKIP-light feelings!

[KidKruger]

'inertia' - why ? because it's not going where YOU want it to ?!

Everything has to constantly 'progress' ?

BTW - I actually DO get (very) exited about Rye Lane as it is when I am heading there on a Saturday morning, but if I didn't like it I'm not sure that's a reason for changing the way it's set-up.

[PokerTime]

Wow that was a strong reaction Nigello lol...especially as my comments were more aimed at Louisa's points.

Illegal parking is punished with PCNs issued from the CCTV that runs the length of Rye Lane. Your assumption it is tolerated is incorrect.

Businesses have to leave refuse outside for daily collection. All businesses do this....even the big stores. Rye Lane's problem is that it is a narrow road (the clue lies in the term 'Lane'). It was never designed to be a big shopping mile. Many of the shops there do not have rear thoroughfares for deliveries and refuse collection. Solving that issue without demolition and redevelopment is difficult. and likely to be prohibitively costly.

I will take issue with you on loud music though. With the exception of the record store (which you would expect to be playing music) I'm purplexed as to why you cite this as a problem along the Lane. It clearly isn't.

[Nigello]

It is not incorrect: I have seen - and challenged - PCN's ignoring the illegal parking. It's been going on for years, nothing happens concretely, hence my reference to "inertia".

If it was not designed to be a shopping mile, then any rethink would do well to take this into account. That would be progress, QED.

Loud music is played often near to the bus-stop opposite (diagonally) the railway station. It's very loud and off-putting to anyone who doesn't want to have their ears hurt. Refuse sacks are put out after the collections have taken place; such wayward depositing encourages littering. These things happen: it is not my imagination.

I take exception to the sanctification of the shop-owners. Yes, they provide services, but they also exist primarily to make a profit. Not all of them are as keen as they ought to be on clearing up after themselves.

To pretend that the "Rye Lane shopping experience" is anything approaching optimal is delusional.

[PokerTime]

No-one has said Rye Lane is flawless. It's just that some of us are not as bothered about the melange as others. As someone who likes markets for example, smell, ambient noise, and stacked empty crates don't really bother me. Yes there could be more effective refuse desposal/ collection. Maybe there needs to be an additional and later collection along with better conformity by some traders.

I personally don't find music by that bus stop an issue. I think you are making something out of nothing on that one. It's not the same as a noisy neighbour having a party late at night is it?

[KidKruger]

wow people really think that music shouldn't occur in streets, the place where all public mix and pass each other - no music ?

Rye Lane exceeds optimal for me by so many fold - and one reason (which I hadn't realised until someone said to stop all music) is the sounds - I asked one guy what language he was speaking he said Pashtu i said do you like the music over there that Ragga, he said he was getting well into it and so were his peers. It's plain more fun on Rye Lane.

[alice]

when i walk out that station knacked after work i am uplifted by the very things that make you squirm - i love that music, I love the shiny fruit stalls, I love the stall that sold me a ?160 French connection coat for ?25 and the shop that sells ripped out label m and s stuff for a fiver. and on my CGSF morality crusade [dont worry] someone bid for extra money for extra street cleaners and got it. and yes probably the mundania or whatever will look nicer with a ?5k garden. and because i consider i have free will then i shop where i choose. why wouldnt you/

[JohnL]

Don't forget the people who live there, like me. The bakery went through a phase where it had late night street raves - I have a great photo of the street packed at 2:00AM - I don't mind this but families probably do - there were a few complaints on our estate noticeboard and it stopped.

Rye lane will change - blocks of flats with city workers in are being built and more are planned - obviously these people are allowed a say in the future - they can't be disenfranchised.

[The Minkey]

On the rubbish front: Last Saturday afternoon, I popped out to get a few things and saw a stack of 40+ cardboard boxes heaped out on the pavement at the junction of Highshore Rd and Rye Lane. Had there been an obligation to flatten them, it would have taken up far less space and been less of an eyesore, and they could have been stacked somewhere a little more discreet until close of play.

[Louisa]

PokerTime. I find it a bit of a cop out to conclude my dislike of Rye Lane is purely based upon the demographic. I love markets, and I can and do accept that London is constantly changing. Peckham has been in decline for at least four decades following the building of the North Peckham Estate. As Nigello points out, it's this appreciation of something just because it is cool and edgy that winds me up so. That's why I have such a dislike of the Hipster folk who move into similar areas. They tend to be middle/upper class younger folk, generally white, generally from the Home Counties, never roughed it in their lives who move somewhere like Peckham or Hackney and patronise the locals with comments about how amazing it is to walk out into this utopian environment of lovely smells and earthy shops selling their exotic wares in an honest fashion. They overlook the fact that Rye Lane was trodden into the ground alongside all of Peckham and forgotten about by the state for a couple of generations because of the failure of the social experiment known as the North Peckham Estate. That's why we have these shops here, because no one else wanted to come, until now of course, cos apparently it's "cool" to have a once great shopping destination turned into a stinking rotten mess where people can illegally park and rotten food items along with hair extensions can be strewn across the streets making the place unsightly for everyone. What a dive. More retail variety please. Oh maybe now the wealthy gentrifiers have moved in this will happen, cos the working classes don't really get a voice do they.

Louisa.

[KidKruger]

Whatever the background it's great as it is.

[Louisa]

KK in your opinion. In mine and many others it is not. And no one else listens to is or takes our concerns into account.

Louisa.