Having only just announced that the northern line will be extended to Battersea to support the major regeneration of the Power Station in the heart of a new enterprise zone, administrators have been called to manage the mounting debts clocked up by Irish property tycoons Johnny Ronan and Richard Barrett.

The scheme consisted of 3,400 homes and 900,000 sq metres of retail and office space and was due to create 25,000 jobs. This will surely put the extension at risk and may increase other parts of South London’s chances of obtaining an extension….to Lewisham or Peckham???

CITY VS NATURE

Is permaculture the answer?

Why students and regeneration don’t mix!

So here is a video shot by students from Goldsmiths university in south London about why it would be great to come and live in new cross and study there. I know its an advert but its so blind-sighted! New Cross, sits next to New Cross Gate, which is one of the poorest communities and like other areas of London which have large student populations, there is no acknowledgement of it. Students live next door to families and eat in the same restaurant and go to the same post offices, banks and sweet shops, but how many local residents go to the student run cafes or bars?

Why is it that when students market the area to outsiders they never mention the marketability of local people and community groups. There is a certain incubation approach by Goldsmiths and its students when it comes to improving the area. Its dangerous, dividing and perhaps the communities there should do more to challenge their approach.  Anyway here are a few comments I made earlier:

It might be beautifully shot, but most of it is filmed in Deptford and not New Cross!!! Furthermore it’s so misconceiving to believe that New Cross ends at Cafe Crema! Where is the Sainsbury’s and its massive car park? ,Post office? , Community groups? , Community centres? Ethnic minorities?  It’s interesting what people say in the video:  Take for example the guy who says that

‘The people that live here reflect the businesses that are here’

This is true, but why aren’t they in the video? I don’t see the mix of people that anyone in this video is referring too?

I think the whole video can be summed up really well when the lady at the end says:

’ It feels like the local people are aware of the university and quite proud of it’

 …but can the same be said about the students and Goldsmiths in general and how aware they are of the community that lives around them???

If this is to show what new cross is all about then for me it just highlights the blindness that many of the students at Goldsmiths have about where exactly new cross is and what else happens here.

Give us a break Boris

This is the digital image produced by the London Cycling campaign, which is demanding London Mayor Boris Johnson reconsider the pro car scheme designed for the Blackfriars Bridge. Having highlighted 2 fatal deaths in recent years and gathered data on near misses, at the heart of their design is the safety for both cyclists and pedestrians. The design itself is influenced by US road schemes which introduces Kerbs to keep cars out and in a time of financial restraint they claim that their proposals would only add an additional 1% to the cost.

With a notable increase in cyclists on the road and more people seeking to take up cycling through the encouragement of the Boris bikes and increased transport costs next year, it is clear that we are likely to see increasing demands from pro-cycle groups across the capital.