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ITV London News item on gentrification
12-16 Blenheim Grove
http://www.itv.com/news/london/update/2014-02-03/peckham-redevelopment-could-destroy-area/Â – “Residents in Peckham say the capital’s growing need for housing could soon destroy their local area. Currently there are plans for a multi-million pound redevelopment project around Peckham Rye Station, which will include blocks of flats. But locals are worried the regeneration could have a huge impact on the creative communities who live there.”
18th Feb – Latest News: Harriet Harman MP backs local community and Southwark Council in call for extension of time for real engagement with local people to design station area development that benefits Peckham. http://www.peckhamvision.org/wiki/Peckham_Rye_Station_Gateway
Peckham community celebrates town centre achievements
Peckham Town Centre Forum
This was a fantastic community meeting celebrating recent achievements for Peckham town centre. Over 200 locals from Peckham’s diverse social, economic and ethnic communities crowded in to the CLF Art Café in the Bussey building, to hear the latest news from Peckham Vision and the Council. Senior figures from Network Rail, Southern Railway and the Railway Heritage Trust voiced their support for community initiatives at Peckham Rye station in Peckham town centre; see video clip. Read more
What would you like to see in this space?
This is the restored Old Waiting Room at the station.  What kind of use would be well used? What would make Peckham town centre an attractive place to visit? What would make the area more attractive for other commercial investment? What would be a good business proposal? Would you like to see:
- Refreshments, & what kinds of refreshments?
- Art gallery exhibitions?
- Training workshops for young people?
- Community meetings?
- Theatre performances?
- Office & workshop spaces?
- Other ideas?
Everyone is asked to send their suggestions and comments to oldwaitingroom@gmail.com
further information: www.peckhamvision.org/wiki/Peckham_Rye_Station
This is the secret room above the ticket hall, brought back into life by a local community initiative funded by small grants, 2008 – 2011, from the Community Council CGS programme. The Community Council applauded at their 8th December 2010 meeting the latest reports and pictures, and started the discussion about suitable commercial uses to make the best of the wonderful space.
Further funds are being sought to continue the restoration to the external staircase, & to improve the station walkways. This would be the public entrance to the space and make it useable for public activities.
Local residents are developing a social enterprise project to bid for the lease from Network Rail for a multi purpose flexible venue. For more information, see brief  here,  and blog here  http://peckhamresidents.wordpress.com and .
If you want to get involved in this exciting project email oldwaitingroom@gmail.com
Building with communities: the case of Peckham (UK)
From Cityness blog – Â What Makes the Urban Tick?
Old Waiting Room – restoration.
Picture by Benedict O’Looney
It is an understatement to say that quite a few urban planners and architects would like to keep local communities at bay during the process of developing the urban. Main reasons? Fear of NIMBY-behavior, fear of delays, fear of less-than-progressive ideas about what should be done and, in some cases, fear of people who are not part of the cozy inner-circle of architects, planners and designers. … Sometimes a dialogue of the deaf is the only result. … The Peckham Vision (UK) is an example where things went differently but with favorable results, as even architects in the Architects’ Journal acknowledge. Peckham Vision is a communal gathering in order to generate new ideas about the future of the Peckham town centre and its buildings. Read more at cityness.wordpress.com.
Celebrating the restoration of the Old Waiting Room, Peckham Rye Station
By Roger Williams | In Dulwich on View Photo: Benedict O’Looney
The Peckham Society and Southwark Council recently celebrated the beginning of the restoration of the Grand Waiting Room at Peckham Rye Station. Peckham Rye’s handsome Victorian station has been struggling to be seen since buildings were thrown up in the square in front of it in the 1930s. Stand and look at the station now, and you will see two extruding blocks, one on each side of the main entrance. The one on the south side contains a stone and iron spiral staircase, the timbers of its floors rotten, the plaster walls crumbling in chunks, and an arrow pointing upwards, graffitied in black, with the words “To the Billiard Hall”. The billiard hall operated here for 60 years until it closed in 1960, after which all was silence.
On Friday, July 16, after half a century in the dark, the “billiard hall” opened its doors to reveal the station’s Old Waiting Room, a magnificent space with a high vaulted ceiling and four open fire places that stretches the length of the building above the ticket office and is today accessed from Platform 3, on the Victoria line. Read more …
Secret hall beyond Platform 3 holds key to Peckham’s future?
From Southwark News by Kevin Quinn
A waiting room left hidden on platform three of Rye Lane Station could be the key to unlocking future investment in Peckham.
Like something out of J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter, this enormous space opened as a waiting room in 1865 and was turned into a billiards hall in 1890 until it closed in 1960. Forgotten, over the years this space was left to fall into disrepair. It has only recently been opened to the public (albeit briefly), but for those wanting to attract future investment into Peckham town centre the space represents a way forward.
For over a decade the planners and officers at the council’s regeneration department have toyed with a multitude of ideas on how to improve Peckham as commercial hub.
In 2001 radical proposals to transform Peckham into ‘the Notting Hill’ of south London were being considered by Southwark Council’s Peckham Partnership. The head of this regeneration body, Russell Profitt, was looking at recommendations which would mean knocking down huge parts of the high street, pedestrianising large parts of Rye Lane, demolishing the dank and dark buildings around Peckham Rye train station and expanding the Aylesham shopping centre.
Years before in the 1990s, Peckham had undergone a huge regeneration programme, when £64 million (and £150 million in other funding) was given to the area, predominantly to transform housing in the north. As well as removing the notorious estates, some of the legacy from that money was the new Peckham Square and the iconic library within its boundaries.
Last year the council officers were back on the hunt for a way forward, producing a document entitled ‘Future Peckham’ in a bid to garner people’s opinions on what they wanted to see. This hefty 54 page document again suggested a myriad of radical changes in the area, including relocation of the cinema, the creation of three fifteen storey buildings for new homes and once more the redevelopment of the Aylesham centre and Rye Lane to produce a vibrant shopping environment.
But since the initial proposals from Russell Profitt for a ‘Notting Hill’ of the south much has changed on the ground in Peckham. Mr Profitt left the renamed Peckham Programme in 2008 and the subsequent abolition of a town centre management has left a vacuum in the council’s daily coordination on the ground.
In its place is a grassroots group, ‘Peckham Vision’, made up of local stakeholders including residents, community groups and business owners. It is becoming the driving force behind change and importantly they understand that in light of the present economic climate Peckham’s future relies on private investment. Read more…
Old Billiard Room comes back to life!
Daylight now floods, just as it used to, through large Victorian windows into the magnificent huge Old Billiard room above the ticket hall at Peckham Rye station. This is the successful result of collaboration between The Peckham Society, Rye Lane & Station Action Group, Southwark Council, Southern Rail and Network Rail. The Peckham Society have now proposed the next stage – to restore the wooden floor and make the room fit for community and public use again. This is a significant contribution to the transformation of central Rye Lane (see here).                                                Â
Transforming Central Rye Lane
In 2008 the Council published an inspiring report on the business case for change at Peckham Rye Station. This would see over several years, the original square in front of the station restored and opened up, and the land between the railway lines on both sides of Rye Lane transformed into spaces for creative enterprises. Over the last few years, ideas have also been evolving for the development of the emerging Copeland Cultural Quarter on the other side of Rye Lane, right alongside the railway line. This site has already been meeting some of the increasing need for flexible spaces for creative and cultural enterprises, and fits exactly with the new plans for the station transformation. See how the two masterplans could come together to transform Central Rye Lane. Read more…
New Vision for Peckham Rye Station
Report from Southwark News 21 November 2008: http://www.southwarknews.co.uk/00,news,13050,440,00.htm
“NEW DESIGNS for Peckham Rye train station have been unveiled as the council presses ahead with plans to regenerate the area, despite the body blow that no tram will come there. A summit of key figures will sit down tomorrow and thrash out how the ambitious policy will be funded, with a discussion on how pressure can be applied to Network Rail to open up its purse strings.
If the plans were approved, areas at the front and back of Peckham Rye station will be transformed into a piazza leading onto Rye Lane, and a market area at the rear using the existing arches as access points. The meeting, led by Peckham Community Council, aims to change the instant impression people get when they walk out of the station. It will also attempt to make the station the focal point of the area.
The idea has been mooted for sometime but a council spokesman said this meeting and the plans were hoped to be a catalyst for the future. ” Read more …