Ivanhoe Residents Association

A public meeting to include discussion about the large #AyleshamPeckham development, will be hosted by Southwark Council this Thursday 16 May (7:15pm for a 7:30pm start) at the Harris Academy Peckham. Part of the East Central area joint ward meeting with Community Updates as main topic. Other area developments, such as Peckham Square will also be discussed.

Plans are to be submitted by Berkeley Homes in association with Southwark, for the redevelopment referred to as "The Aylesham Peckham".

Locals are encouraged to attend this Thursday as public awareness remains low.

The Aylesham Centre has been primed for redevelopment ever since Tiger Developments and hedge fund Blackrock revealed their plans to build flats and shops on the site in 2016. In July 2021, Blackrock sold the site to Berkeley and their 2022 version included 3 build phases over a decade for 1050 homes, 14 buildings ranging from 6-27 storeys, a central courtyard and a linear park.

Scaled-down plans were released this February but have yet to win campaigner support. Aylesham Community Action quoted by Southwark News: "The ACA continues to question if this is the right type of development for Peckham ... The new proposals are essentially the same as those rejected by thousands of local people over the last 10 years: the insertion of very large buildings into low-rise, historic Peckham, to create flats that will be unaffordable to most local people, with minimal green or open space.”

An ACA graphic published yesterday in Southwark News shows the buildings will still tower over “historic low-rise Peckham”, with the iconic Jones & Higgins building being dwarfed by huge towers. See https://southwarknews.co.uk/.../graphic-shows-how.../

A petition launched by the group making several demands of Berkeley and Southwark Council has gathered over 3,000 signatures: https://www.change.org/.../we-demand-a-development-that-s...

Campaigners ask if Peckham is set to become the next hi-rise Lewisham.

3 posts in From The Murky Depths worth examining: https://www.fromthemurkydepths.co.uk/.../lewisham.../ & https://www.fromthemurkydepths.co.uk/.../lesser-known.../ & https://www.fromthemurkydepths.co.uk/.../lewisham.../?

See the Berkeley exhibition boards at https://theayleshamcentre.community/the-aylesham.../.

Join us all in the Grove locality for this annual event coming up Sunday 18th June, from 2-6pm! Always a great time. Plants, cakes, beverages and plenty more!

Then roll up for the annual Summer Party on July 8th from 3-10pm with the traditional cookout, beverages and live music!

Visit The Get Well Clinic at Zen Yoga at 24 Camberwell Grove SE5 for reduced rate acupuncture with George Monkhouse or Marion Rollings, x3 a week from October 2020. 

In case you haven’t spotted it, Zen Yoga is a shared, timber-hewn creative health space situated near the Grove Tavern and in front of the Butterfly Tennis Club at 24A Camberwell Grove. It was built on the site of the old Mary Datchelor School, which was an endowed grammar school for girls which closed in 1981.

Get Well’s current timetable has George on Tuesdays 1:30-5:30pm + Fridays 2-4pm. Marion on Thursdays 12-3pm.

Get Well provides a sociable and accessible service that makes acupuncture treatment available to more members of the public through reduced treatment fees.

The clinic was founded by acupuncturist George Monkhouse LicAc MBAcC in 2014 to provide treatment to the larger community who otherwise can't access TCM (Traditional Chinese Medicine). Both practitioners are multi-faceted -  George is a pulse diagnosis expert and natural health pioneer. Marion has treated patients in the renown multi-bed Gateway Clinic, and brings a background in shiatsu massage and yoga to her work. 

Since coronavirus, George has also helped to pioneer acupuncture treatment for NHS staff. During the first phase of lockdown, he instigated a project of acupuncturists around the UK treating NHS staff. Get Well now offers this low cost acupuncture service to help with staff burnout among other issues, with an extra £5 discount for registered NHS staff, asking all NHS staff to engage in Get Well’s symptom tracker RISE, a new innovative research tool to improve global health outcomes. This data should benefit effectiveness, budget and waiting times for a much larger number of treatments on the NHS than currently delivered.

From the Get Well website:

“Chinese medicine, through acupuncture, lifestyle and dietary changes, focuses on the resolution of symptoms, health and vitality in all areas through assessing and refining balance and harmony. Whether you are looking for short term solutions such as resolving pain and injury, or clearing a cold, or chronic conditions such as anxiety, heart disease and cancer, Chinese medicine helps you achieve lasting benefits.

'Community' or 'multibed' acupuncture sees a number of treatment tables in the same room so several people can be treated at once, with partitions dividing the space ...”

Full body treatment is £25 per session (initial consultation £35) and ear acupuncture on a drop-in basis for £5. Reduced cost is made possible by patients communally sharing the same space with physical distancing. Masks are required for drop-in ear acupuncture.

Book in for full body via the website: http://camberwellacupuncture.co.uk. Also on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/camberwellacupuncture/ and Twitter: https://twitter.com/CamberwellAcup.

See an article about this clinic on the Herne Hill Forum at: http://www.hernehill.org.uk/news/multi-bed-treatment-reduces-cost-local-acupuncture but note the schedule has changed to 3:15-6:45pm.

Southwark opened a new consultation this morning (10th February 2020) to take your feedback on their proposals for the #Quietway7 Dog Kennel Hill Junction and Champion Hill 'No Entry' with a view to making the 'No Entry' on Champion Hill permanent. Online views have diverged. Vehement opposition:

To praise:

Whether for it or against it, you have only until 15th March to communicate your opinion. Visit the Southwark Consultation Hub site at https://tinyurl.com/rtjjwgw or go directly to https://consultations.southwark.gov.uk/environment-leisure/dogkennelhill-1/consultation/?fbclid=IwAR3n1kRqbdFimf1spBIzBglYmDnE261OmOR7QT7LPJ-r2MBreehN1EMMu4A. 

There will also be a drop-in session to answer any questions relating to the design and consultation process. This is going to take place on Tuesday 25th February 4-8pm at the Albrighton Community Centre (37 Albrighton Road, SE22 8AH).

Dulwich Festival 2019 is in Week 1 and on the opening Friday 10th May we got to Dulwich Leisure Centre for ‘Swimming in the Slow Lane’, a foyer exhibition of digital prints from Jolie Goodman. A dedicated swimmer wherever she goes, be it SE London or Crete, Goodman has been developing Dulwich Leisure Centre pool ideas on paper since at least late 2016 with her old oil painting titled ‘Waiting for the Pool to Open’ (#swimming #resolutions #oilpainting #eastdulwich #fitness).

https://www.instagram.com/p/BOeyaNNDppO/

Another swimming pool project titled ‘Reflections on Swimming’ was sandwiched in-between this start and the current DF DLC show. ‘Reflections’ upscaled Goodman’s digital swimming drawings and today can be found in the entrance to the new Salomons Centre at Canterbury Christchurch University, Royal Tunbridge Wells. The centre was officially opened by Jo Brand in 2017 and will offer postgraduate courses in the areas of applied psychology and Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT).

https://www.instagram.com/p/BZrChxAAsAX/

https://www.instagram.com/p/BZy2S9UABP-/

The current Dulwich Leisure Centre foyer exhibition - on through 19th May - is a series of prints about Goodman’s swimming life at DLC where she finds the experience of her morning swims vary considerably, especially in the slow lane! Again these are digital prints - which are flexible because they can be more easily printed in different sizes. 

Also borrowing themes from water during DF Weekend 1 was Rebecca Boyd Allen’s series of ‘Ocean Plastic Watercolours’ abstractions in the Linbury Room at Dulwich Picture Gallery, sharing space with work by Grace Holiday and Liz Charsley-Jory. 

Rebecca has been working on this series since 2015, with the aim of raising awareness of plastic pollution in oceans. In the Linbury Rebecca explained to us that it is a subtle approach, as she’s not really interested in portraying this problem in a literal way. Her website explains more:

“I am referencing … the endless flux of shapes which have accumulated in the oceans.  Unlike the way a painter might normally contemplate a still life, it isn’t important to me to be in front of actual ocean plastics. Rather, by continually layering shapes and colours, new compositional arrangements and possibilities present themselves and the accumulation of marks gives rise to an ambiguity which is representative of the role of responsibility for the problem.” (https://rebeccaboydallenartist.com/ocean-plastic-watercolours/)  

Allen’s Linbury works ‘Ebb’,’Achromatization’ and new work ‘Surface’ were especially striking. Plastic can be interpreted as endlessly going out to sea. 

Allen quotes Greenpeace: “Scientists have shown that up to 12 million tonnes of plastic is entering our oceans every year - that’s a rubbish truck full every minute.” Again, human denial seems crucial to the problem - no clean up, just a mounting problem on an exponential scale. 

Allen’s table piece ’Surface’ consisted of 135 small square paintings attached by a single thread to a sculpted paper surface. It brought practical action to bear as each painting was for sale, with 25% going to The Ocean Cleanup, a non-profit utilising ocean currents and passive drifting systems to rid the world’s oceans of 5 trillion pieces of plastic. https://www.theoceancleanup.com

The last visit during our Artists’ Open House weekend walkabout wasn’t actually a DF entrant but more like a DF busker, or one in a growing number of artists who set up individually during or around Festival fortnight dates. In this case in a house on Beauval Road, just a few yards from Stik’s 2012 interpretation of Van Aelst’s ‘The Fall of Man’ (part of the Dulwich Outdoor Gallery Art Trail).

Trevor Christie is a photographer we have seen before, most recently on large scale at the Carnegie Library before its conversion into a gym and when it had space to work with. Trevor Christie is an analogue (chiefly 35mm) photographer who taught himself photography through textiles, illustration and video. 

Trevor began his photographic life in 2008, when he started to engage in London street photography. His pictures reveal London's soft, essential character. He exhibits infrequently, usually when a new body of work is ready. His work is storytelling, and reflects superficial ordinariness, utilising mechanical film cameras of the 1900s to produce his subject.

Topics explored in this show included homelessness, capitalism, inequality and isolation, all increasingly important urban themes in 2019. These stories and more are told in a unpolitical narrative of tonality, moment and majesty, all stemming from living in the city. All proceeds from gift and plant sales were donated to Shelter.

We’ve had a very warm summer and not surprisingly, Lettsom Gardens is thriving, especially the allotments. We visited with Lettsom volunteer Laurent who gave us a tour of the allotments and even sent us away with freshly picked berries! 

Hemmed in by a pair of impassable bridge works! Last week we visited the impasse at the Bellenden Road Bridge works (below) which we understand will last until mid-June, so this probably means July. Just how things seem to run.

Today it's Camberwell Grove Bridge works (below). 

The two together have meant a stranglehold for traffic - motorists and cyclists alike - pedestrians as well for Bellenden - creating unrivalled diversion congestion. Consequently cyclists take chances running one ways in the wrong direction - adding extra jeopardy to an already anarchic mixed speeds cycling situation - to get round bottlenecks at rush hour! 

Also in the photoset here - Network Rail's letter of 2nd May explaining these works will carry on into August. 

Two works timed to proceed remarkably, at the same time. Odds on which outlasts the other?

The historic Holdrons Building in Peckham is rich in history. Today it’s mainly occupied by Peckham emporium Khan's Bargain Store. But back in the days when Peckham was seen as a destination shopping street, Holdron’s existed as an outpost of Selfridges. It closed just after the war in 1949. Today all that’s left by name is a small corridor to the side of Khan’s known as Holdrons Arcade. This Arcade houses around 20 small retail businesses and is regarded to be a part of the Copeland Park and Bussey Building complex. http://copelandpark.com/arcade

It also houses Peckham Vision, which uses two units for a meeting space and information point for the public (www.peckhamvision.org). Peckham Vision is a local group that works to keep local people informed of changes in the Peckham community, and how they can take action where needed. As such it will also play a significant role in this weekend’s Peckham Festival, which celebrates creative and cultural Peckham on 14-17th September 2017.  As will Holdron’s Arcade! 

There will be over 200 events - encompassing music, performances and film screenings, workshops, walks and talks, Open Studios and art exhibitions. Get listings from https://www.peckhamfestival.org/whatson/. See all the locations here: https://www.peckhamfestival.org/2016-festival/locations/. Festival events happening in Holdron’s Arcade include:

Drop-ins to Peckham Vision’s community shop for conversations about Peckham and the community - FRI 15 Sep 18:00-21:00, SAT 16 Sep 11:00-18:00, SUN 17 Sep 11:00-18:00.

Sports Massage Tasters (£5 for 15 minutes) in Holdron’s Back Room - THURS 14 Sep 16:00-21:00, FRI 15 Sep 09:00-13:00, SAT 16 Sep 09:30-16:45, SUN 17 Sep 11:00-16:00.

Hairlooms Hair Pieces in Holdron’s Back Room - Recreating African hairstyles from history. Project with Year 5 children at Bellenden St. John’s and St. Clements Primary Schools, FRI 18:00 to 21:00, SAT 16 Sep 11:00-18:00, SUN 17 Sep 11:00-16:00, SUN 17 Sep 11:00-18:00

Dulwich Hamlet staged a dramatic February fightback in getting a 2-2 cup draw with National League team Macclesfield Town at Champion Hill, which had been billed as the biggest Dulwich Hamlet game in decades. The draw earned DHFC a replay at Moss Rose which they ultimately lost, but it took nothing away from the effort in getting them there!

Here are a few photos taken on the day.

“The cinema isn’t the building – it’s the community.” These words were spoken by volunteer Edwin Mingard on London Live and were later quoted in the Evening Standard about the Deptford Cinema where he gives his time, a unique venue located on Deptford Broadway. This cinema, which is not-for-profit and is volunteer run, is a great place to see difficult to find films, and is located right on our doorstep. Reasonably priced too, at £3.50 per resident and £5 if from further afield. There’s a small bar and comfy cinema seating as well, nestled in a former garage within a subterranean breezeblock space! 

We went along to see ‘Pintu Terlarang' (meaning forbidden door), the last film in a season of some of the best contemporary films and documentaries from Indonesia, and curated by Lenah Susianty who formerly lived in our patch on Grove Hill Road SE5 before moving closer to Deptford. Director Joko Anwar won the Best of Puchon award for his Hitchcockian and Cronenbergian plot with elements of body-horror at the 2009 Puchon International Fantastic Film Festival, and was nominated for the Golden Kinnaree Award at the 2009 Bangkok International Film Festival.

Lewisham was one of only two London boroughs lacking a cinema until volunteers set up Deptford Cinema, and since doing so, it has been voted in as one of the nation’s best Community Cinemas! But the cinema is incorporated as a Community Interest Company (CIC), a type of company designed for social enterprises that want to use their profits and assets for public good. And Lewisham Council treats it the same as a company designed purely for profit. As a result, the Council are applying an unpayable business rates bill to the cinema. Some boroughs give relief to CICs; Lewisham Council does not.

Sign the petition to help the cinema at https://www.change.org/p/lewisham-council-make-lewisham-council-honour-their-promises-and-stop-them-from-destroying-deptford-cinema. Read more about how you can help the Deptford Cinema stay afloat in Brockley Central: http://brockleycentral.blogspot.com/2016/05/save-deptford-cinema.html

Edwin again: “People often talk about a feeling of dislocation and a feeling that there are people all around you who you’d probably have a lot in common with, if only there were spaces where you’d naturally rub up against each other regularly. Volunteering in the cinema has that affect for people – they come together for a shared purpose, which is a love for film, and they discover that they have more in common with people around them than they realise.”

Read the Standard piece in full, which includes a short film! http://www.standard.co.uk/goingout/film/deptford-cinema-is-a-volunteering-project-that-is-uniting-lewisham-s-community-by-creating-its-only-a3297201.html

Find Deptford Cinema online at: http://deptfordcinema.org

Everyone Active - Peckham Pulse Healthy Living Centre (aka Peckham Pulse Leisure Center) is situated on Melon Road - and Melon Road refers to Peckham's impressive agricultural past! . From southwarkheritage.wordpress.com: "In the 16th century (Peckham Town) became home to some quite wealthy people. Sir Thomas Gardyner owned Basing Manor, close to the corner of Peckham High Street and Rye Lane, and wrote of the extensive orchards and gardens nearby which he owned or had access to. 

With the lack of refrigeration, food had to be grown close to its final market and Peckham was ideally situated to exploit the large London market on its doorstep. Exotic fruits such as melons, figs and grapes were all grown here, some ending up on the royal table. The success of the Peckham farmers is still remembered today in the naming of ‘Melon Road’ just off Peckham High Street.” 

https://southwarkheritage.wordpress.com/2016/10/31/historic-peckham/

Arguably the two football clubs closest to our patch are Dulwich Hamlet and Millwall Football Clubs. Both are embroiled in property issues and both had feature write-ups in the Southwark News this week. DHFC for Council rejection of a property company attempt to lift protective covenants placed on the ground in the 1990s, and Millwall over lack of transparency over a £1bn project which involves a compulsory purchase order of land around the stadium. Scans for both follow below:

In a recent planning application 16/AP/4051, Dulwich Hamlet FC's ownership (be it Hadley’s Property, Greendale Property or Meadows Residential), seek to discharge some Section 106 obligations set up as protective covenants in 1992 to secure the future of the club on the current site. The freehold owners of the Dulwich Hamlet grounds (King’s College) had sold the site to property developers in 1990. According to 35% Campaign SE, Southwark Council “reluctantly granted permission for a Sainsbury’s superstore and car park, along with consent for a new clubhouse with health and fitness facilities, including a gym and squash courts to provide revenue to the club, which it was claimed would not survive otherwise”. Property development in the area has been an issue ever since. 

Friends of Dog Kennel Wood have announced that the public has until Sat. November 26th to submit comments on 16/AP/4051: http://www.friendsofdkhwood.org/respond-to-16ap4051/. Why are these discharges being sought and why have so few known about 16/AP/4051 which appears to have been submitted in September? Dulwich Hamlet Supporters' Trust November Board minutes don't make things any clearer and are cautionary: "DHST is unaware of the purpose of this application as HPG [Hadley Property] had no engagement with DHST prior to submitting it. DHST would have concerns if the outcome of the application being granted would be to weaken the protections for the existing stadium that require a new stadium to be provided." http://dhst.org.uk/november-2016-board-meeting-minutes-published/. 

For more historical perspective on this long-running property/club/greenbelt wrangle please see a 35% Campaign SE June 2016 post which examines key assumptions in the viability assessment discussion among other key topics: http://35percent.org/2016-06-08-dulwich-hamlet-unviable-but-profitable/ and provides some interesting supporting documents.  Also informative are comments on the application itself http://bit.ly/2f0n6H6 which make plain that 16/AP/4051 needs to be read alongside the previous planning application 16/AP/1232 for residential development and new pitch build which achieved well over 400 comments! http://bit.ly/1B0suIP. 

Most importantly, please submit your comments by the Saturday deadline! 

Below, image of the area in question pre-1990 from 35% Campaign SE. 

Within 20 minutes of the the doors shutting for the final time at Peckham Rye Lane Crown Post Office on Saturday August 20th, workers were outside stripping all signage. We photographed it and called it “Our Funeral”.

Here’s a last look at the interior with staff still behind the counter tallying up for the final time!

And we believe we posted the last letter accepted for franking from Rye Lane Crown - a 2nd class letter to Dorset!

Meanwhile Post Office staff came out to direct removal workers.

Mike Rook, Chair of Ivanhoe Residents Association has called the closure a local tragedy. Mike is nearly 80 and remembers a post office in the same spot growing up as a child and reckons there was one very much longer.  

End of an era. Death of Our Post Office in Rye Lane. Time and time again the explanation given is that the Post Office never invested in property purchase, relying on rentals so now that the London property market has gone haywire, it can no longer afford - or will no longer afford - to provide the more extensive services characteristic of a Crown, in Rye Lane. Once the Post Office is gutted and there is change of use, what will it become? Expensive flats? A new chain store? A high priced bistro? 

We hope zoning rules can change at southern end of Rye Lane to make change of use more problematic for businesses seeking easy profit and in recognition of important public services. We understand the Peckham Vision group hopes to achieve this. As the CWU’s Ian Ward explained during the demo outside the Crown Post Office at the end of July: “This is a public service behind me, you own it, you run it ... but it is being sold.” http://bit.ly/2b9icpc

Time flies.