Rye Lane

[PokerTime]

LOL. That was a bit blunt LadyDeliah but is truthful. According to the last census, around 70% of the local population of Peckham, and other areas local to Rye Lane, is a mix of of non-white ethnic groups. So the Lane is simply a reflection of the local customer base. That's how business and economics work (as everybody knows).

I'm sorry that Louisa feels the way she does about this debate but I think Straferack has summarised things perfectly. And there ARE chain stores in Rye Lane. Argos, Boots, Primark, Morrissons, Lidl, T-Mobile, Macdonalds, KFC are all chain stores. Even Poundland is a chain store. Iceland, and I'm sure I could think of a few more. So this vague idea that there are not enough chain stores, or the retail mix isn't diverse enough, doesn't hold up.

Once anyone brings class into a debate it opens up a whole new dimension to the discussion and Louisa, you were the person who brought class up. If a person is working class, and then dispises the middle classes, they are displaying inverse snobbery. If the middle classes despise the working classes, that's snobbery. The census also shows that the overwhleming majority of those non white ethnic groups are within a working class earnings bracket. So my opinion is that class isn't really that much of a factor here. Ethnic diversity however is and that is what I was alluding to in my earlier comments. The vast majority of people shopping in Rye Lane are working class. Ethnic diversity is the dominent market force. And that's just how it is. Bringing back stores that can't make enough profit within that demographic serves no-one.

The impression I get, and it is just an assumption on my part (not based on any hard evidence) is that middle class people are less bothered about ethnic diversity and culture than long standing white working class communities. That's just from various conversations I've had and witnessed. To criticise the middle classes because they've brought some arts to the Lane is just bonkers. The community that Rye Lane serves isn't suddenly going to dramatically change in any capacity.

[intexasatthe moment]

What I don't understand about Rye Lane is why the pavement surfaces of the main drag and the side roads can't be resurfaced and maintained to the same high standards as the shopping area on Lordship Lane .

Anyone know the answer ?

[Louisa]

LadyDeliah Wrote:

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> Rye Lane caters for mainly non-white or non-middle

> class customers. White and middle class ED

> residents don't like it.

>

> So what?

>

> Go somewhere else to shop then.

I'm white but never middle-class, (do NOT get me started on that one please). I live on the borders of SE15/22 but lived all my young years in Peckham and went to Bellenden Road School. Always lived around here- so why shouldn't it be aimed at me and people like me too like it always used to be? Already stated I don't want posh shops or sh@t shops exclusively but even I accept an area needs a mix JohnL got it just about right.

PokerTime - I have to disagree again unfortunately. I remember when the first non-white families started moving into the area and Peckham in those days was still a close knit community. We all got on rather well (overall) and would do anything for each other. I don't know how you suddenly come to a conclusion white working class people have a big issue with ethnic diversity? We've lived alongside one another and gone to school together for decades now. Another rather vague and bizarre conclusion. You also assume only white working class people have an issue with Rye Lane, not true. My elderly neighbour who sadly is no longer with us (she lived next door to me since moving to London from Jamaica in the mid 1950s) also would make the point that she no longer felt comfortable with the retail choices on Rye Lane and the way in which it had become so dirty. She was a working class lady much the same as my family were, and I can give other examples of people not satisfied with that street. This is not an ethnic issue. Anyway, all of this is irrelevant right? Because let's face it, the white middle classes are moving into Peckham now, and THEY are the very people who you've already admitted have the will to change an area to suit their own cultural agenda. And evidence suggests they come to these poorer areas and rightly or wrongly DO that. It's not the white working classes who do it. And the artists and PeckhamVision and the Bellenden yummification etc will all add up to another middle England clone zone. So any poorer family from whatever background will no doubt be shifted into the social housing of the suburbs in the decades to come by government.

Louisa.

[david_carnell]

LadyDeliah Wrote:

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> Rye Lane caters for mainly non-white or non-middle

> class customers. White and middle class ED

> residents don't like it.

>

> So what?

>

> Go somewhere else to shop then.

Errr....why should I? It's my local high street. I'm actually quite happy with the shops themselves although I guess the lure of nail bars and afro hairdressers isn't designed for me.

But I'm allowed an opinion that the street is cluttered, dirty and can be less than fun to shop on. That's hardly controversial. Why do you think it's acceptable to be left in that state?

[LadyDeliah]

I haven't mentioned the condition, I was responding to criticism of the types of goods sold.

If it doesn't supply what you want, go somewhere else.

I never shop on LL cos I think it's full of crap, so I go 5 mins further afield to Peckham.

Louisa, why don't you just say what you mean, you think there are too many non-whites in Peckham and you resent their shops outnumbering the smaller white community.

That's life.

The French & Spanish hate the dominance of Brits in lots of their communities, but, you know, that's just how the world is. People travel dnd communities change. Unless you're promoting enforced re-patriation, you're just going to have to get used to it.

[LadyDeliah]

PokerTime Wrote:

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> LOL. That was a bit blunt LadyDeliah but is

> truthful.

I'm not really a beat around the bush kind of person PT. Life is too short :-)

[PokerTime]

I?m going to have to take issue with you on your comments about Peckham Vision Louisa. You seem to have no knowledge of who Peckham Vision are and what they do (because of your biased prejudice perhaps?).

There is a woman at Peckham Vision for example, who is the reason why Peckham still has a high street at all, because in the 70?s the council wanted to turn the High Street into a huge bypass for the A2. So there is a lot to thank her for.

To suggest the people at Peckham Vision are working to an agenda that has no considerations for the diverse views of the local population of Peckham is just nonsense. Peckham Vision is a conservation group. It is protecting the Lane from exactly the kind of developments you don?t want to see. Network Rail for example (as part of the station redevelopment) want to build flats alongside the station so they can cash in presumably on sales from exactly the kind of people you think gentrify an area. Peckham Vision are challenging this in order to protect the businesses that would be lost. Just as when Ken Livingston had designs on turning Rye Lane into a huge marshalling depot for a tram network, they fought that. There is nothing to stop you from joining Peckham Vision and influencing policy, but no, your prejudice towards anyone not of your class wouldn?t allow you to do that would it?

Similarly, the artists are bringing things like theatre at affordable prices. You can see a play at the Bussey Building for ?5 for example (as opposed to the ?30 it costs in town). How is that a bad thing? Why do you feel so threatened by that? The arts are serving people of all classes and backgrounds.

You live in an area that is still overwhelmingly working class, and will continue to be so for a long time to come. Bellenden Road and that area started as a middle class enclave. It has never belonged to the working classes. Just as Rye Lane in its real heyday served the kind of middle and upper classes that you so detest. It could be argued that if the working classes hadn?t moved in on masse, the department stores would have stayed (although that?s not something I believe).

Why should any shop come to Peckham if there aren?t enough people to shop in it? Why is that so lost on you? The department and large chain stores have gone for a reason, all of it to do with economics. There is nothing the council or anyone can do about that. We are actually spoilt in London for shopping centres anyway. Most people in the country have to travel several miles or more to find any shopping centre or street. Where do you get this right to have everything you want or need on your doorstep from?

And to suggest that the poor will be shifted to the suburbs also shows a complete ignorance of the evolution of London. Southwark is one of the highest providers of social housing in the country. That is not going to change any time soon.

I don?t think I?m as old as you but I too grew up in a mainly white working class neighbourhood and it had plenty of rogues, thieves and vandals. People I would never want to live amongst again. Yes there was a community but it was also a very insular community. Insularity you are displaying perfectly in some of your views. And I have no nostalgia for that.

[StraferJack]

I don't think that's fair Lady D

For all Louisa's faults, I don't believe she has an issue with race

[Louisa]

As SJ said, I don't wish to turn the future of a high street into a race issue. Lady D, I've pointed out previously on this thread that is never my intention. I find you forcing the conversation in that direction with those comments lazy. If I wanted to be lazy I could bang on about your reasons for not responding to comments about your militant stance on cyclists and how they can do no wrong. I choose not too.

Louisa.

[LadyDeliah]

Maybe because that's not my stance Louisa and I think you constantly banging on about Peckham no longer reflecting your shops of choice can't mean anything other than resentment that the shops currently occupying Rye Lane are the shops of choice for those who have 'caused' the change, i.e. The increased non-white majority.

[LadyDeliah]

And what would you have happen to change it back to your 'halcyon' days then Louisa?

Wait for the demographic to change to majority, arty middle class types? because it is pretty unlikely that the pearly kings and queens of your rosey memory are going to come flooding back.

Not sure it's even going to change to a majority of arty middle class in your lifetime either, but it would give you something else to moan about, so fingers crossed eh.

[PokerTime]

To be fair to Louisa, I think the issue for her is more about culture and class. Having said said that though, in this area, ethnicity and culture are strongly linked. And any prejudice based on culture or class is just as bad as any form of xenophobia or racism imo. It's still a mantra of us vs them and is completely divisive.

[Louisa]

Lady D exactly my point. Lazy posting. You think by making a huge assumption about my dislike of an area with stated and valid reasons, you can conclude I dislike the racial makeup of that area. Not true. And if that's the case, you assume only white people have an issue with Rye Lane, also not true. I also stated its not just about the choice of shops, it's the condition they are in too- and the streets. Others agree with me. But then as a lazy car user like myself I guess I can travel miles out of my way destroying the planet with fumes and hogging the road from every other user.

Louisa.

[Louisa]

PokerTime. Yes, to an extent. It's about making the area useful for everyone. It's not us vs them in Peckham, if anything I'd say its more "us vs them" in ED than it is in Peckham. I am from a background where the house and the streets you live in are kept clean and tidy. That surely isn't a cultural thing is it? Everywhere should be clean and tidy. I know Peckham is unlikely to go back to what it was and that's how evolution works, and I also know the population is overwhelmingly not from the same background as me.

Louisa.

[LadyDeliah]

Well that's progress Louisa, (in her mind set, incase you were wondering) so are you going to stop banging on about it not being like the old (predominantly white, working class) days now?

[Louisa]

You're telling me a street full of used chicken bones, dirty hair extensions, bags full of smelly rubbish and cars parking on double yellow lines blocking buses is 'progress'? Maybe to you, not to me. And no I won't stop banging on about it. Just as I won't stop banging on about the gentrification of zone two London, and the demise of the working class and creation of an 'underclass', forgotten about and shifted from location to location when it suits the middle classes to move in and buy up whole streets of housing.

Louisa.

[PokerTime]

And there was I thinking we were finally beginning to get somewhere lol.......

I don't think I really have anything more to add. Obviously I agree regarding litter but don't know what the demise of the working class means. Demise technically means the death of. But why then is the level of poverty, and those earning less than the average wage rising? Hmm I think planet Louisa will have to stay just that. I've enjoyed debating though :)

[JohnL]

someone actually started researching this in 2011 (just before the riots)..

http://www.rc21.org/conferences/amsterdam2011/edocs2/Session%2010/10-2-Jackson.pdf

wish it went deeper.

[KidKruger]

Louisa I may have been slightly robust in my replies previously, but when I hear the old "it was better before that lot moved-in around these here parts" junk, my eyes roll-back and I mutter here we are again same story of resentment against immigrants.

If that's not what you mean then all power to you, but you did a good job of sounding like that's your angle, without actually meaning that.

All my aunties / uncles / cousins on my mums side are Pakistani and I've heard the same comments from their 'non racist' locals who don't realise it's my extended family / kind they're commenting on. It's tiresome and provocative and I'm used to challenging it.

[LadyDeliah]

Louisa Wrote:

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> You're telling me a street full of used chicken

> bones, dirty hair extensions, bags full of smelly

> rubbish and cars parking on double yellow lines

> blocking buses is 'progress'?

Er, did you not read the bit where I explained that the progress to which I referred, was in your formally intransigent position, i.e. you had made some progress towards a less insular viewpoint?

[LadyDeliah]

JohnL Wrote:

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> someone actually started researching this in 2011

> (just before the riots)..

>

> http://www.rc21.org/conferences/amsterdam2011/edoc

> s2/Session%2010/10-2-Jackson.pdf

>

> wish it went deeper.

Brilliant piece. Thanks for that.

[Sue]

I was shopping in Rye Lane yesterday afternoon.

Had a great time, got lots of bargains, did not notice any smells or litter or anything else untoward.

I think it's brilliant that we've got that high street within walking distance of Lordship Lane, with a completely different feel and different kind of shops.

As for demographic changes, surely they happen in many places in London over time.

[malumbu]

Not sure what this thread is about but agree that Rye Lane is far more interesting than LL.

[Jeremy]

TBH the most useful shops for miles around recently for me have been Mothercare, Boots, Argos on Rye Lane. LL has some nice shops for sure, but Rye Lane wins hands down for actual useful stuff.

[Sue]

I got seven huge (and fresh) bulbs of garlic in Khan's for ?1.29 :)

Seeds (flowering annuals) for small gifts for a kids' party pinata - four packets for 99p. Downside is now I've got to wrap up thirty packets of seeds ..... have been assured they all have gardens .... (kids not seeds)

And am now a total convert to Lidl ..... last week got a decent size Rosemary plant in a nice terracotta pot, all for a fiver .... it even had bark mulch on top of the compost :)