Once upon a time, Brixton, the popular district of South London, had a sordid
reputation for street crime and poor living conditions. As recently as the 2000s, it
was termed the “gun capital” on account of the high rate of gun-related crime in
the district. Today, Brixton is fast transforming into a hotspot for the trendiest
new eateries, public houses and wine bars. There has also been a swell in the
number of newly-built residential apartments snapped up by young professionals
working in London’s technology and creative industries, who are attracted to the
hipness, as well as the area’s convenient transport links into all parts of London.
Brixton is definitely a place to check out when next in London. It is well-known
for its vibrant markets for fresh produce and provisions, as well as restaurants
that serve a wide-array of cuisines from different continents. There’s also Pop-Up
Brixton which was converted from an abandoned land into a creative hub for new
retail and food businesses and live music events. “It’s like not being in London.
It’s like being in a little Jamaican village. It’s very original” says Luca an Italian
bartender at The Wine Parlor impressed by the huge murals of Jamaican figures
and music that is often heard playing from shops, homes and cars.
The transformation took form with the revamping of Brixton markets which began
in 2011 when then owners, London & Associated Properties (before sale to Hondo
Enterprise early in 2018), along with Lambeth Council, the local government
authority, announced an “empty shops project” which offered shop units, rent-
free, for three months to any takers who were required to only pay a low sum of£800 per month. The aim of the initiative was to rebuild the market. Enterprising
individuals like Ms Etta Burrell, proprietor of Etta’s Seafood Kitchen jumped at
the idea. “My friend came and built up this kitchen and i started from there,”
said Burrell who at the time was on state benefits and had just £10 in her
account.
Warm in mannerisms and assertive in speech, Burrell has witnessed some of the
crucial periods in Brixton’s history in the last five decades she has lived in the
district, including the riots against hard policing in the 1980s and 1990s which
highlighted the feeling of disenfranchisement felt by the majority of black and
also white working class.
Brixton is where, in 1948, the first contingent of West Indian immigrants into the
UK were first housed and where many settled. Windrush Square – so named after
HMT Empire Windrush, the troopship on which they voyaged – physically sits at
the heart of Brixton. As a result, the open and public area, and Brixton as a
whole, has become a spiritual ground for many of Afro-Caribbean descent.
In 2010, the UK’s Department of Culture, Media and Sports agreed to a campaign
request to have all three markets listed, thereby protecting them from
demolition on account of their historical and architectural interest. Brixon
remains the commercial and social center of Britain’s Afro-Caribbean community
since World War II and the design of its markets is said to borrow from ancient
Egyptian architecture.
London and Associated Properties’ decision to give away the shop units, combined
with the protected status from the government allowed the traders to start
businesses at heavily reduced cost, but not without other challenges. 50% of theshops in all markets were in a poor state from disuse or neglect. “It was so badly
run. No one really took the lead. In the winter it’s freezing cold. No one’s making
any money. It’s hard work to get through those times,” says Victor Greentham
whose pizza restaurant, Agile Rabbit, is one of the first to take advantage of the
“empty shops project” scheme.
The importance of Brixton is magnified by the number of cultural institutions in
south London located here, and next to its markets. There’s the Lambeth Town
Hall, the head office of the borough (built in 1908), Brixton Tate Library (opened
in 1893), Ritzy Cinema (opened in 1911), and more recently the Black Cultural
Archives (opened in 2014, Established in 1981). Across the road are the ever-
bustling branches McDonalds and KFC restaurants.
To understand this new face of Brixton is to also understand its markets, which,
at a fundamental level, are the most interactional of any community – more so
than churches and sports grounds, town halls and community centers. The hype
and excitement the new businesses are generating is attracting a high number of
visitors who want to experience the buzz of a fashionable place.
Lambeth Council, the borough’s administrative authority, is accused of driving the
new changes, rather than doing more to protect the less advantaged. “They’re
not saints. Any councillor will want to be on the train that is going furthest.” says
Victor Greentham.
New residents move into an increasing number of residential apartments that are
either newly built or renovated, and offered for rent or sale. One example is
Clifton Mansions on Cold Harbour Lane, a block of 22 self-contained flats, most ofwhich were run down and occupied by squatters for close to 10 years. In 2011,
Lambeth Council sold the property to Lexadon Property Group which also owns an
impressive portfolio that includes houses and apartment complexes (Cold Harbour
Lane, Viaduct, Fentiman Road) in and around Brixton.
The police and fire brigade were called in to supervise the removal, and the
building itself was refurbished and placed on the market with the average rent
for a three bedroom apartment at over £2000 per month. The trend continued
with more council owned flats sold to private developers whose clientele were
typically from high income brackets and from communities outside of Brixton.
Landlords have been accused of doubling and tripling the rents in the hope that
many will move out and are replaced by those prepared to pay higher fees. The
business sense this makes is up against the dire consequences it has for some.
Small businesses (textile shops, butchers, fruit and vegetable vendors) are driven
out, while new and swanky establishments (trendy restaurants, fancy wine bars)
sprout and flourish.
Patrick Kelly is an American who has lived in Brixton for close to 30 years.
Bookmongers, his secondhand bookshop, has been in business for 25 years where
he sells and buys a wide variety of books from fiction to military nature, religion
to rare and old books. His long list of patrons include Adam Mars-Jones, the
British novelist and critic (Pilcrow, Cedilla) and Biyi Bandele, the Nigerian writer
and filmmaker (Half Of Yellow Sun). Bandele’s 1999 novel “The Street” is a
metaphysical portrait of an immigration lawyer who is incarcerated on false
charges. It was twice adapted for the stage by Tricycle Theatre (2001) and by
Lyric Studio (2006), both in London.“I’ve seen more changes in Brixton in the last seven years, more so than the
previous twenty years combined. Our rent has been doubled [by the landlord] but
as we speak it is something we can cover. There’s a constant increase in business
rates which is as hard to handle as the rent,” said Kelly.
Not only is the council complicit, they appear desperate enough to go against
their own policy of varying the types of businesses that concentrate in one area,
says Kelly, also adding that “Lambeth [Council] has just thrown that formula out
of the window. It seems to me anybody who applies for an alcohol or food license,
for what used to be a retail shop is given” – the key point being that alcohol
sellers get the most takings and the high rents they’re charged calculates into
high business rates for the council.
The concentration of bars and restaurants in the market and around Brixton
continues to draw a high number of new residents and visitors adding to its
vitality and reputation as a tourist hotspot. Burrell is far less worried about the
future of the market and by extension Brixton as a whole, insisting that “at the
moment, it is working. Let’s not knock it. We don’t know what tomorrow is going
to bring.”