This sad bit of news just came through from Ian of the band 23Frames.....
The inevitable occured this week when we finally received the letter - "Redevelopment of the Old Seager Distillery" We have to be out by September.
We knew it was coming but it still feels like such a shock,especially when there is stilll so much going on there. There are four bands and two painters who share our studio (The Polling Station) and we'll all be without anywhere to work this Autumn.
Displaced, as will Temporary Contempoary, The Mash Potato gallery & many, many other groups of artists, muscians, acrobats etc. What a shame. Dunno when exactly they plan to bulldoze the building, but I hope at least some of it is protected. Luxuary Apartments all round, then.
Will Deptford even exist in 10 years time?
That question is up to us all to answer.
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That development is huge!
It's about two minutes walk from our flat, and seems to be multiplying like a big, bright cancer.
It really offends me, in a way that I can't really put my finger on. The people who live there get on the DLR and get of the DLR, hardly ever venturing far from their little controlled corridor.
Something in me thinks 'settlement', like a wagon train forming a circle to keep the hostile natives out.
I wish I knew what to do about it, but I don't. It feels like we're losing more and more of our cities to big, private spaces that we'll never get back.
It seems that in the needs of the many versus the needs of the few debate, the important thing is now to make sure that you're one of the future and the rest be buggered.
I wonder what the people who live in 'affordable luxury' make of living there? Any of them readers of Transpontine?
"It seems that in the needs of the many versus the needs of the few debate, the important thing is now to make sure that you're one of the future and the rest be buggered."
For 'future' read 'few'.
An interesting slip though...
yes a bit depresssing. I'm sure not all the people moving in will be stereotype yuppies, but for me the issue is that the marginal spaces where interesting things happen are being squeezed out perhaps to be followed by the 'marginal' people who don't fit with the estate agents demographic. Still when you say 'we'll never get them back', who knows what the future holds. There are plenty of former luxury homes in South East London which have ended up as squats. Maybe a future 'Planet of the Apes' moment beckons -disorientated on a strange planet our hero gasps with recogntiion as he stumbles across the ruins of Goldsmiths College.
Ha! When I was at Goldsmiths a good while ago, I used have dreams like that...
I think the thing that worries me is the move away from roads, streets and public rights of way to privately owned estates. I've been for a walk around that place, and I know that once I cross the line I'm expected to observe the rules as laid down by the management rather than the rules as laid down by the law of the land.
My feeling of 'never getting them back' is based on the fact that things, once enclosed for some reason, seem unlikely to be unenclosed... I know that I can walk down any street in London, but I can't walk through every new development, because of gates, security etc.
You are, of course entirely right about the marginal spaces. They're the first ones to go. Once something marginal manages to establish a toehold somewhere, it then draws attention to itself, and thus it feels the vultures circles, ready to gobble it up...
I do hear what you say about the fact that not everyone that moves there is a stereotypical yuppie. The problem is, it's hard to think of someone kicking up a fuss about the place where they live, unless it's really bad. Comfort is, after all, comforting.
To cheer me, and you, up: Could you flog me one of your books on SE London music Neil? Give me an email and we'll settle the logistics.
If you want to see Deptford's possible future go to the Isle of Dogs or Surrey Docks, a mixture of gated communities for the wealthy and reservations for the poor, with a sanitised and privatised social realm of shopping centres.
check this link:
http://www.macdonaldegan.co.uk/developments/oldseager/1.html
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