Sleepless Brixton campaigners have released a video to highlight the issues facing residents of central Brixton.
It shows a street party at 3am created by a man who, the campaigners say, parks a car on Friday and Saturday nights near Pop Brixton and blasts out music to attract people to buy drink from him.
They say that repeated complaints to the police have either been ignored, or met with requests to contact Lambeth council or with a 5am response saying the car was not there.
The Metropolitan police told the Blog that it was a council rather than a police problem.
Cllr Mo Seedat, Lambeth council cabinet member for healthier and stronger communities, said that Brixton town centre attracted people from across London and was thriving as a place to eat, work and socialise.
“But,” he went on, “we won’t tolerate anti-social or illegal activity in Brixton, and work with the police and businesses to get the balance right between people enjoying themselves, ensuring safety and tackling illegal traders.”
He said the council was also seeking to work with City Hall and Transport for London to tackle anti-social behaviour in central Brixton resulting from the introduction of night Tube services.
The Sleepless Brixton campaigners stressed again that they want the responsibly run bars and clubs that its members visit and work in to thrive.
“But that does not mean that we have to accept people trashing our streets and keeping us awake before they go back to their nice quiet homes and sleep it off,” they said.
They repeated appeals for central Brixton residents to let them know both what is going wrong in the neighbourhood and what is going right.
A first meeting between Sleepless Brixton, Lambeth council, Transport for London and the police took place last week.
“It feels like we’ve got them to accept that there is a problem. Now we want to see some action,” said a Sleepless Brixton spokesperson.
Brixton residents can email the campaign at sleeplessbrixton@gmail.com or sign up via its Facebook page.
As a 34 years resident I’d say that post by Vincent V is spot on, I am older now and like a peaceful time, but where are people supposed to go if not moneyed?
The street parties are a consequence of the absolutely dire nightime scene in Brixton. The vast majority of nightclubs are prohibitively expensive and a bit s#$t and the decent pubs have been forced to close down.
For such a night economy focussed area… it has so few actual pubs… just cocktail bars, expensive chain restaurants and expensive independent restaurants
At least Camberwell kept it’s soul….
Street parties aren’t the problem… the people dancing in the street are not the agents of change in Brixton, the conversions of long established pubs to expensive housing and a shift to a ‘consume or get out mentality’ is the reason people are forced to dance in the street