INTERESTED IN THE BUGLE? DROP US A LINE

This is the fifth issue of the Brixton Bugle since we re-started publication after a Covid enforced pause.

When we began again we had only enough in the bank to publish and distribute three issues, so now we hope we are up and running again.

The future is far from rosy. Our costs are soaring – largely due to big increases in the cost of newsprint and huge ones in the price of electricity and fuel.

But we are determined to continue. We are planning to expand our distribution and to put right the relative neglect of Brixton Blog while we were restarting the Bugle.

We will also renew our efforts to implement the second reason for the existence of Brixton Media – publisher of the Bugle and Blog – which is a formally constituted not-for-profit community interest company.

This is to give young, and not so young, people – especially those from groups and communities that are under-represented in journalism – the opportunity to work on serious stories and issues and publish them under their own bylines.

We need help with every aspect of our work, including journalism – from listings to research – administration and finance, website and social media, and more.

If you would like to find out more and maybe get involved, drop an email to work@brixtonblog.com.

A problem for the world, not individuals

It will surprise few people that Brixton Road is, once again, at the top of a list of dangerous places to breathe.

Planned reductions in local bus services will do nothing to help.

But their cause, a refusal by central government to fund affordable public transport in its capital city, is a frightening example of criminal negligence.

Transport in London is amongst, if not the most, expensive in the world.

Yet, once again, responsibility for doing something about an issue that is killing people is left to individuals.

Of course, if they are not be destroyed by ever-increasing pollution, proliferation of plastic waste, destruction of natural habitats across the world, and accelerating climate change, the lives of everyone will have to change.

It is the role of government in a civilised society to explain, organise and fund the changes we need to save the planet and the lives of people who live, and, we pray, will live on it.

Instead, we have one whose members are obsessed with reducing the role of the state at exactly the time that it is needed most.

Deadly pollution on Brixton Road – and elsewhere – is not just a problem for Brixton or Lambeth.

It is national, indeed worldwide, problem that can only be tackled by action on a national and worldwide scale.

DULWICH CRICKET CLUB LOSE AGAIN

Dulwich cricket club’s position in their first season in the first division of the A J Fordham Surrey championship worsened when they lost to top-three club Spencer. They ended the day in a relegation spot just two points above bottom club Stoke d’Abernon, but 23 behind Beddington immediately above them. They were due to play Valley End, fifth in the ten-team table, at home on 30 July.