CONCERN MOUNTS OVER ANTI-SOCIAL BEHAVIOUR AND CRIME IN BRIXTON
‘BRUISED BATTERED BROKEN’
Concern is mounting over increased levels of anti-social behaviour in Windrush Square and central Brixton.
Lambeth council has said that it plans to take action over the problems.
One local resident, who is considering leaving Brixton, said it was now “bruised, battered and broken”.
Two recent incidents have highlighted the problems around Windrush Square.
Graffiti was scrawled over the African Caribbean war memorial and a fire did extensive damage to one of the large doors of the nearby St Matthews church.
Residents of central Brixton are also reporting increased levels of anti-social behaviour and crime and say police appear powerless to tackle it.
Having seen the African Caribbean war memorial stand for several years as a spot dedicated to the memory of tens of thousands of Black service men and women, many of whom died fighting for Britain, local people have been distressed to see people using it as a seat.
A more recent arrival on Windrush square, the Cherry Groce memorial, commemorating the local woman shot in her bed by the police, also attracts people who sit and play music.
A steel cabinet next to the war memorial has been broken into and it is believed that the electricity supply it contains is being used to charge mobile phones and power radios and other music players.
There has been damage to the monument’s surrounds and they are often littered with cans and broken glass.
The monument was surrounded with concrete planters not long after it was unveiled because it was being damaged by skateboarders. Council notices urging skateboarders not to use Windrush Square continue to be ignored.
Dr Jak Beula spent a great deal of time and effort in establishing the memorial, which was opened on Windrush Day, 22 June, in 2017 with a full-scale military ceremony attended by the secretary of state for defence.
Dr Beula has written to Lambeth council leader Claire Holland expressing concern about the way the monument and the whole of Windrush Square has been “allowed to get run down”.
During a recent weekly clean of the memorial, he told her, “it came to my attention that graffiti had been sprawled over it”.
He said the apparent culprits were people who have recently been using the memorial as a central gathering point.
“On many occasions I, and other members of the community, have had to ask loiterers not to sit on the obelisks or plinth.
“In most cases they do move, but there have been incidents when asking them to do so has resulting in threatening and intimidating behaviour.
“This is unacceptable, and also an indictment of how this sacred space (labelled by the Evening Standard as the Britain’s most visible monument for diversity and inclusion), has been, like the entire square, allowed to get run down.”
Dr Beula spoke to the CCTV surveillance team at the council’s Shakespeare Road security centre who established that the monument was defaced between 1 and 2.30pm on a Friday.
Brixton Business Improvement District (BID) cleaned the graffiti-damaged areas at no charge.
Dr Beula noted that the council had provided planters in 2018 to protect the memorial from skateboarders, but told Claire Holland that responsibility needed to be taken to protect the memorial and Windrush Square generally.
He said the community is very proud of Windrush Square “but not what it has become in recent months”.
A Lambeth council spokesperson said: “We thank Jak Beula for his efforts in getting Brixton’s African and Caribbean War Memorial established, and for his efforts in maintaining it. The council has also carried out cleaning and maintenance of the memorial.
“However, it is clear these efforts, and those of the council, are not enough to maintain the site and address anti-social behaviour in and around Windrush Square.
“So we are currently stepping up our work in the area in partnership with local police and the Brixton Business Improvement District group.
“Both the council and Brixton BID are increasing their warden patrols in the square and will carry out a review of the area to see what improvements can be made to discourage anti-social behaviour.
“We will work with Mr Beula on these efforts.”
Central Brixton resident Rob Goacher, one of many who have been plagued for years by late-night noise, public urination and worse, said he had faced death threats from young people and indifference and rudeness from police.
Brixton is “bruised, battered and broken,” said Goacher, who, in the past, he has been honoured in The Lambeth Community Awards with the “Bringing your neighbourhood together” award for the supporting vulnerable people in the area. The then Lambeth mayor, Donatus Anyanwu, presented the award at a Royal Festival Hall ceremony.
Rob Goacher said that a “town centre team” of 27 police officers had had no effect.
He said he has “a list as long as my arm” of failed police responses to 999 calls “where they simply have done nothing. Either they’ve not turned up at all or just looked at me like I’m stupid”.
The calls were about drug use, setting fire to bins, and kids breaking and entering local business premises. A fire was started recently in a central Brixton building.
He said illegal traders were fighting among themselves over pitches near the Tube station, but no action was taken. Other, legal, local street traders had to be licensed and insured if they were not to be barred from working. “So why is it alright for one or not for another?” Rob Goacher asked.
He said that a hospital mattress had been in the Tube station for several days – “two people were basically living there 24 hours a day”.
Daylight drug selling was also rife on many of Brixton’s busiest streets.
He said he and other local residents were dealing with and solving issues, while the council and police “did nothing”.
The only body that was doing anything, he said, was the Brixton BID (business improvement district); two BID staff patrolled the streets, but they had no power to do anything, he added.
Rob Goacher said a mobile phone used by the police town centre team is so ancient that it cannot record the number of anyone who has phoned it, so they cannot be called back.
“I’ve never, ever, had them answer it once,” he said.
One resident of Tunstall Road with young children had blocked their balcony so that the children could not see “people, peeing, injecting, having sex – whatever – in the alleyway right outside of the block”.
