Sleepless Brixton campaign appeals for support ahead of crucial meeting

11pm. Mass singalong outside Brixton Tube station – yards from people's homes
11pm. Mass singalong outside Brixton Tube station – yards from people’s homes

Residents of central Brixton campaigning against the growing problem of noise and anti-social behaviour outside their homes are appealing for support ahead of a crucial meeting on Monday (9 October).

The Sleepless Brixton campaign says that noise and anti-social behaviour have got significantly worse in recent months.

They say local residents cannot sleep properly in their own homes.

Some say they have faced abuse and threats if they speak to the people causing the disturbances.

The campaign is asking anyone affected who has not so far told of their own problems to do so now at the campaign’s website.

Sleepless Brixton, which began in Electric Avenue, wants action against screaming clubbers, amplified buskers and other anti-social behaviour.

Brixton Bugle front pageSince the September Brixton Bugle carried the story, residents from other streets have contacted the campaigners to say the problem covers a much wider area.

Sleepless Brixton has spoken to councillors, local MP Helen Hayes, the police, Transport for London and local businesses in a bid to find a collective solution.

Helen Hayes has arranged a crucial meeting for Monday to try to fashion a solution to the problem that all parties are happy with.

The Sleepless Brixton Campaign is appealing for support in advance of the meeting. Karin Chrisiansen explains why:

“The town centre at the heart of Brixton is a diverse community. It’s a place where people live, work, shop, raise their children and grow old. We love this place and many of us have been here for many decades, without a problem,” she says.

“But in the last year or so, things have changed.

“Since the all-night weekend Tube began, there has been an influx of people and ever louder amplified noise.

“Residents are becoming ill. Often, we dread coming home on the weekends. The streets we live in are being treated as a party venue and a toilet.

Police are called to an incident in the early hours next to the Bowie mural in Tunstall Road
Police are called to an incident in the early hours next to the Bowie mural in Tunstall Road

“Visitors shout, scream and pee their way round our streets till the early morning.

I want to keep Brixton as a place where people of all ages and backgrounds can live and stop Brixton becoming a theme park for the worst kind of drunken tourism.”

A venue that has attracted particular attention is Brixton Beach.

People involved in creating the new mural of Micheal John outside the Beach on Popes Road told the Blog of drunken attempts by clubbers from Beach to climb ladders with people already at the top of them and disruption of the equipment being used.

You can sign up to support the campaign here.

https://goo.gl/forms/KJzUomFvsNtWn2dC2

 


 

Some of the ‘Sleepless Brixton’ campaigners explain why they have had enough:

 

Sandy, Electric Avenue

As a resident of 45 years in Electric Avenue I have seen a change for the worse. We had everything, lovely shops and a vibrant market that sold everything and a fantastic second-hand market. Men came from all over south London to have their suits made here.  The shops were all different. Brixton was known as the West End of the South.

But the Avenue is now a dirty, noisy place to live. It smells of urine.  The Avenue is not cleaned properly or disinfected as it used to be. Shops please themselves when they close.  We no longer have Wednesday half day closing.  Shops open all day Sunday, even Christmas and Boxing Day.  In total we have activity 7 days a week, 52 weeks a year.

Brixton now is all about money and who will pay the highest rent.  It’s not about families and homes anymore.

 

Bea, who grew up in Electric Avenue

My mother has been driven out of her home by anti-resident policies. She’s in her seventies and had lived here all her adult life.

 

A resident from Effra Road

I’m affected by the noise of drunken revellers passing by, littering our forecourt, guys entering private property and peeing in our communal forecourt and abuse if I tell them off and, sometimes people drugging up. I LOVE Brixton – I’ve lived here over 17 years. These issues need to be tackled.

 

Rob, Tunstall Road

I have lived in Brixton 23 years. It is in the last 18 months that Brixton has become like a 24-hour hen party. There’s no respect for residents. I now have to take sleeping pills.

 

Janet, Nursery Road

I live in Nursery Road and have noticed how much more noise there is. The so-called revellers don’t seem to care about shouting, singing and screaming in the early hours. I can even hear the buskers by the Tube station from my house. I can’t believe the police haven’t done anything about it. I really dread Thursday to Sunday as I don’t know what else to expect. It’s ridiculous that not only my sleep is disrupted, but also that of other Brixton residents. I’ve never known it to be this noisy and I’ve grown up in Brixton.

 

Lia, Brixton Resident

The antisocial behaviour of the people who come to Brixton every Thursday to Sunday is truly staggering. It is not just central Brixton, but also the area around Brockwell Park and the Hootananny which get regularly covered in rubbish.

People deal and take drugs in the streets next to the pub. It’s not just the noise, it’s a whole catalogue of illegal and anti-social behaviour that is the problem here. The council is too keen to buy into this quick and irresponsible type of “regeneration” and it’s not thinking about the “unintended” consequences of it. Is Brixton destined to become a transient, characterless, no man’s land neighbourhood where nobody will want to truly settle in? If so, what are the social, urban and economic consequences?

 

Coral, Rushcroft Road.

I live in Rushcroft Road with two young children. My concern is noise and hygiene. We also witness a lot of drug-taking throughout the day and night.

 

Susana, Rushcroft Road

We have loud people, and parties. They are rude. We have already called the council so many times. I’m fed up!

 

Anna, Barrington Road, ‘born and bred in Brixton’

I am proud of where I was brought up and it’s a shame that the changes to Brixton have had such a negative effect on those who love it most.  We need help and sleep.

 

Elena, Acre Lane

The noise has got noticeably worse in the last year. We now have nightly collections by big bin lorries at 12.30am – why? This is in addition to the drunken shouters coming home from nights out, peeing on the street in full view, the shouty groups of people who congregate day and night in-between Solon and Plato Roads. It never used to be this loud.

 

Barry, Brixton resident

The influx of entitled, drunk and disrespectful posh kids is turning Brixton into a cross between a constant hen-do and a university freshers’ week. It’s upsetting to see and live through.

 

Eva, Rushcroft Road

It is impossible to get a good night’s sleep over the weekend without waking up to drunken and high people screaming, swearing and fighting. The street smells of urine and faeces and is full of rubbish. I Just hate coming home at the end of the day after work!

 

Miriam, Tunstall Road

I have lived in Brixton for 37 years. I have always loved living here, but am getting increasingly upset and despondent about the anti-social behaviour, particularly the peeing.

It is 8.05 on Wednesday 6 September 2017 and as I was just closing my blinds. Two young women were peeing in a parking space located opposite my home. My nights out are now always spoilt at the weekends by having to pass numerous people peeing as I walk back from the Tube or buses on Brixton Road.

 

Dan, Electric Avenue

I am unable to sleep several nights a week. People shout and scream until 2 or 3 in the morning. Buskers use large amplifiers, again until the early hours of the morning. The streets, and even people’s front doors, are used as toilets.

 

8 COMMENTS

  1. Thanks for all your comments. If you’re a Brixton resident and you haven’t yet joined the campaign, please email us at sleeplessbrixton@gmail.com or sign up via the Facebook page: https://goo.gl/forms/KJzUomFvsNtWn2dC2

    Do please tell us what is going wrong – and what’s going right- in your part of Brixton. We’ve started meeting with Lambeth Council, TfL and the Met Police. It feels like we’ve got them to accept that there is a problem: now we want to see some action.

    We want to see Brixton thrive, including the bars and clubs that we visit and work in. But that doesn’t mean 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.

  2. The high street has always been noisy, day and night. There have always been drug dealers. There’s always been people urinating in the streets. There have always been house parties that go on all through the night. There have always been bars and clubs with late licenses with clubbers off their faces roaming the streets when they leave. 414 just round the corner from Electric Avenue is an example. I have never know Brixton to be sleepy and quiet. Do we really want to shut down the night time economy and stop people from visiting Brixton? Where will it end? If we revoke licenses, stop street performances, close the tube station at night and put a curfew on the town centre then we are ripping out the soul of the town centre. It will just become another boring old place to live.

    • Shutting the 24 hour tube is hardly ripping the heart out of Brixton as it’s a recent thing. The current regeneration is doing just that. Do you work for Lambeth Council by any chance?

  3. Alastair – I totally understand you! We have exactly the same problem here in the back gardens on the Rattray Road/Dalberg Road/ Mervan Road area – where last Friday a party in one of the houses went on until 5am with an open air disco, and drunken twats shouting and laughing (presumably drunk) until the early hours. I have a small child and this is particularly upsetting as she tends to wake up for the noise and sometimes can’t go back to sleep due to all the shouting and loud music…..Maybe we should tackle the issue among neighbours: a group of fed up neighbours identifies the culprits (I am pretty sure the noise comes always from the same few houses…) and has a civil conversation explaining the issue….I have lived here for 10 years – so not that long – but I remember when families used to be in the houses, and the area was very quiet and the parties finished at a decent time…now it’s kind of wild and very very rude! And especially upsetting for young children and old people!

  4. I live some distance away from the main bacchanalia but a problem which, although it has always been there, is becoming more frequent is parties on Friday or Saturday nights in the back gardens of (rented) private houses until “late”, which is often 5am or 6am with amplified sound as an accompaniment. Notice is sometimes given – usually a couple of hours beforehand – but more often not; the authorities are powerless and hopeless and I am certainly not going to take on 50 or 100 drunks on my own.

    I wonder what the fix will be. A start would be a strengthening of the law to match Scotland where breach of the peace is a criminal offence and, if the police show up to such “events”, speakers will be confiscated and individuals will be arrested.

  5. Completely agree, same experience on Electric Avenue where I’ve lived since 2001. I don’t think Brixton Beach has enough toilets or feeds it’s party animals enough food as by midnight when they all spew out they are completely plastered and ready to literally piss all over Brixton market. Why don’t the public toilets work anymore? They want to turn the shop below us into a restaurant and Lambeth gave plannign permission despite about 20 of us residents signing a petition and opposing the application.

  6. I’ve lived on Tunstall Road for 15 years. In recent years I’m increasingly scared to walk home, especially in the evenings. There is regular open drug dealing and taking, even in the daytime. The noise of drunken ‘revellers’ shouting up the street at all hours is just unacceptable. So is the amplified music from outside the Tube. From my bedroom I hear fights, arguments and entitled posh boys shouting and ‘singing’ up and down Brighton Terrace athe 2/3am. It’s completely out of hand! And every day I walk home I see young men urinating in my street, or can see and smell the evidence.
    There seems to be no balance at all between Lambeth Council celebrating Brixton as a party destination, and investing some of the resulting ‘economic benefits’ in protecting the local people who live here.

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