Don't ICE Brixton Market

"Popes Road car park is now a very popular and safe place to park and over 600 cars use the car park every day up to 11pm each night. This multi-storey car park is essential to the sustainability of Brixton’s economy and any plans to dispose of it must be preceded by a replacement car park at least of equal capacity."

• “Brixton Market is Successful" We note that at the cabinet meeting where Pope’s Road was approved, a minute was made that “Brixton Market is Successful”. We are amazed at the ignorance of the situation in Brixton Market this reveals. To restate a few facts: traders across the market are reporting a decline in sales of up to 50%; traders in the indoor market are facing immense and destructive increases in rent and service charges; a family of traders who had traded for 72 years on the street market was recently forced out of business. The market is not a happy place. We urge you to see beyond the recent hype.
• The recent creation of 36 new parking bays is sufficient for the market As the minute from the 2003 cabinet states, the car park had room for 600 cars. Even when it wasn’t operating at full capacity, 36 bays cannot make up the shortfall. We are also aware that there is concern amongst skaters that the lack of parking in the proposed ice rink will mean that these bays are themselves used for the ice rink instead of for shoppers.
• Locating the ice rink in Brixton will be good for Brixton youth This is disputed by the youth we have contacts with and local youth support organisations such as Options for Change. As is well known, central Brixton is a frontline within local gang conflict. For Streatham youth to be coming to Brixton could create major problems at a time of policing cuts.
• Brixton “is changing” In recent weeks we have been told by council officers that Brixton “is changing” and that the ice rink will be a positive aspect of this change. Cited in support of this observation was the recent Space Maker project in the covered market. While we recognize many aspects of this project as positive, we are also clear that it is part of a landlord-driven strategy to raise rents in the unacceptable way mentioned above. We are alarmed that the council may be failing to recognize that Brixton is now in danger of no longer serving key parts of its community. We shouldn't need to remind you that Coldharbour ward is the most deprived ward in the borough, and that Brixton Market is both central to the collective identity of the black and ethnic minority communities of Brixton, and is a resource for hard-pressed Brixtonians on low-incomes. The “change” that the ice-rink is part of seems to us do nothing for them.
• Brixton needs to move to a ‘post-car future’ While everyone agrees that reducing car use is a key part of preventing climate change, we fail to see why Brixton Market must bear the burden of such a global shift. Indeed, at the Brixton Stakeholder Forum on 14th September 2010, Duncan Law, the head of Transition Town Brixton, and local lead voice in the campaign for a low-carbon economy, proposed a statement, unanimously endorsed by stakeholders, that the ice rink should be located on Tesco’s car park instead of Brixton Market’s.