This week 10, 20, 30 years ago

10 Years Ago

Fire crews said they would be unable to reach 19 South London wards within a six-minute target if station closures and job cuts went ahead.

The London Fire Brigade published data which revealed some Londoners would have to wait up to four minutes longer for a fire engine in an emergency.

Clapham Town would have been the worst affected with response times increasing to seven minutes and 53 seconds.

More than 1,000 jobs and 500 new homes were created when a former South London greyhound stadium was redeveloped.

Barratt Developments was chosen by, then, Mayor of London, Boris Johnson to transform the former Catford Greyhound Stadium in Adenmore Road which has been empty for nearly a decade.

The £117million redevelopment of the 4.7 acre site created 589 new homes of which 113 were affordable and managed by Gallions Housing Association.

The proposed shake up of South London hospitals threatened the loss of more wards and hospitals downgraded.

A review of services in South-west London recommended that St Helier in Carshalton lose its A & E and maternity wards and be downgraded to a “local hospital.”

MPs feared the axe would impact on St Georges hospital in Tooting, which was already struggling to meet NHS waiting list targets.

Epsom in Surrey would also lose its A&E and maternity wards under the plans with Croydon and Kingston asked to pick up the slack.

---

20 Years Ago

A star of TV show Casualty joined a group of residents fighting plans to put up six phone masts in their neighbourhood.

Adjoa Andoh, who also had a part in EastEnders, joined the fight to stop Orange building the masts on the London Electricity substation in Camberwell.

The proposed site overlooked St Saviour’s Primary School and King’s College Hospital as well as the Ruskin Park playground. Orange said phone masts had been on the site for six years and said they were not a risk to public health.

Actors and actresses staged a battle on the Thames, complete with gunships and a full cast of sailors, as part of a stunt to herald the arrival of a festival.

The life-sized replica of Captain Cook’s famous vessel the Endeavour was brought in to stage the battle and daring rescue attempt ahead of a series of shows at the Royal Arsenal in Woolwich.

An experimental radio station celebrated its first year on the airwaves. Borough-based Resonance FM was given a one-year licence in 2002 to play alternative music.

The station’s line-up included Reverso Mondo, who played all of his records backwards. In May 2003, the station celebrated an extension to its licence until at least December that year.

---

30 Years Ago

Commuters travelling into central London from South-east London were warned they faced swingeing cuts to services and the axing of a major route into the City.

Network SouthEast announced plans to axe the Catford Loop of the Thameslink line, forcing passengers to change at Blackfriars.

Bellingham, Catford, Crofton Park, Nunhead, Peckham Rye and Denmark Hill stations would all be affected when the line from Sevenoaks to central London was scrapped, passengers were warned.

A campaign was launched to combat cutbacks in policing.

Ten officers were told they were being redeployed away from Catford in June 1993, bringing the total taken off the streets in Catford to 40 in the four years to 1993. Police bosses said the cuts followed the success of schemes such as Neighbourhood Watch.

But Lewisham council’s Tory group pointed to stats showing that one car and one home was broken into on average every 53 minutes and called for more police.

A fire safety drill backfired on red-faced council workers when worried residents dialled 999 after seeing smoke billowing from a window.

The concerned residents feared the worst when they saw the smoke rising from the former Honour Oak Nursery in Honour Oak Road.

Forest Hill firefighters rushed to the scene only to discover the fire was part of a safety exercise being run by Southwark council’s fire prevention unit.

A town hall staged an opening ceremony for a leisure centre that was already earmarked for demolition.

The ceremony marked the official opening of the Peckham Leisure Centre, in Rye Lane, which had been built seven years earlier at a cost to the taxpayer of £50,000.

The centre was under threat, with plans in the pipeline to demolish it and replace it with a supermarket and petrol station.

Campaigners collected more than 500 signatures for a petition in response to the controversial plans.

 

Picture: PA Images