This week 10, 20, 30 years ago

10 years ago

A massive public party is being organised on the banks of the Thames to mark the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee.

Up to 8,000 people will sit down for The Big Jubilee Lunch event in the grounds of the Old Royal Naval College on Sunday, June 3.

People are invited to bring their own picnics and there will also be a range of food stalls.

Up to 8,000 visitors are expected to travel to the riverside site for a large-scale free tea dance and live entertainment throughout the afternoon.

Three people are lucky to be alive after a tree fell on their car while they were travelling down a busy stretch of the South Circular.

The accident, which happened at around 1pm on Wednesday at the junction of Christchurch Road and Norwood Road, caused hours of tailbacks as the emergency services cleared the car and debris from the road.

The tree fell at the Tulse Hill one-way system, crushing the back and roof of the Toyota car.

The tree smashed the windscreen and the rear window and narrowly missed a 432 bus which was travelling behind the car to Brixton.

A police station could be shut as part of the Met’s plans to streamline services and cut costs.

Clapham police station is being considered for closure as the force deals with trying to save £600million in the three years to April 2014 following Government funding cuts.

It is reviewing all of its properties – more than 800 buildings.

Police bosses are also looking at how people access services and how the Met can make the buildings it owns more efficient.

Out of six police stations in Lambeth, three – Brixton Road, Kennington in Kennington Road and Streatham in Streatham High Road – are open round the clock, seven days a week.

20 years ago

Police in Lambeth announced plans to hit 12 crack houses a week for eight months in a bid to rid the borough of the drug.

Acting borough commander Brian Moore told the South London Press the number of properties targeted would increase from six a week as police sought to drive down the sale of the drug.

They feared crack had a strangle-hold on local communities blighted by the drug dens.

A stained glass window was installed in a church in memory of the people who lost their lives in the New Cross Fire.

Thirteen teenagers died after the fire at a house party in New Cross Road in 1981.

The 500-piece window was put in the church in Brockley Road after the New Cross Road Parents’ Committee found the funds.

Thousands of pensioners celebrated the Queen’s Golden Jubilee with a knees-up at Millwall FC’s ground.

Nearly 4,000 flocked to the Big Day Out at The Den to watch performances by Chas’n’Dave and a Beatles tribute band.

The event was hosted by the club and Southwark council.

30 years ago

Brawling councillors were branded “worse than school kids” following a council chamber punch-up.

Lambeth council chief executive Herman Ouseley said the fight between Mayor Joe Singh and Tory deputy leader Councillor Peter Evans, in which police had to be called in, represented “an all-time low”.

The reprimand, which was sent to both politicians was “filed in the toilet where it belongs” by a defiant Councillor Evans.

Recession-hit artists began a fight with a council over plans to increase their workshop rents by 50 per cent.

The Pullen’s Business Association hit out at the move, which would see rents increasing in Walworth’s Iliffe, Peacock and Clements yards from £2,000 to £3,000 a year.

But Southwark council said it was required by law to charge a market rent.

A group of mums staged a second “play-in” in protest at a council’s failure to build a playground it had promised.

The group held the protest at Leathermarket Gardens in Bermondsey Street, Bermondsey, after Southwark council refused to replace a play area demolished two years earlier.

Work on a new play area had started but had been halted after inspectors noticed serious mistakes.

But months later the work had not been resumed.

The owners of a derelict children’s hospital were warned it could be sold for £1 if urgent repairs were not carried out.

The 88-year-old Belgrave Hospital in Clapham Road, Kennington, would become the first to be compulsory purchased by English Heritage.

The conservation group said the move was being considered for the Grade II* listed building because the company that owned it was struggling to carry out the work.

Main Pic: A massive public party was being organised on the banks of the Thames to celebrate the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee ten years ago this week.