This week 10, 20, 30 years ago

10 Years Ago

A landmark regeneration scheme was given the go ahead by a town hall – as well as plans for a new leisure centre.

Southwark council cabinet members approved a planning application for St Mary’s Residential, which was part of the £1.5bn programme to regenerate the area around Elephant & Castle.

The first phase of the St Mary’s development would see new shops, 284 new homes and a £20m leisure centre.

The leisure centre was expected to be completed in 2014 and will include a 25m swimming pool, learner pool and sports courts.

Southwark council leader Peter John said at the time that Elephant & Castle had been “crying out” for the new leisure centre for years.

Tenants living on an estate vowed to continue their fight to keep their homes despite the first property in their street being sold at auction.

Auctioneers and potential buyers were interrupted by protesters when they tried to look at number 11 Rectory Gardens in Clapham.

And the action group were outside the auction at a central London hotel on Monday when the house went for £500,000 to an anonymous buyer.

Residents of the housing co-operative object to the decision by Lambeth council to start selling off “short-life” housing which they said belong to the co-operative and not the authority.

Almost 300 people braved the elements to attend a rededication service in honour of 266 servicemen who died in the First World War.

The hour-long ceremony was held in Nunhead Cemetery on Sunday at Plot 89 which at the time contained the 266 graves and was renovated by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC).

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20 Years Ago

The life of a teenage singer tipped for stardom was cut short when he was hit by a train.

Jon Norton, a member of boy band DVS was hit by an empty staff train as it travelled between Streatham Common and Balham stations at around 5am.

The 19-year-old had been about to release his debut single with the group, which had supported pop act Steps.

A friend was also hit by the train but was recovering in hospital.

British Transport Police launched an investigation in a bid to find out why the pair were walking along the tracks.

One of the last surviving First World War veterans paid a visit to the Imperial War Museum to help launch of a new history of the Great War.

Arthur “Smiler” Marshall, who took part in one of the last cavalry charges of the war, was 105 when he made the visit.

Author Maz Arthur spent 18 months gathering the memories of the last remaining First World War veterans for his book, Voices of the Great War, which was unveiled at the museum.

Travellers were left stranded at a bus stop for almost an hour after gale force winds blew away an out-of-service sign.

The people waited in a queue in Peckham Rye Lane in freezing cold wind and rain, unaware that the bus stop had been out of use for the past 11 months.

The bus stop was taken out of use after mechanical bollards were removed at either end of the high street.

The bollards could be lowered by delivery drivers but were removed after several cars were impaled on them as they tried to follow buses through.

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30 Years Ago

Police announced plans to turn Brixton into a no-go zone for muggers.

Brixton police declared war on street robbers in response to soaring street crime levels.

In September, 260 people reported being mugged in Brixton.

Early in 1982, extra bobbies had been put on the streets in Brixton as part of a scheme that saw 14 people arrested for muggings and a sharp drop in the number of reported cases.

But when the officers were pulled out the crime rate rapidly rose again.

But detective inspector Andy Gardener said he was putting more police on the beat to tackle the problem more consistently.

The London Ambulance Service (LAS) came under fire for directing an air ambulance to the scene of an attack 50 yards from a hospital.

The hospital was reprimanded for trying to send one of its doctors out to help the injured victim, a 16-year-old girl who had been slashed from ear to ear.

The doctor and two nurses from King’s College Hospital in Denmark Hill, Camberwell, were at the scene treating the girl when the air ambulance arrived.

The incident happened just yards from the hospital’s A&E at a car boot sale in Caldecot Road.

A spokesman for the LAS said it was against protocol for a doctor to leave his post – the air ambulance and a doctor had been drafted in to Camberwell from the Royal London Hospital in Whitechapel, east London.

Security had to be stepped up at a college after thugs turned on its black students.

Patrol guards, extra lighting and surveillance cameras were set up on the Southwark College campus in Drummond Road, Bermondsey.

In the latest incident, a gang of white youths shot a black student in the head with an air gun in nearby Jamaica Road.

As the student ran back to the college to escape the gang set a Staffordshire bull terrier on him and the animal bit him in the leg.

 

Generic Picture: Pixabay / jplenio