This week 10, 20, 30 years ago

10 Years Ago –

Nearly 20,000 benefit claimants in South London were forced to find a smaller home or faced poverty as welfare cuts came into effect.

More council tenants living in Bermondsey and Old Southwark fell foul of the new levy on spare rooms than anywhere else in the capital, prompting fears that many would be forced into abject poverty.

Residents called for Lakanal house to be brought back into use providing it was safe.

The three-month inquest into the deaths of six people at Lakanal House, on the Sceaux Gardens Estate, in Camberwell, concluded in the first week of April 2013.

As part of the judgment, Coroner Frances Kirkham QC compiled a report with recommendations for Southwark council, the London Fire Brigade and the Government to ensure the tragedy was not repeated.

They included improved fire safety checks, fire resistant building materials and retrofitting all tower blocks with sprinkler systems.

A street near the former home of Vincent Van Gogh was renamed after the artist.

Lambeth council, schools and residents’ group Streets Ahead launched the grassroots project to improve the area around the newly named van Gogh Walk, formerly Isabel Street, in Stockwell.

The street’s transformation was part of a £420,000 neighbourhood improvement scheme

---

20 Years Ago

A young engineer from South London joined a team of humanitarian workers on a mission to provide clean drinking water to communities affected by the war in Iraq.

Janson Snuggs, 33, a specialist water engineer, was part of a team including nurses and nutritionists who were sent to the Iraq-Jordan border by Southwark based charity Action Against Hunger.

Jason had spent several years working for the charity in Africa and answered the call to help out in the war-torn country.

Bulldozers moved in to demolish a defunct primary school to make way for a development of flats.

The site of the Joseph Tritton School in Wynter Street, Battersea, was set to become home to 130 flats.

In answer to critics who condemned Wandsworth council’s policy on building affordable homes, the authority adopted a 25 per cent rule, meaning a quarter of new homes in any development would have to be “affordable”.

Plans for an attraction billed as London’s answer to the Eden Project were unveiled.

The multimillion-pound project, which would replace doomed Battersea Zoo, was designed as a series of futuristic, pyramid-shaped buildings.

The buildings would form a “rainforest experience” to house a tropical biosphere under glass, complete with animals and research  scientists.

---

30 Years Ago

Young footballers were left devastated after they were barred from taking part in a cup final.

Valley Valiants under-10s team stormed to a 6-1 victory against Samuel Montague in the semi-finals of the Bexley District Junior Football Cup.

But days later they were disqualified after league bosses claimed 10-year-old player Daniel Mulroe, who was brought on for the last 10 minutes of the match, had failed to play the required minimum of three games during the season.

The club’s chairman, Tim Thorogood, said the youngster had just forgotten to sign the game cards for some of the matches.

A children’s charity launched an appeal for a review of child abuse cases after violent parents walked free from court.

The NSPCC launched the appeal after studying 10 cases, including a couple who were convicted of killing their 16- month-old baby, but who were released on a technicality.

The charity also found that parents were getting away with violent crimes by refusing to answer questions under cross examination.

The Justice for Children campaign tabled a series of recommendations to the Royal Commission on Criminal Justice to lobby for changes to the law.

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: Pixabay/mohamed_hassan