Autumn Ice Cream at the Broca Food Market

The first ice cream extravaganza of the Mantle Road-era Broca Food Market will be on October 20th. Glacée-guru Joan says the ice cream will be made "mostly with locally sourced and foraged fruits including wild elderberries, blackberries and rosehips, crabapples and garden pears and apples."

The Broca Food Market's big move

Erin from the Broca writes:

We are moving the Broca Food Market over to Brockley Cross, to the shop currently occupied by Birds Dress Agency on Malpas Road.

We're aiming to be in and open by middle of December. The Birds ladies are having a sale now and will be leaving on November 22nd. 

The Mantle Road property is being advertised to let but will be run as a community space to hire for pop ups, workshops, classes, children parties, art shows and son on, from the end of October until the new tenant is approved. 

For the time between between Broca Food Market closing and reopening in the new space, we will be selling our bread, eggs and bits of the organic veg in the Broca cafe. Phew!! All change! 

And just in case anyone was wondering, the plan was in place even before the Sainsbury's opened, so no-one need worry about mung beans being chased out of the area by the supermarkets.

The move is great news for Brockley Cross, which is overdue some new businesses, although it's a pity to lose Birds, rather than fill one of the vacant units.

Tree down

Lynn: Who’s upset you this time?
Alan: Just, people. I just hate the general public.
- I'm Alan Partridge

A newly-planted tree in Brockley Cross has been snapped in two. We must not let sub-human scum put us off tree-planting. More trees, not fewer.

UPDATE: As you can see from the comments section, there has been a spate of these attacks across the area. The Evil Dead had the right idea.

With thanks to Monkeyboy for the photo.

Drakefell Road now Ends well

Drakefell Debasement

Toddlers and skateboarders will have a wider turning circle at the bottom of Telegraph Hill as another bit of road is clawed back for pedestrians. Builders are putting the finishing touches to a nice new bit of pavement-widening on the corner of Drakefell and Endwell Roads.

Nat's Back

Nat's Bake and Juice, the Brockley Cross Caribbean takeaway, has reopened after a prolonged closure. The area's been less chaotic, but also a little less interesting since the shutters came down.

Miracle on Brockley Cross

Four roads converged in a yellow hood

The Brockley Cross makeover is complete. It took a year, a few corners have been cut compared with the original plans and there is still some construction debris lying around (as per the Conway MO), but the overall effect is nonetheless transformative. It's worth remembering just how terrible this spot used to be.

Where vans used to be parked illegally and dangerously all over the place, we now have broad pavement and young trees.

The redesign to reduce the number of parking spots and the closure of Nat's has stopped Brockley Cross being a hang-out for drug-dealers, so that this has been the first year in the history of BC when there has not been a single serious violent crime at this location.

People used to sit in their cars and chuck their fast food packaging (and often their food) out of their windows on to the street. The reduction in parking and improvements in refuse management mean that this spot no longer overflows with rubbish every day.

Brockley Cross used to look like a six lane motorway with near-misses at the junction an hourly occurrence and prangs a weekly feature. The redesign has calmed the traffic and our walk to work through Brockley Cross no-longer rings to the sound of angry car-horn-exchanges between drivers.

Pedestrians, who used to be an afterthought at this location, no longer have to negotiate all this chaos. The raised road surface, dropped curbs and new crossings make it a much safer place to walk.

Brockley Cross is still not a thing of beauty - and may never be - but it is no longer a place of crime, filth, chaos and noise. And that has made all the difference.

Brockley Cross: Time to say goodnight

Via Cllr Darren Johnson comes this letter from the Council officer responsible for the Brockley Cross nightworks currently taking place. Lewisham's answer to Andrea Bocelli says the worst is over for sleep deprived residents:

Resurfacing of the Brockley Cross junction and the subsequent lining works will enable us to open up the new zebra crossing and at long last complete the scheme.

I am very sorry to hear of the disturbance that these works have caused you over the last couple of nights.  Night time working is, unfortunately, unavoidable in many cases where busy, suburban roads and junctions require resurfacing.  The reason for this is that the alternative option of carrying out the work during the day would result in far-reaching traffic delays and disruption to local services, including bus routes.

The arrangement that we have agreed with our contractor F.M. Conway Ltd is that the noisiest tasks (breaking out and clearing off the existing materials) must be completed before 11pm.  After that, the less noisy material laying/rolling can continue until 5am.  In practice, the night time operations are usually completed by 3am.

The noisiest operations of breaking out and removing the existing materials were completed on Sunday and Monday nights.  The rest of the work (laying the wearing course) should be completely finished over the next 2 nights (Tues and Wed).

I apologise for the nuisance and disturbance that you have had to endure over the last couple of nights and trust that the noise levels will not be as high tonight or tomorrow night.

Yours sincerely,
John Bishop
Senior Engineer, Lewisham Engineering team

So now won't you give him a hug?

Brockley Cross late night roadworks for the next four nights

In case you were wondering why you couldn't drive through Brockley Cross last night (or sleep, if you live nearby), the answer is that the final stage of roadworks in the Brockley Cross redevelopment project is taking place at night.

The late-night work will continue between the hours of 8pm and 5am until Thursday.

Conway bites dog

When a dog bites a man, that is not news, because it happens so often. But if Conway finishes a job satisfactorily, however small, that is news.

Still no sign of the new zebra crossings in Brockley Cross, but by god, that is a tree - and Conway has successfully planted it. Unless someone else did - and they probably did, but Conway dug the bloody hole, you can't take that away from them! And there's another one next to it too. Two trees in only two years.

Also on the subject of street trees, local group Brockley Street Trees reports that "thirteen new trees will be planted in the conservation area to replace many street trees removed last summer due to disease. These have all been match-funded with local residents contributing 50% of the cost, and Lewisham Council the other 50%."

In March, the group is also planting 70 metres of fruit hedge in Hilly Fields. If you'd like to join them, full details here. With thanks to Monkeyboy for the photo.