Our Manor, Our Future

The areas of north, west and south west London have been generally looked upon as well-to-do, posh areas depending on the media's fickle love affair with fashionable post codes. Areas such as Notting Hill (much adored by that well known British film starring Howesy), Camden (Robert Elms lives there don't ya know?), Hoxton (for it's trendy art galleries), Chelsea, Kensington Flensington, even Tooting has in the past got in on the 'famous in the media and arts' act - it had Citizen Smith, innit?
In contrast, the neighbouring areas of east and south east London have mostly been looked down upon. Programmes such as Eastenders and Only Fools & Horses aren't exactly fine adverts for Walford and Nelson Mandela house, are they? Crime is high in those places, with an average of like, sixty four teenage shootings for every second of CCTV camera footage in existence in the capital, evah. Or something.
The good news is that east London is an up and coming area, thanks to the development of the Olympic Village near Stratford. House prices are on the up with a ripple effect flowing outwards to Plaistow and Hackney. Gradually, we will see postcode snobbery become a thing of the past once the new stadium is built. Even the Hammers' new turf at the old postal sorting office will be class affected, as more home supporters will start tucking into prawn sandwiches due to new found regional property windfalls.

But what of south east London? What chance have those residents got with slums like The Valley and The New Den as eyesores and crime hotspots? Not much...but today I found out about the urban regeneration of Croydon. Huzzah.

It plans on bestowing Croydon with "a sense of place", which means more skyscrapers, a new twelve and a half thousand seater indoor arena, residential flats and even more office space. This site of more than twelve acres is situated near East Croydon railway station. Developers are looking to raise Croydon's profile in order to attract more business, which also means having to build extra car parks regardless of how good the transport links are during shopping hours. Which means more traffic and traffic jams. That'll be an increase in the council tax bill to counter the pollution, thank-you-very-much. We'll have even more Starbucks and mobile phone shops opening up, rendering this town into another carbon copy of sterile Swindon, or worse still, wanky Watford.

We've already got the usual big corporations / businesses like Vue, PC World and Carphone Whorehouse in what seems like every corner of the main shopping area, so we don't need any more. A new residential development in this area will be selling it's only two penthouses for £1 million each. The structure cost in the region of £38million to build but the developers have already recuperated a large chunk of their outlay by selling its two showcase homes before the last brick was laid. How did they work out the maths on that?!?

As it is, Croydon is not without fault and has been the butt of many a chav-orientated joke. Like a run down friendly ironmongers, it's scummy in places but locals know where everything is.

Leave us with some character.