Tessa Jowell, Levi Roots, traders show support for Granville

17/03/2009

On Saturday, we held a photoshoot in the market for the Tessa Jowell, councillors and other people involved in trying to get Granville listed. FBM supporter Levi Roots joined in too.

Traders from Brixton's Granville Arcade and Electric Avenue with Levi Roots, Tessa Jowell MP, Val Shawcross, GLA member, Cllr Rachel Heywood, Cllr Donatus Anyanwu, Lambeth Council leader Steve Reed and Alex Holland and Anwar Akhtar from Friends of Brixton Market.

Evening Standard Covers the Event

On Friday 13th, in the run up to the photoshoot, the Evening Standard ran an article about the situation with Granville and the bid to get it listed. On Monday, they then did a follow up declaring LAP's reported withdrawal of their plans as a victory. The Standard have already been on the case over LAP's development of Antiquarius in Chelsea and Camden Passage in Islington.

This was great in terms of widening publicity for the campaign, but in the rush to production, the Standard made some errors, and ended up implying that LAP were about to knock down the entire market.

FBM had alerted the Standard to the campaign and photoshoot via a press release that emphasised the campaign to list Granville and the threat from LAP to Granville only.

FBM would like to assure any traders worried by the article that we are unaware of any major threat to the rest of the market (though Granville's demolition would itself be detrimental to it). In fact, aside from the LAP threat, we think some very positive developments are happening in the market. The council has a new Town Centre Director and what looks like a more inclusive policy, and BMTF are bidding to take over management of the street market. There's everything to play for!

Standard article Mon 16th

Andrew Gilligan comment