By Aidan Hall
At the turn of the first millennium, you may have bumped into a local stonemason not unlike Josh. The Old Kent Road is part of a familiar pilgrimage route people have been traversing for centuries. The road predates the city of London itself, forming one of three main Roman arteries connecting the Thames to the wider world, carrying vital labour and materials that eventually sow the seeds of our capital city at their confluence.
Given its history, the Old Kent Road has struggled to retain its formerly high-esteemed position in the collective imagination, a distaste perhaps stirred by the earmarking of the road as London’s least valuable property on the Monopoly board. Now characterised by a diverse mixture of industrial warehouses, retail parks and housing estates – often fronted by vast car parks and erratically linked by a disjointed high street – it has been largely deemed as a ‘hinterland’ by Southwark Council. Islanded by the absence of a tube network yet overloaded with heavy traffic, the Old Kent Road is not quite polite enough.
Courtesy of Aidan Hall
However, given a closer look, the Old Kent Road is a messy yet effective microcosm of the ‘London’ that the city claims or even hopes to be. The area is home to old and new communities, established industries and recent entrepreneurialism. Across a diverse spectrum of stakeholders, a common pride is recognised in their location and the importance of their roles within the local area. Emmanuel, a restaurant owner asserts: 'Seventeen years ago you could imagine that the Old Kent Road was a very different place… and in that time we’ve contributed to the area…we have helped bind the community.'
The Old Kent Road is home to a fascinating breadth of businesses big and small, both employing their communities as well as serving the city. To the northwest, a workshop houses the production of props for West End shows. Harry Potter not excluded, and surely a more enlightening visit than the gift shop at Kings Cross station?
An enormous fish factory supplies local markets and shops, whilst an array of builder’s merchants, fabricators and mechanics provide the tools and materials for London’s construction industry, their close proximity often of vital necessity. The nearby Hatcham Road Estate is home to James Glancy Design Ltd., the sole creator of Regent Street’s Christmas lights every year. And if we linger until night, the streets are enlivened by venues such as DIY Space and other smaller pop-up events.
A Sunday afternoon reveals a religious hive of activity. Numerous congregations gather in chapel and warehouse spaces, presenting perhaps one of the most important religious sites in London. Not to be fooled by its industrial location (though not ideal, the ministers are first to admit), there exists a collective Christian population that could fill Westminster Abbey from one estate alone. And from congregations of up to 200 in individual churches, Clayton a local church Minister explains their popularity and his desire to expand past the limitations of an industrial plot size: 'I think the church is very important for the community to have in the area… It would be better if it was in a larger building… because we have good relationship with other churches and we try to work together.'
Courtesy of Aidan Hall
For all its diversity and life – and even a cursory glance of Sadiq Kahn’s ‘A city for all Londoners’ – it would be expected that the future of the Old Kent Road was safe; if not in its physicality, at least in its wealth of industry and consequent communities. However, as the radical transformation of London perpetuates from the centre to its periphery, the rapidity of speculative development accelerates to accommodate an insatiable but familiar demand for housing. The priorities of City Hall are bedded deep within the belief that the city must foster large-scale development to solve the phantom “housing crisis.” This has caused a spatial and typological hierarchy to develop, regardless of context and local economy. While mixed-use narrowly applies to mixing residential and retail, industrial land is often left unprotected and under-valued.
Individuals and businesses are subject to a strategic planning process that seeks to densify the city. On the Old Kent Road, a handful of flyers and pamphlets represent much of the communication offered by Southwark Council, therefore leaving residents and business stakeholders either fearful or otherwise unaware of an impending urban transformation.
For some people, this uncertainty has understandably become a source of growing anger. For David who works at a builders’ merchant, both his council flat and job are at stake. He now blames, 'too many migrants on an old transport system now expected to support way more people…' and one that he doesn’t use anyway.
Many others have become resigned to inevitable forced property sales, or who await termination of their transient lease agreements. Chris, a member of community and events venue DIY Space, says candidly, 'we rent the place, and under no illusion we’ll be gone after the Bakerloo line extension.'
Courtesy of Martha Rawlinson
The scarcity of public dissemination and overwhelming lack of protection for local economies frames an essentially controversial social issue. Fundamentally, the vanquishing of cheap and cold ground floor space eradicates a significant proportion of the economy from the city, as well as the skilled, though to their detriment, also the ‘non-professional’ workers associated. At an urban level, the capital has been interpreted as suffering a malady for its lack of homes, though what is effectively at stake is a crisis of space.
Whilst large-scale plans, such as the the Old Kent Road’s ‘Area Action Plan’, provide general support and license for development at the expense of industry and housing estates by the establishment, industrial uses are simultaneously lost on a case-by-case basis within the planning process.
Fundamentally, the strategies employed for density and growth must develop a nuance in order to be place-specific and critically engaged with a wider public. The notion of conservation is most frequently associated with historic buildings and monuments. While the character of a preserved monument remains, the city around it and its setting evolves and maintains a sympathy with its history. However, could conservation in traditional terms serve as an analogy for the urban condition? The erasure of land use, though less easily quantifiable, poses similar losses to the social, communal and historic values of architectural heritage. If land use could be conserved, its setting, interaction with new programme, adaptation and evolution remain possible and beneficial.
Courtesy of Martha Rawlinson
It's recognised that industrial space must adapt if it's to remain on the Old Kent Road. Here architectural typologies and design-led thinking may prove vital to overcome some of the challenges of a truly mixed-use environment. However, the overlapping of industry with new development is accommodated in many European capitals such as Brussels and Vienna, producing a dense industrial and residential fabric that skirts around the city. The accommodation of varied use consequently embodies a social responsibility in retaining cultural mixture and a variety of employment across professions and social classes.
The London Chroming Company Ltd from Joshua Stocker on Vimeo.
Still, as the Area Action Plan sails through the draft consultation phase, opportunities for a u-turn are losing traction. Nevertheless, the area would be a perfect stage for Sadiq Kahn to create a new image of city growth, sympathetic, and distinct from Boris’. This must precede a new approach to industrial land in Labour’s first London Plan, effectual from 2019.
If you’re interested in forming solidarity with the Old Kent Road movement, look forward to future events from Vital OKR (Old Kent Road), Livesey Exchange and DIY Space – stakeholders eager to give voices to the overlooked and their supporters.
As the first battle-worn businesses are forced out of the area, the many calls can be heard from those still on the ground, 'We are not nothing.'
