Short change

Ok, what I really want to do right now is put up loads of images from last week's shooting on "The Wrong Mr Johnson". But while sifting through the images, I found this one from when I was in London and it set me thinking about the changes I'd seen there since I've been away, and how I felt about them.

Looks lovely, eh? But here's the story.

A long, long time ago, around the time I was born, someone had a good idea. “Lets not build another tower block; let’s build a community!” and off they went. The result was the Brunswick Centre near Russell Square in Bloomsbury. To be sure, it was an ambitious project:

sloping tiers of glazed flats designed to maximise their sunlight, shops for the community on the ground floor, secure car parking for the residents underground, and even a cinema. It was built with the latest materials and processes, utilising concrete structures to keep the costs down, saving the budget for the finishing touch – a marble finish.

It would gleam. It would be so stunning, so popular, that never again would people be stacked into mile high hutches.

Then something happened to the dream. One of the locals said it was the oil crisis. Whatever it was, money must have run short, and backers got jumpy, impatient. So at the last fence, they stumbled. They needed to finish it, get people in, get shops in. so they did. Get shops. Any shops. Phew, that’s the rental sorted. And sod the marble; people just want a roof over their heads.

And so was born a stained grey concrete monstrosity, with dark corridors and a blossoming crime problem. It housed a diverse set of residents ranging from expectant hopeful believers, to people who genuinely hated the place, and a ground floor composed of industrial suppliers. It was so streaked and dull, it could make the sunniest day seem overcast.

They had wanted local independent shops, hopefully run by people who lived in the complex itself; a community serving itself. They got a large shop selling professional kitchen supplies, a large shop selling thousand pound flash units to professional photographers, a large shop selling thousand pound cameras to professional photographers, a large shop selling…. Well, you get the picture. There was one supermarket, and I have to tell you from long-term personal experience, it was godawful. It was such a depressing experience going shopping that my local Indian takeaway knew my voice from my first telephoned ‘hello’.

But something happened recently. Some money became available. A wrong was to be righted. They were going to spend many millions (a hundred, some said) to give the complex a complete facelift. Cool! At last. It was closed for a good while, and recently it began to open. The supermarket is way, way better. It presupposes that local people actually care what they eat. And they’ve painted the concrete (doesn’t a hundred million buy marble these days? How much would?). And the shops are waiting to move in and open.

Hobbs, French Connection… was Starbucks on the list, too? A big change, to be sure; very much more up-market. I think there was even a Carluccios. But a quick glance at the list of ‘opening soon’s revealed a sense of…. Generica, I suppose. Here we’ve got this unique building built around an idea, and we’re going to fill it with the same shops you can find down the road. Down any road, come to mention it. Who’s going to work there? My guess is girls from Poland, Slovakia, Georgia, enduring a few months to learn English, and commuting in from Shepherd’s Bush and Earls Court. No local shops, no local people. I mean, how many times a week do you really need stuff from Hobbs?

It does look good. It looks brighter, cleaner. But how can so many millions of pounds still leave me feeling a little shortchanged?

Comments

[Free Spirit]

I would shop at Hobbs every day if I could... or even every month. When I come back I'm coming back thin. Thin and with money.

I get a sense of dumbing down in this place you describe. It happens a lot. Let's do something radical and new. But not so radical or new that people might not get it. No, let's do something middle of the road and somewhat novel. Yeah.

It's a shame.