How Deptford keeps its Deptfordness

Do you remember your first impression of Deptford?

I moved to Deptford when I was 18, and I did something potentially very stupid. I got into Goldsmiths without ever visiting the area or seeing the flat I was going to live in. I just had this feeling that it was going to be my kind of place.

Then, just before the first week of university, I found out there was no room in the student halls. So I ended up in a tiny flatshare on New Cross Road, in a bedroom that was basically a double bed with just enough space to walk down either side.

I was completely overwhelmed, but also so excited. And that gamble paid off. I still remember those long stretches of New Cross Road, the huge red sunsets, and how much sky you could see. It felt like a really exciting place to be.

Why did you choose Goldsmiths?

It felt like a really creative place, with its own radical tendency. That combination really appealed to me. Goldsmiths has an interesting political history and amazing creative figures associated with it. It is genuinely the only institution in the UK that could give you Mark Fisher and Katy B. There is so much high and low culture coming out of that place, and obviously, that spills over into Deptford as well. And vice versa.

How did Deptford shape your university experience?

What I quickly realised was that Lewisham, and Deptford in particular, is such a mixed community. I had friends at other universities in London who only knew other students. I never felt like that here. Even when I was 18 or 19, there were always families around, older people, people with completely different lives.

When I joined my local Labour Party and got involved in things outside the university, I would walk down the street and see people I knew who were 10 or 20 years older than me, or from totally different backgrounds. That feels unique. Lots of young people move somewhere and maybe know their neighbours, or people from work who live nearby, but they don’t always feel part of a community. I think we’re really lucky to have that here.

Deptford feels unusually active as a community. Do you think people here shape what happens in the area?

Yes, and I think Deptford is a great example of a place where the community has shaped, and is always shaping, its own destiny. When I was walking down to meet you, I was thinking about how there is almost no housing estate, park or patch of land here that doesn’t have a tenants’ and residents’ group, a friends group, or some kind of local activity around it. Even a small bit that looks forgotten will usually have people invested in it.

Do you think people still misunderstand Deptford?

I think the biggest misunderstanding comes from the way people talk about places where enormous wealth and enormous deprivation coexist side by side. People from outside will say, “Oh, Deptford has changed a lot.” And it has. But the people we engage with most often are those who have been part of the community for years. You meet people who have been chairing local panels, helping clean up parks, fighting for better conditions on their estates. That has stayed constant.

We should push back on the idea that Deptford will become the new Shoreditch. Deptford is not going to become the new anything. Deptford is completely itself. There is always a new community coming in and out of Deptford. That has been part of its history, from Windrush to the Vietnamese communities who came here in the 1970s.

So yes, Deptford is changing. But the people who make Deptford Deptford are still here. You see it in shops like El Cheap’ou, where he has been working here since, I believe, he was 14 on a market stall. You see it in the other market traders who have been here for decades. I don’t think Deptford has lost its essential Deptfordness.

If you were to sum up Deptford in three words, what would they be?

“Tomorrow the world.” There’s that Squeeze T-shirt that says, “Today Deptford, tomorrow the world”, and I think that captures it. Deptford is a relatively small neighbourhood in South East London, but its impact on the world is stunning.

It is changing, and it will always be changing, because London is constantly evolving. But what I want most is for the people who live here, especially the kids growing up here, to feel that they have access to the rest of that changing city.

Speaking of change, what has changed in Deptford since you moved here?

A lot. The railway arches have changed, developments have gone up, and there are new buildings all around. But I think the fundamental character of Deptford has been retained. Deptford High Street is a good example. That is not to say there aren’t problems, or that it is always easy for businesses here. But the area around the arches has developed from somewhere that felt underused, while the market and local businesses have largely remained central to the place.

What local place captures Deptford for you?

This is a cheat answer, but I think Deptford feels most like itself when I’m cycling through it. I’ll come through the Evelyn Estate, or down the High Street, or through Fordham Park and the Woodpecker Estate. You move from residential streets and estates into the High Street, or down New Cross Road, or even towards Greenwich, and you see so much at once.

There are all these different types of housing, the parks, the shops, the estates, the big roads. Everything is so close together. For me, Deptford is always in motion. Maybe that’s why I feel it most when I’m moving through it. You see everything at once. It is not one place so much as a whole atmosphere.

Is there a hidden gem in Deptford that deserves more attention from locals or outsiders?

Catford Rhum Arrangé is a great bar, with an amazing cocktail and food menu. It feels like you’ve walked into this incredibly chic little listening bar when you’re just off Deptford Broadway. Creekside Discovery Centre is another one. So much of the green space around that bit of Deptford is amazing, and they do quite a bit of work on the river. You can go on river mudlarking walks, which I still haven’t had time to do. That’s my post-election treat: I’m going to go down the river in the waders. When I lived on the Crossfield Estate, I spent a lot of time at Sue Godfrey Nature Reserve, that little bit of green out the front. During the pandemic, it was our little oasis.

There are so many little patches like that in Deptford. You walk down Albury Street, a beautifully preserved Georgian street, and it feels like you’re on a film set. Then there are tiny tucked-away parks, or St Paul’s churchyard, which is so beautiful. You can sit there and not feel like you’re 20 minutes from London Bridge.

There’s also a beautiful view from Pitman House on Tanners Hill. If you climb up and look out from the top windows, you can see so much of the area: the lower blocks, the houses, then the tower blocks, and the city looming in the distance. You think about all the people living their lives in each of those buildings. That always stays with me.

What’s your idea of an ideal weekend in Deptford?

My favourite weekends are when Dawn, David and I do our advice surgery on a Saturday morning at the Deptford Lounge. People can just drop in, and you get this very Deptford mix of issues: housing repairs, Section 21 notices, someone running a local business who needs help. I always come out of that feeling really energised.

Then you step outside, and it’s Saturday: the market is on, there’s the guy frying burgers next to the library, and you can go to one of the cafés on the High Street or under the arches. You get some food, buy flowers from the little flower stall, and just wander. Deptford is a great place to nip in and out of things. You can lose hours like that on the High Street.

In your opinion, which building or street in Deptford has the most fascinating history?

This is a niche one, but there’s that shop on the High Street where the police found the first fingerprint evidence during a murder investigation in 1905. I know that’s probably not the biggest historical event, but I love those little snippets of Deptford history. They really fuel my sense that Deptford is the centre of the universe. You hear something happened here and think: of course it did.

What kinds of development would you welcome in Deptford, and which are you less comfortable with?

That is a really important question, because we rightly spend a lot of time talking about bad development and the kind we don’t want. But it’s also important to say what we are fighting for.

A development I’m really excited about is Achilles Street. To me, that is exactly the kind of development we should be doing. It is council-owned land and council housing, and it is being done through the Building for Lewisham programme. The process started with a ballot of social housing residents on the estate, asking whether they wanted regeneration. The answer was overwhelmingly yes.

After that, there was a long period of engagement with people living on and around the estate. They were asked what they wanted, what worked, what didn’t, and they worked with architects and planners through the process. The phasing is important too. Nobody is being moved out of the borough. Everyone currently living there will get a new flat of a similar size, moving from older buildings with lots of repair issues to better homes.

The development will deliver 60% affordable housing, with 73% of those homes being council-owned for social rent. That means going from 87 to 122 council homes on site. A real increase in genuinely affordable housing for local people. Of course, if resources were unlimited, we would build 100% council housing wherever we could. But that is not the reality we are working in. You have to fight tooth and nail for every council home you can get, and here we are adding brand new council homes to our stock, which will take local people off the waiting list.

What makes Achilles Street a good example is that it works with the community already there. People were asked whether they wanted it and what they wanted from it, and they were kept informed. When you knock on doors, people know what is happening and feel part of the process. That is why it feels exciting. It improves council housing, creates more homes, and opens up the public realm around Fordham Park. It feels like a way of changing the area with the community, rather than doing it to them.

What in Deptford worries you the most?

I think we still have massive pockets of deprivation. Statistically, we still have huge numbers of children here growing up in poverty, and I think a lot about what their lives will be like.

How do we make sure we are filling those gaps? I don’t want to give too much of a big-picture political answer, but what gives me hope is that it feels like we are finally moving out of a period of firefighting and into a period of national change and renewal. Things like lifting the two-child benefit cap will lift children in Deptford out of poverty now, today.

And who or what in Deptford gives you hope?

Everyone. There is almost no park, garden or council block here that doesn’t already have someone organising for it. That gives me hope, because the key to winning change in local politics is relentlessness. You have to be completely relentless, even when things feel dark.

Sometimes I look at the national picture and feel despair, as I’m sure many people do. But then I look at what people are doing here in Deptford, and I feel uplifted. People even come to our surgery asking how they can help. Someone recently came in, said they worked with technology systems, and wondered whether any local groups could use those skills. That is amazing. People come to us with problems, but they also come asking what they can do for the area.