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Network Rail’s unpopular and ill-thought out refurbishment scheme for the Brixton Arches continues to cause suffering to local businesses.
Brixton has already lost many of its much loved small traders after they were forcibly evicted last year – creating a ‘Dead Zone’ in the heart of town – and those who have managed to find new premises in the area are still struggling.
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Case in point is religious booksellers Beautiful Books, who have been trading in Brixton for over quarter of a century.
Some 26 years ago, they started selling books from a market stall, and three years later they moved into one of the arches at 26 Brixton Station Road, where they remained before they were forced out by Network Rail’s evictions last year.
Although they were fortunate enough to find replacement premises further up Station Road in the former John’s Cafe (more recently used as a Skate Shop and the gratis offices for Lambeth’s pals, Carl Turner Architects), they told Brixton Buzz that business has since slumped.
So much so that they have been forced to post advertising all around Station Road in the hope of attracting customers to a part of Brixton with very little footfall.
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With visitor numbers slumping, the shop has been compelled to add various banners and posters along Station Road in the hope of attracting customers old and new.
Above you can see where they’ve added their details to one of the ‘Brixton Pillars’ billboards, an advertising campaign which catastrophically fails to even mention the addresses of the businesses it’s supposed to be promoting.
As we reported earlier this month:
In an attempt to drum up trade for the surviving businesses surrounding what’s become known as Brixton’s ‘Dead Zone’, a billboard advertising campaign under the curious name of ‘Brixton Pillars’ was created.
It seemed a pretty misguided campaign from the start. Unsupported by any kind of social media presence – no Facebook page, Twitter feed or even a website – no one quite knew what ‘Brixton Pillars’ meant, and there was no way to find out anything about the initiative.
The only online reference on the billboards was the #brixtonpillars hash tag, but there’s been nothing posted there since before Christmas (apart from our tweets asking for information, which have all been ignored).
The billboards were woefully ineffective too, conveying very little useful information to passers-by. Each one was dominated by a huge meaningless logo, endlessly repeated slogans and precious little detail about the businesses they were supposed to be promoting. There wasn’t even a map telling people the location of each shop.
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A large banner constructed over their former premises (below) was taken down by Network Rail.
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Inside the shop.
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Subverted ‘Brixton Pillars’ boards.
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Beautiful Books can be found on 53, Station Road, between Pop Brixton and Valentia Place.
More about the Brixton Arches
Sign the petition:
www.change.org/p/network-rail-do-not-terminate-leases-at-the-brixton-arches
facebook.com/savebrixtonarches/
@savebrixton
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