Brixton’s brand new Windrush Square will open this weekend, with celebrations on Saturday and Sunday including live music and a lantern-lit procession by local children.

The development is a part of the wider Brixton Town Centre programme, which is enhancing the local urban environment alongside upgrading the area’s roads and pavements to improve access and safety.

Creating a new focal point in the heart of Lambeth, the new town square will also be a venue for community activities and events, joining together the old square with Tate Gardens to create a single pedestrianised open space.

The square’s name was chosen in 1998 with help from local residents and businesses to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of the arrival of the Empire Windrush from Jamaica on 22 June 1948 which was a landmark event in the development of our modern multicultural society.

The rejuvenated square has been built with a new fountain, improved lighting, wider crossing points and improvements such as cycle stands to encourage more people to cycle. It also features 21 new trees. Added to this there will be high quality landscaping and surfacing and sculpted granite seating, creating what will be a thriving centre for our area.

In this video, filmed after the recent Q&A with Ed Miliband MP and local people organised by Chuka at Lambeth Town Hall, Chuka talks to the Climate Change Secretary about the event and the UN conference on climate change currently taking place in Copenhagen.

This week, Brixton launched its own currency – the Brixton Pound. The currency is designed to help local shops and market stalls in the recession by encouraging shoppers to spend money locally, whilst also promoting the area.

The currency is pegged to Pounds Sterling, and is accepted in over fifty business in the area.

The idea was developed by the community-led Transition Town Brixton project, which works to make the area more self-sufficient.

Local currencies have been launched elsewhere in the UK including the towns of Totnes, Lewes and Stroud, but Brixton is the first inner-city area to do so.

To find out more, check out the project’s website, or read this BBC News article about the new currency.

Brixton has been announced as one of ten low-carbon areas across London. It will pioneer a number of groundbreaking green projects and become a showcase for how London can become a low-carbon city.

The resulting projects include low-carbon heating for King’s College Hospital and improvements to Brixton’s community buildings to make them more energy efficient.

Brixton will aim to reduce its carbon emissions by over 20% by 2012, with residents, community organisations, businesses and Lambeth working together. The area will receive £200,000 of funding from the London Development Agency.

Brixton was selected by an expert panel following an application by Lambeth’s Labour council.

Chuka’s letter on primary school places was published in the Streatham Guardian on 6 August 2009, in response to a previous article:

Parents understandably want their children to attend a good local school – I know because I am a governor of one. Increasing demand for school places is an issue across London, with population shifts, increases in the birth rate and pressure on sites for school buildings.

With reference to your article, “Lambeth school space crisis” (9 July 2009), the government is taking action to create more primary and secondary school places by expanding existing schools and building new ones. Nationally, Labour is investing £21.9 billion on school buildings between now and 2011. Locally we have already seen the fruits of this with the establishment of new secondary schools such as Lambeth Academy and new primaries such as the Jubilee School since 1997.

However, though all those who applied on time for a primary school place received an offer in a Lambeth school this year, it is true that the ability to meet parental preferences in each case is still a challenge and more places are needed in the future.

That is why Keith Hill MP and I are meeting with ministers and working hard to ensure central government provides further investment so we can provide more places for our children, for example by converting the Woodfield Centre in Streatham, an old Special School, to provide a new primary school in the area. We will keep residents posted on our progress.

Chuka Umunna
Labour Parliamentary Candidate for Streatham

Chuka and Keith Hill, Member of Parliament for Streatham, headed down to enjoy and lend their support this afternoon to Brixton Splash, the Brixton street festival.   The festival includes live music, poetry, art exhibitions, street theatre, crafts, children’s activities, food sales, sound systems and domino competitions.  The event aims to involve people from all walks of life, providing something for everyone to participate and enjoy themselves.

 More Brixton Splash 2009 photos can be found here: Brixton Splash

Philippe Castaing, Brixton Green from NewStartMag on Vimeo.

The Brixton Green development is a community project to sustainably develop a large site on Somerleyton Road in Brixton. Its vision is to combine work spaces for local small businesses with mixed-tenure housing, creating a hub for social and environmental enterprises. Chuka is a strong supporter of the project, which hopes to start building within two years.

In this video local restauranteur and Brixton Hill resident Phillipe Castaing, who initiated the project, discusses its aims.

The development will foster social cohesion by combining owner-occupied premises with social housing and providing communal spaces for residents to come together.

A large communal garden will be the centrepiece of the development, providing space for urban agriculture, including vegetable growing, bee keeping and greenhouses – producing 120 tonnes of produce a year.

To find out more, check out the Brixton Green development’s website.

Chuka attended the ‘Meet the Market’ event this week, organised by the Friends of Brixton Market.

The event showcased Lambeth’s greatest market, the challenges it faces and the exciting new possibilities and projects that could see it thrive in the future. Attendees sampled the market’s finest produce including Nigerian snacks, Colombian delicacies, organic wine, rave-reviewed Neapolitan pizzas and
cupcakes.

Also in attendance was local celebrity supporter, musician and entrepreneur Levi Roots.

Friends of Brixton Market is a voluntary, not-for-profit group for customers, residents and supporters of Brixton Market, who are working to protect the market and ensure it continues to thrive.

Local artists will showcase their work to the public next weekend, unveiling a a range of contemporary art including paintings, photographs, print making and sculpture. This gives people the opportunity to buy directly from up-and-coming Streatham artists.

The event, which Chuka will be attending and is part of the Streatham Festival, will take place at ASC studios in Streatham Hill, opening on Friday evening and 11am-5pm on Saturday and Sunday. For more details and a list of artists taking part, check out the Streatham Artists website. The Open Studios weekend will be accompanied by a number of local events over the coming weeks, including a seminar on art in Iraq and a collograph print demonstration.

On the 18th and 19th of July, Josephine Avenue in Brixton will be transformed into a free outdoor art fair, Urban Art 2009. In October, artists across the borough will open their doors as part of Lambeth Open.

As this weekend’s summer heat wave descended over London today, Chuka took some time out with Cllr Florence Nosegbe (far right), Labour’s Deputy Cabinet Member for Youth in Lambeth, to catch up with residents of Blenheim Gardens Estate at their fantastic Fun Day in Brixton Hill ward!  Here they are in the estate garden, overseen by Simon Ghartey (crouching).  Chuka finished up the day at the Abbeville Fete in Clapham, once again successfully organised by The Church of the Holy Spirit.