Southwark Council is regenerating Camberwell Green – a common piece of land situated in the heart of the area. The estimated £11m project has been underway since October 2015 and seems to be welcomed with open arms by local residents.

Maria from Cyprus came to Camberwell to set up shop in 1970 when the area was very different. “We were the only shop here”, she recalled, as she went on to describe the scarcity of development in the area at the time.  Now, 46 years on, Maria still runs ‘Cruson’, a warm and vibrant grocery store amidst a decidedly different Camberwell – the constant evolution of which she is not at all closed to.

“The Green has not always been safe”, she said, reminiscing the times she took her son there as a child. “It was a very bad incident, perhaps the most dreadful thing that I have been witness to” she said referring to the rape of a girl inside the Green in the early 2000s. Now, however, she feels that it is much safer and said, “I walk through all the time to go to the doctor’s and the library.”

Camberwell Green and the area surrounding it is also home to Sanjay Sankhalpara, who owns ‘7 Star Dry Cleaners’. “I feel very safe now that the park is being cleaned up and revamped”, he said.

With the regeneration in progress, and other “modernising”, the locals couldn’t be more welcoming to the idea of a livelier, safer Camberwell.