North side of Villa Road Brixton from Angell Park. Villa Road was occupied in 1974 by squatters to resist the ‘infamous’ Brixton Development Plan. By mid-1977 Lambeth Council obtained possession orders for some of the houses, however the squatters erected barricades, and soon afterward staged successive occupations of the Housing and Planning Advice Centres. Eventually a Department of the Environment ruling squashed the demolition plan and Villa Road ‘Street Group’ lived behind the barricades for over a year. Lambeth continued with plans to demolish the south side of the street for a park, although the squatters had forced them into negotiations. In 1978, the council agreed to rehouse those living on the south side and demolition went ahead. The site was initially called Angell Park, but in 1986 was renamed Max Roach Park after an American musician as a mark of respect to the black community.From ‘As Safe…As Houses’, an exhibition on short-life housing in Lambeth put together in 1981 by Julian Quan with photographs by Peter Murphy. Digital image by kind permission of Faith Moore. Ref: D2017\/03\/1<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
North side of Villa Road Brixton from Angell Park. Villa Road was occupied in 1974 by squatters to resist the ‘infamous’ Brixton Development Plan. By mid-1977 Lambeth Council obtained possession orders for some of the houses, however the squatters erected barricades, and soon afterward staged successive occupations of the Housing and Planning Advice Centres. Eventually […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":29123,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[86,9,25,301,213,20,31],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-45039","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-1976-to-date","category-buildings-architecture","category-brixton-central","category-carlton_mansions_archive","category-digital","category-housing","category-open-spaces"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n