Brixton Village Lates DJ events under threat due to noise complaints from neighbours
This is a familiar story that’s being played out all over the UK. An area gentrifies and catches the eye of developers. Developers then build upmarket flats to attract upwardly …
Black News 
This is a familiar story that’s being played out all over the UK.
An area gentrifies and catches the eye of developers. Developers then build upmarket flats to attract upwardly mobile incomers, with their proximity to nearby vibrant hubs, pubs and clubs being a major selling point.
Then, a few years down the line, some of those incomers decide they’d now like the vibrancy turned down to suit their increasingly conservative lifestyles.
So they they start registering noise complaints even though absolutely nothing has changed since they moved into the area.
Sometimes they team up with other residents to submit co-ordinated noise complaints for maximum impact, or they’ll hire hotshot lawyers to try and scare small venues into submission.
Anyone who’s worked in the night economy around Brixton for a while will have their own stories of how new neighbours have tried to force bars to close early or to turn down the music – even when those venues have operated in harmony with the local community for years, if not decades.
And so it’s the turn of the Brixton Lates DJ nights in the Brixton Village. Despite the free events only happening irregularly – and always closing at 10pm – some local residents have started sending out a huge number of noise complaints to the management, insisting that the music be turned down to a volume that suits their taste.
Cyndi Handson (above, left), who programmes some of the Brixton Village events, told Brixton Buzz:
Just providing some additional context regarding how small businesses providing often affordable entertainment and community gathering are constantly being targeted and under threat thanks to a handful of new settlers in the area.
We haven’t wanted to raise the issue but the market has received an organised barrage of complaints about our Brixton Village Lates this year.
The building in question has been around for about 11 years ..the market has been a vibrant bustling environment for 89 years … it got Grade II listed as the commercial, social, and cultural heart of the post-WWII Afro-Caribbean community that settled in Brixton from the late 1940s onward..
Many of my generation will remember this as their elders go to for foodstuffs, pets, cosmetic care, luggage , records and a whole lot more… basically it has always been full of life.
We used to have a co run shop and bar in this place and my mother also had a shop here.. ..to say that we have skin in this place is a gross understatement.
With everything currently taking place economically, socially and politically ..these small small free to attend parties THAT CLOSE AT 10PM have been a community lifeline for many.
I guarantee on Monday morning, the complaints will be ever present on the market management’s desk.. bear in mind, we only have 3 events left this year and New Years Eve.
We have been working with Lambeth Council and they have encouraged we implement some sort of limiting device.. we aim to sort within the next two weeks…
If there are any sound engineers out here that can recommend one that can be portable on account of us setting the sound outdoors which is not a fixed location.. that would be great.
