Some wonderful plans have recently being unveiled for the restoration of Peckham rye station which I’m sure every Peckhamite welcomes. The main bus station also deserves some “restoration” of sorts. It’s too late for the wonderful 1951 Wallis, Gilbert and Partners designed bus garage to have a restorative make over, having been demolished to extend what was then Safeway (currently Morrisons) in 1995. It’s quite interesting at the time the Peckham bus garage was being demolished another Wallis, Gilbert and Partners designed building the Aslaka factory just up the road in the same Borough, at Bermondsey was being converted into “luxary flats”. It’s never too late to dispose of the desperate and drab Peckham bus station or should that be Safeways bus station. It fails on every level, the bus shelters are too small to accommodate all those waiting for buses at busy periods, if it rains you’re screwd. The cabin for the drivers from the outside looks awful, depressing and small, and having peeked inside when doors are left ajar on hot days, it doesn’t look that much better inside. The minuscule windows insure a dark and dreary interior. Any pederstrians walking along Peckham high street on the bus station side have to engage in a dueling dance of death with the exiting and entering buses. This is the central bus hub for Peckham, if Southwark council are serious about a rebrand of Peckham, this is a key area. What if those who came to see Peckham library also came to see a spectacular bus station? Look at Arup Associates Vauxhall cross, Every time I’ve used this I’ve noted how much more inspiring and more importantly user friendly it is then the current Peckham debacle.
An Alternative future peckham 