Is Brixton really that bad?

Consigliere
Joined
12 Jun 2004
Posts
151,030
Location
SW17
Anyone live near/in Brixton? Is it actually that bad? Viewing a flat in Goldharbour Lane tomorrow. A former housemate of mine is moving to Brixton and his girlfriend lived there last year with zero problems.

So, opinions?
 
It has a bad rep from all the crap that went on there in the 80s.

It's quite a cool area now, albeit still very much inner-city London. Keep your normal wits about you and like I say, it's quite a cool area.
 
I have three mates who live down there. Nothing wrong with the place at all.

There was another thread about the same thing a while back I think.
 
few mates have lived there and they say its fine. none of them had any trouble

i feel like ive been racially bullied when ive been. just simple things like black folk handing out flyers but missing out the whiteys

maybe thats just a london thing though. dont get it back home
 
Not at all, its actually really quite nice. The people that give it the bad rep are the ppl that dont/no longer live in london - i.e. the misinformed.
Pretty much on par with balham/clapham safety wise so really not bad at all.
People think places like hammersmith and wandsworth are really nice but both have seriously dodgy areas (notting hill too has got some v. dodgy council estates would you believe!!)

BA :)
 
Let's be realistic here - Brixton has well above average crime compared to the rest of the country. That's not to say it's a particularly bad part of London though... The main part of Brixton around the tube station etc is pretty safe... venture a bit further out where the estates are etc and you really have to watch yourself, but that's no different to most of South London or even most of London. Camden for instance is well known around the market etc but it is a pretty grimy placed to be honest and there are some properly dodgy areas/estates once you venture a little further out too.

I used to live around the corner from Coldharbour Lane, used to get the train every day from Loughborough Junction to Blackfriars to university. That's probably the dodgiest part of Coldharbour to be honest. At one end you have the cinema in brixton, then about a mile/mile and a half the other end you have a busy junction in Camberwell.
 
Last edited:
I had family living in Stockwell, (just down the road) and she was broken into too many times to remember.. A good few times a yr.. Isn't it statisically the most dangerous place in the UK to live, if my memory serves me well?
 
Brixton isn't too bad right next door is Clapham which is lovely. Brixton is better then Stratford where I am and they are building the olympics here lol.
 
I'd stay away from the council estates and some quite dodgy roads. There are very decent and nice houses in Brixton area, not to mention how close to central London it is.

However I would personally not live there.
 
I live a couple of train stops away and have been on a couple of nights out there, it seemed alright in the fairly short time I've spent there but that's rather different to living there, however one of my work colleagues lived there for the better part of a year and seemed to enjoy it. I think it's somewhere that you might have to take a bit of care in selecting where to live but then there's lots of London like that, even if one part of a borough is nice there may be other parts that you wouldn't be inclined to live in.
 
Back
Top Bottom