A few weeks ago, a program appeared on BBC 2 about ‘The Secret History of Our Streets’. It’s part of an on-going series on the BBC charting the history of one or two interesting streets in London through the ages, looking at their social development, community history and modern appearance, and so on and so forth. Caledonian Road was one of them.
Now… I know Cally Rd (as it’s known) very well. I have many friends who live either on it, or near it, and have spent a lot of my time pounding up and down it, visiting the local library, and going swimming in the Cally Pool. When, therefore, I saw on this documentary a landlord, who owns a huge amount of the street, who summarised his attitude towards the road as ‘if you have a cow, milk it’, I was naturally incensed. He owns a vast number of bedsits, shops and tiny flats up and down the street, including one with a very good friend in it, for which he charges a low rent, and which he maintains in utterly unsanitary, squalid conditions. By his own admittance, he rarely bothers to get planning permission for what he builds, creating blocks of tiny apartments within houses where you could barely squeeze a fly, and that fly would probably be ill from damp, mould and a lack of daylight by the time it left again. His only avowed purpose is to make money out of the Caledonian Road and in the process, he is creating a squalid monopoly of shuttered shops and broken homes.
I have never before attacked an individual (unless we’re dealing with our glorious leaders and their political policies…) on this blog, but all that I said above is something he himself said, perfectly candidly, on camera for the BBC. However! In protest against this, the residents of the Cally Rd seem to be coming together. It began with grafitti – ‘Please be quiet, we are sleeping in this death trap’ was scrawled on the pavement above an underground network of tiny, lightless flats which were built, illegally, beneath a restaurant.
Signs appeared on trees and lamps reading ‘No milk left in the Cally! These cows are empty!’ and now the campaign is going electronic, with twitter (@CallyCows), blogs and local councillors finally getting involved. And as someone who has spent a lot of time on the Cally Rd, and has a lot of fondness for it, I figured it was a worthwhile use of my time, and this blog, to report it and spread the word! If you have any time or affection for Cally Rd, and want to help it crawl back up from the squalor into which a great deal has sunk, or even if you have stories of rogue landlords and the horrors that they can inflict, and want to see their power overturned, then join the Cally Cows campaign!
5 comments
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Jeff Lowrey says:
July 5, 2012 at 8:00 pm (UTC 1 )
He appears to be trying to raise cows for veal, not milk.
AdrianH says:
July 5, 2012 at 8:09 pm (UTC 1 )
As it happens, that is the only one of the series that I watched, sadly. I hope this protest works for the residents, but TBH, I’m rather astonished that he ever thought he could get away with it while being so brazen about what he was doing.
Power to the people, ‘n’ all that!
M of Hackney says:
July 8, 2012 at 3:28 am (UTC 1 )
I live in a block of almost 40 flats right on Mare St in Hackney. Two years old, and the council have threatened them with demolition. We’d been there two months when a thick book of photocopied paper was taped to the entrance: a list of all the things built that had nothing to do with the original plans, of the naff windows and crumbling, non-vernacular stucco. Ending with the coda ‘and in short, this building has no architectural merit and you have 5 months to demolish and clear the site, or appeal’ – and, of course, the appeal means handing Hackney Council £10,000 or so. ‘Oh don’t worry’ says the landlord, ‘I’ve got another building like this. You just have to keep appealing. We’ve been stringing them along for ten years on that one’.
Anon says:
July 12, 2012 at 1:10 am (UTC 1 )
I watched the TV programme and it was enjoyable. However, I am quite disappointed by the ‘mob’ attitude towards Mr Panayi. It occurs to me it is not his tenants that are complaining but local people.
Mr Panayi, came accross as a cheeky character and frankly, I think he is a genuis for creating flats in the shop basements. This is wasted space. Mr Panayi has provided affordable housing to low-waged people like the Austrialian waiter. When asked by the TV presenter why he lived in the basement flat, his tenant replied it was “cheap”!
The people of Cally don’t get it. It is so expensive too live in London’s Zone 1 and I would queue to live in Mr Panayi flat (I mean if an Aussie waiter can live there, then I am sure, I would be able to scrap a few quid!!!). Of course, I would deal with the mould in the flat – yuck!. I could enjoy life so much more if I lived in Zone 1. I am missing out so much on life. It is so expensive travel to Zone 1. I don’t care, if the flat is a shoe box, as I would spend most of my time outdoors enjoying myself. Please forgive me, but I think the people of Cally should be understanding.
Mr Panayi should take his responsibilities more seriously and obey the planning rules, environmental law, buiding and fire regs…
You have to put Mr Panayi conduct, in context, when you see all the ugly high-rise council blocks which blight our country, Mr Panayi action and his conversions are the least of our problems.
I also think the comment about the ‘cows’ is both unfortunate and ‘lost in translation’. Mr Panayi was asked, if he is so wealthy why does n’t he just retire and enjoy the good life. He could be an absentee landlord living in lovely Cyprus. To which Mr Panayi replied (approx) “if a cow is producing milk, you keep milking it”. This is where people have got quite upset and got the wrong end of the stick. It is meant to imply, that so long as Mr Panayi is fit and healthy to work then he should continue working. In other words, the advice from his mother is don’t retire and keep working. It is also about having a serious work ethic. (people have taken it to mean exploit tenants and this is unfortunate….)
Mr Panayi, seemed a humble man, given that he owns an entire street. He lived in pretty simple accomodation, you would not guess he is wealthy, no bling bling and drug dealer 4×4.
Please forgive, if my comments offend anyone, but I just don’t like the ‘mob’ campaign that is coming accross. Mr Panayi, has questions to answer….
The Cally Cows says:
July 12, 2012 at 4:17 pm (UTC 1 )
Whilst the complaints have aired from a large slice of Cally residents, the Cally Cows themselves are tenants looking out for other tenants.
Undeniably housing close to Central London is insufficient for demand and prohibitively expensive. That doesn’t mean that developing properties in disregard of both planning permissions and health and safety regulations is the answer, even if there are people willing to live in them. Or do we have to wait for an accident before something is done?
And a quick note as a fellow Mediterranean (although not Greek-speaking): the comment mentioning the cow does, indeed, mention a cow. It’s not “Whilst you’ve still got strength in your arms, keep on ploughing” or “Until the tree gets water and sun it will go on wanting to produce fruit”. It’s not about work ethic. It’s about exploitation. Perhaps exploitation of a favourable situation rather than of people in the specific, but exploitation none the less.
366: 187 Cally Cows - Brooner's ramblings says:
October 14, 2012 at 11:28 am (UTC 1 )
[...] Following the programme Secret History of Our Streets portrayed the horrible living conditions by many under one landlord on Caledonian Road, the Cally Cows came together to protest against him and his law breaking (and the blind eye turned by Islington Council). [...]