In December 2018 London Mayor Sadiq Khan approved the redevelopment of the 75 year old Elephant and Castle Shopping centre. With speculations of a 10 year project, the redevelopment is said to include 1000 new homes, with 35 per cent at affordable rents, retail space with 10% affordable retail space, this marks the end of an era for the Elephant, and a new one to flourish.
This flourishing however is at the detriment to the local Black Asian Minority Ethnic “BAME” groups - the shopping centre is home to Latin American and Afro-Caribbean traders who have called this place their home for 20 years. They are now subject to threat of forced relocation whilst the regeneration takes place with little certainty of where these businesses will be relocated to, and for how long, and at what expense to them.
I took this to capture the resilience of the shopping centre, it’s traders, and the communities that have been constantly at a battle with local authorities, developers and most notably, the Mayor himself. This also marks one of many cultural spots that are slowly being over-taken by regeneration projects, where working-class communities with a strong place attachment are being forcibly detached with little security.
