We live on Britain’s ‘most DANGEROUS street’ that’s now lined with £1million houses – we’re being pushed out
BRITS living on the country’s “most dangerous street” have slammed wealthy homeowners for pushing them out.
Coldharbour Lane in south London has spent decades as a crime hotspot – fit with stabbings, muggings and murder.
But its residents are now more concerned by rich people buying up their homes than criminals.
One business owner in the area, Patrick Kelly, 62, told MyLondon the real danger was the street “losing its identity”.
When he opened his shop BookMongers in the 1990s he knew 80 per cent of his customers.
Now he says he’s closer to not knowing 80 per cent.
Gentrification has started to push locals out, according to barmaid Maya Rivett-Martinez, 19.
She added: “It has got less dangerous, but due to gentrification.
“It’s pushed out communities that have lived here.”
The two-mile long lane was first named Britain’s worst street in 2003, after nearly 15,000 stabbings, robberies, muggings and murders.
Some £1million of crack cocaine was dealt there every month.
In 2002 Lambeth council made the problem worse when it piloted a scheme to allow those caught with drugs to avoid a criminal record.
It soon became known as London’s drugs capital.
It’s still second only to Lambeth for knife offences in London in the last five years.
And has the second highest murder rate with 36 homicides since 2018.
Yet property prices have soared from £200,000 to an average of £600,000 – and terrace houses regularly sell for £1million.
It comes after a man who bought a house on the street for just £5,000 says it’s now worth £1million.
Hasan Rezvan, 75, has lived in the four-bed terraced house near Coldharbour Lane in Brixton, South London for 53 years.
He bought the house in 1970 for just £5,000 after arriving in the UK from Cyprus without any more money to spare.