As the prime minister announced that pubs and restaurants in England can reopen from 4 July, we went to see how one neighbourhood might emerge from the coronavirus lockdown.
Brixton appears almost normal. There’s a steady stream of people weaving their way in and out of shops – most of which are open. The tangy scent of raw seafood at the fishmongers mixes with that of over-ripe bananas on the fruit stalls. And Whitney Houston songs are blaring out from somewhere, giving the sunny scene an extra zing of flavour and energy. So far, so Brixton. But the many boarded-up businesses down the backstreets of this buzzing south-London neighbourhood are a tell-tale sign of the effect lockdown has had on trade.
As general manager of the covered markets that make up Brixton Village, Diana Nabagereka looks out at the hustle and bustle with a smile on her face. “For the first two weeks of lockdown it was like Brixton was in a coma,” she says, accepting that people did, at least initially, stay at home. “But then God made the sun shine and everything changed.”
She says during the warm weather at the beginning of April, she came down from her office in the market to find someone had brought out a sound system to entertain the crowds on Electric Avenue – it was “like Notting Hill Carnival”.
