Catford is something else
Daniel Dream's podcast offers a different take on one of London’s most maligned and misunderstood areas as it grapples with change
When I moved to Catford in 2014, people would joke that it was the kind of place you passed through without stopping. Next to quaint neighbours such as Crofton Park, or hipper gentrified quarters like Peckham, Catford appeared neglected and ailing. A bit like its iconic landmark, a giant feline who’s seen better days yet still hangs around the entrance to an antiquated shopping centre – once dubbed ‘The Barbican of the South’, now earmarked for demolition1.
In the press and across comments sections, bad news tends to travel faster and linger longer than anything positive. Condemned council estates, stabbings, “crackhead” sightings, the sudden closure of a valuable cinema and social hub, stalled plans to reroute the congested South Circular…
Yet dwell here for more than a headline and you’ll soon realise this isn’t the whole story. There’s a tenacity to this place. A plucky togetherness. My everyday encounters with the many characters of Catford are more upbeat than unpleasant. I look at the faces all around me and see humanity in effect.
To praise the solidarity here is not to deny or ignore that real problems exist. But there is a balance to strike, otherwise the constant self-sabotaging encourages an area to forget itself, which hastens gentrification.
Big changes are coming. Goldsmiths will open a campus by next summer for 600 fine art and design students in the Old Town Hall. Before then, Catford Mews will return, run by the founders of cosy Castle Cinema over in E9.
Sister Midnight2 is transforming an old working man’s club into Lewisham’s first community-owned music venue, supported by 1,000+ members (more than 60% of whom live in Catford or Lewisham).
These additions could revitalise the area but must be handled with care – not like this. When changes are made to an area, with little or no meaningful input from long-term residents, and in a way that makes them feel secondary to the interests of more affluent newcomers, ‘regeneration’ becomes something to be feared and opposed. As Privatise the Mandem author Nabil Al-Kinani says, that term wrongly implies “there is no energy or life in a space”.
Just down the road, tension is building around a proposed redevelopment of Lewisham Shopping Centre. There are some tempting commitments in Landsec’s plans, including a £1.23m local labour fund to support employment and training initiatives. Also, a permanent home for the much-missed Model Market, a 2010s street food destination that used to house a whole lot more back in the day.
But Lewisham People’s Assembly is right to point out the inadequate provision of social housing (just 98 units out of 1,744) and how little consideration has been given to the potential negative impacts of rent increases on the most vulnerable tenants in Lewisham. Let’s not forget the environmental impact of demolition as well.
I wanted to get a wider aperture on Catford specifically, so I invited fellow resident Daniel Dream to the Blythe Hill Tavern for a Guinness. His podcast Catford Dreams has gained a big following in eight short episodes, causing many frustrated locals to stop wishing over the horizon and appreciate what’s right under our noses. He has this knack for noticing – for seeing stories in street names, floorboards and parakeets.
A working-class guy from the North East, raised in social housing, Daniel spent 15 years living north of the river in areas such as Finsbury Park, Hackney and East Finchley. Then a friend tried to lure him to Ladywell. But he and his wife liked the look of an old house in Catford.
It was when he walked onto Rushey Green that he knew, “this is for me”. Ok, I’ll admit, there’s a certain … energy to it, but you don’t hear that too often. What appealed? “Just seeing the mix of good and bad,” says Daniel. “It reminded me of where I grew up, and what I loved about Hackney.”
A stop-off at the local Wetherspoons (now under new management) clinched it for him and his wife. “From being in East Finchley, where we felt no real social life, to seeing a bunch of Jamaican guys in the back of a packed pub with a Bluetooth speaker playing the most amazing reggae I’ve ever heard, it felt like a rebirth.”
A few years later, Daniel says he was out one night and heard some people complaining about Catford. There’s lots of good stuff, he told them, but no one talks about it. He decided to pick up some basic equipment and have a go at presenting a more balanced view.
“I was involved years ago in a campaign to save Robin Hood Gardens up in East London,” he says, “and it’s similar in how these stories are allowed to percolate. Vilifying the buildings, establishing a consensus on taste…
“Someone might listen to what I say, still look at Milford Towers and think that’s the worst building I’ve ever seen. Hopefully, they might walk away and think, okay, I don’t like the building, but the way I’m connecting it to these other problems is not the straight line I think it is.”
Daniel says he’s never known a community like here and the podcast reflects that. It’s a space “for Catford to think aloud”, which is why, alongside his vivid monologues about cultural memory and celebrating “the living folklore of Catford”, he’s invited local people on including postman Bill and Milford Towers resident Vera. In this way, the podcast becomes a reflection of civic pride and “a record of what matters to the people who are not in positions of power”.
As a doctor of architectural design, and now a Green Party candidate at the local elections, he’s also keen to offer practical solutions to perennial debates about regeneration. Take episode five, where Daniel suggests five ways to turn Goldsmiths’ arrival from a good idea into a great one, like protecting legacy businesses from rent hikes, for example, and ensuring the wider community of Catford benefits from the financial impact of the university.
Much of our conversation is about how to protect who and what’s held this neighbourhood together instead of just flattening history. What role could Catford Dreams play in that? “How we talk about the value of a place can affect its future,” he cautions. “I want to show how value can take different forms. It’s not just about what can be sold.”
Daniel Dream’s Catford trail
Walk around Ladywell Fields
It’s the Catford parts of this Green Flag Award-winning park that I really appreciate, including the southwest section around Ravensbourne Park and Bourneville Road.
Have a drink in The Black Cat
There is more than one solid pub in Catford. The Black Cat has a quieter character with a different pub tradition to the Blythe Hill Tavern, but one that’s just as authentic and worth celebrating.
Look out for…
This small but remarkable staircase at the back of Eros House. A Lewisham cousin of the 17th-century one in the crypt of San Carlo alle Quattro Fontane in Rome. Also, the old School Keeper’s Cottage at Holbeach Primary School, which could be straight out of a Wes Anderson film.
Grab a coffee at Servesmiths
A large Costa closed recently on Rushey Green, not long after Servesmiths opened a second café there. Great to see an independent, black-owned business thriving where a chain did not.
Visit a folk sculpture garden
Passfields estate in Catford South is one of only two listed housing estates in Lewisham. Someone has arranged mannequins, oversized objects and other trinkets here with real creative intention.
Eat out at Taste Soul Good
They look after people in practical ways, including feeding those who need a free meal. A generous place that shows what businesses can mean to others when they put community first.
For more on Catford’s architectural history, check out the documentary Another Catford. Then listen to this radio special with the filmmakers that I hosted on Sister Midnight FM in 2025.
I am a volunteer on the board and committee. We have discussed our values at length, particularly what it means to be “rooted in Lewisham” and how to make community building our practice. A key pledge is to bring local people into the development process as early as possible and to give them real agency. That’s the difference between consultation and collaboration.