Leading British artists to give run-down areas of Peckham an overdue facelift

Some of Britain's leading artists have begun a facelift of Peckham that will leave the south-east London district unrecognisable to its most famous fictional residents, Del Boy and Rodney from the BBC's Only Fools and Horses.

But some of the plans ­ including bollards in the shape of penises designed by the Turner Prize winner Antony Gormley ­ have alarmed Southwark council, which is behind the initiative. Under a negotiated compromise, local traders have funded the phallic forms and the council is paying for the rest.

Joining Gormley in the project are his fellow Royal Academician Tom Phillips, the designer Zandra Rhodes and a clutch of others who are doing an artistic makeover of the run-down neighbourhood around the Bellenden Road. When the work is complete, the residents will enjoy some of the most individual lampposts, pavements and street murals in the country in a radical regeneration aimed at transforming the area.

Phillips, whose best-known works include portraits of the novelists Iris Murdoch and Salman Rushdie, has turned his eye to elegant lampposts that form a heart shape when viewed from the end of the road and distinctive pavement designs. Manhole covers are framed with different coloured bricks and every shopfront is afforded its own "bar code" pavement design outside.

With an array of coloured cobbles, innovative railings and new topiary, Southwark council believes the multimillion-pound investment over the next seven years will revive the urban community and provide a prototype for regeneration elsewhere. Roger Young, the Southwark housing officer responsible, said yesterday: "It's all work we would have had to have done anyway, but what we're trying to do by doing it this way is make people look differently at Peckham."

Phillips, who shares a studio with Gormley, said he was thrilled: "I've been here for over 40 years and it's the last thing I ever thought would happen. My works are in museums in Britain and America, I'm currently doing a mural for Washington, but very little of what I do gets into the local bloodstream. It's exciting."

Gormley said: "It's a very enlightened scheme where they're really trying to involve the community, including artists. The effect already has been marvellous ­ the general pride in the area has risen."

Scaffolding has just gone up in Bellenden Road ­ the heart of the scheme and a much-used setting for filming Only Fools and Horses, the television comedy ­ for the refurbishment of the shopfronts, including vibrant murals of Italian Murano glass, again by Phillips.

Down the road in East Dulwich, Rhodes has designed her own parade of bollards, lampposts and shop canopies plus a bus stop in the distinctive bright pink for which she is famed.

Sokari Douglas Camp, a Nigerian-born artist featured in the new African galleries at the British Museum, has chosen a tropical theme for the Afro-Caribbean Choumert Market. Her bollards will be decorated with African masks and palm-tree sculpture. She has also devised new designs for the market stalls.

The poet and artist William Blake (1757-18270) once lived on the edge of the district in Peckham Rye where he first experienced the visions that became a feature of his work. He will be immortalised in sculpture and railings by another artist, Andrew Logan, at the old Peckham Lido.

Bill Woodrow, one of whose giant sculptures graced the fourth plinth in Trafalgar Square, is designing a bridge. About 40 artists are involved and others who may contribute in future include Anish Kapoor, another Turner Prize winner.

Mr Young said the project stemmed from the idea of asking residents what they wanted and trying to encourage as much of the regeneration as possible to be done by local people rather than outside contractors. It seemed logical to ask local artists to be part of that. "What's fascinating is that the residents are much more up for it than the timid council," he said.

The Bellenden Road area was chosen after a housing audit found a very high number of poorly maintained houses owned by people on low incomes. An area taking in 3,200 households will benefit from the rolling programme of repairs and refurbishment.

Mr Young receives about £1.6m a year from the housing department for environmental improvements. "We would have to have employed architects but, for example, Zandra Rhodes did it for pennies so we actually saved money," he said.