Category Archives: URV
Oi! Could the Town Hall do the Lambeth Walk under Labour?
Croydon’s Labour party looks like adopting a new approach to offer to the electorate ahead of the 2014 local elections. Labour wants to offer “a council run for the town, not the Town Hall”, according to the deputy leader of … Continue reading
“No service will be untouched” in further cuts, says CEO
Maybe it is the “interim” element of the title that gives Nathan Elvery a touch of impermanence as Croydon’s chief executive, a bit like Rafa Benitez, the unloved and unappreciated “interim” manager at Chelsea football club. Or maybe, as a … Continue reading
£3.1m on HQ’s furniture is “value for money” in Croydon
Lewis Carroll couldn’t have made this up. There is a proposal going before Croydon Council’s corporate services committee on Wednesday that suggests spending £3.14 million of public money on new furniture and fittings for Bernard Weatherill House, the council headquarters … Continue reading
Trebles all round? Croydon return pot-less from awards
Four tables booked at a five-star West End hotel. Around 40 councillors and council staff attending. Something like £28,000 spent on a night’s gala dinner, booze and jollity. And not a single award won. That is the summary of this … Continue reading
Emergency meeting called on sell-off of public libraries
There will be an emergency meeting of Croydon Council on Monday evening, when Tim Pollard will be called to account for the shambolic handling of the Conservative-led administration’s attempts to sell-off the borough’s libraries. The opposition Labour group has called … Continue reading
Croydon’s “only a Championship location” says planning chief
As Gavin Barwell once said, Croydon has an image problem. Our photograph, taken in Cannes yesterday morning, of the White Label-managed stand at the MIPIM commercial property trade exhibition, shows that our south London borough is proving less of a … Continue reading
White Label’s “no Cannes do” with conference publicity
Whoops. Looks like another clanger dropped by White Label, the PR agency that is ubiquitous in Croydon Council business.
Planning conflicts of interest? In Croydon? Don’t be silly
The Daily Torygraph, that bastion of left-wing revolutionaries, yesterday ran a fascinating report on how some councillors had been abusing their position within local authority planning committees to line their own pockets. Or purses. Shock! Horror! This, of course, would … Continue reading
Fairfield in discussions over cinema use of new studio threatre
Supporters of two of the borough’s neglected arts venues, the David Lean Cinema and the Warehouse Theatre, are expected to be very concerned that management at Fairfield Halls have been holding meetings with cinema operators over the possible use of … Continue reading
Laings quit £30m Croydon libraries privatisation deal
Croydon Council’s plan to privatise our public libraries was in ruins tonight, as its hand-picked partners were revealed to have walked away from the £30 million, eight-year deal. And Eddy Arram, the Tory mayor in charge of tonight’s meeting at … Continue reading
Council takes four tables at awards – against Pickles’ advice
Around 40 Conservative councillors, senior Croydon Council officials and their chums will be attending the annual binge of champagne-swilling and back-slapping at a five-star West End hotel next month that is the Local Government Chronicle Awards, all at a cost … Continue reading
Whoops… Council setting the agenda for blunders
Croydon’s Council Tax increase comes while record amounts are being spent in Taberner House on expensive consultants and staff in the communications department, the propaganda department which uses public money to deceive and publish half-truths and misinformation about the council’s … Continue reading
1.85%: Croydon in a Pickles over Council Tax hike
Mike Fisher, the leader of the Conservative group that tries to run Croydon Council, tonight raised the white flag at the Town Hall when – at the latest possible moment on a Friday evening just before half-term week – he … Continue reading
Council to get glitzy slap on the back from its contractors again
The leadership at Croydon Council – motto “Proud to Swerve” – has so little to celebrate in its mismanagement of the borough that it all-too-often goes out of its way to boast about often bogus accolades. Inside Croydon has highlighted … Continue reading
