St Andrew's: the churchyard, a small area to the left of this picture, could offer a patch of paradise in central Croydon, had it not already been covered in tarmac

Doesn’t anyone listen to Joni Mitchell any more?

The thought occurs because St Andrew’s church, on Lower Coombe Street, is staging an open day from 11am tomorrow for its churchyard improvement project.

We’ve reported previously on the church’s recent renovations. While admiring the vicar and his parish’s endeavour and enterprise is raising the serious cash required and undertaking work to regenerate the church’s role in the community, we retain some reservations about the architectural efforts conducted inside the 160-year-old church building, particularly in the area of the historic nave, apparently all for the sake of installing a lavatory.

Now, the church is seeking “feedback” with locals over what is to be done with the churchyard – and this all several months after they have already, to borrow from Ms Mitchell, tarmac’d over a piece of paradise to put up a car park.

In a note circulated locally, they say, “St Andrew’s church has applied for funding from Community Spaces…” The note doesn’t explain for how much, nor what Community Spaces is. We can partially answer the latter: it is an environmental organisation, funded by the Big Lottery Fund. Applications for funding, according to its website today, closed in January. 2011. So St Andrew’s must have put forward some sort of plan for its churchyard scheme more than a year ago.

Some might think it odd, then, that the open day is only now being staged to engage with those locals who are not part of its regular congregation, and to whom they are attempting to reach.

The church’s leaflet continues: “… to improve the churchyard…” well, tarmac-ing over a large portion of it already, to provide parking for no more than three cars, has put a massive dent in that ambition, “… and make it a more interactive and useful space…” oh, dear, spare us the meaningless jargon, please, “…for local residents and the wider community.

“We want to design a garden that reflects your needs so your feedback is really important.”

Only in the fourth paragraph does the leaflet reveal that what they will in fact be doing at this open day is “present our design”. So it is a fait accompli, then.

We have no reason to mistrust the motives of the church in this scheme, but we are concerned that the valuable bequest of local artist Cecily Mary Barker, who worshipped at St Andrew’s throughout her life, might be ill-spent, and certainly consider that after 18 months of major building work having been done, now is somewhat late in the day to engage with residents to “create a garden that benefits everyone locally”.

We certainly wonder whether Cecily Mary Barker would approve of the work that she has in effect paid for. Or even recognise the church which clearly meant so much to her.

• Inside Croydon: brought to you from the heart of the borough, free of charge, an independent voice standing for freedom of speech for the people of Croydon

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But now Inside Croydon learns that with the Metropolitan Police‘s funding under severe pressure, Croydon’s new Borough Commander, Chief Superintendent David Musker, has been forced to strip the Town Centre of the majority of its policing strength.

This latest move follows an earlier cut back, when Croydon’s police unit in the Town Centre was merged with the Fairfield ward neighbourhood team. In total, six sergeants have been cut from the borough’s well-regarded Safer Neighbourhood teams.

Other cuts have been made around the rest of the borough, too, with Kenley station being earmarked for a cost-cutting closure.

In the Town Centre, the 10 officers who will be left on the staff list will represent just the bare minimum to fulfil the agreement through the Business Improvement District, or BID, under which the local businesses pay for five officers on condition that another five officers are match-funded by the Met.

Local business leaders are feeling short-changed by the police, who they accuse of abusing the agreement with businesses, who say that they were led to believe that they were providing funding for extra officers.

“It’s like they are leaving us with no police officers in the Town Centre other than the ones we contracted with the police service for,” a leading Croydon businessman said.

“The Met is actually providing zero policing outside the agreement.”

This seems likely to become a key issue in the upcoming Mayoral and London Assembly elections, with the Conservatives insisting that there are no cuts to police numbers in London despite all evidence to the contrary.

• Inside Croydon: brought to you from the heart of the borough, free of charge, an independent voice standing for freedom of speech for the people of Croydon

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Let’s take Council Tax benefit localisation as an example – hardly the sort of thing many of us would seek out for a little light reading, unless we were in need of a surefire cure for insominia.

But Croydon residents ought to try to understand this, particularly as it will give every local council, including our own, the ability to target particular groups who are eligible for what has been until now an automatic benefit for the unemployed and those on low incomes.

In Croydon, the council has already put plans in place to prioritise social housing for people that work by giving extra housing points to people on low incomes, while penalising the unemployed by reducing their point scores for housing entitlement. At the time, Dudley Mead, the Conservative-controlled council’s cabinet member for housing, said: “There are lots of misconceptions about housing and the way it is allocated and this will help to tackle some of those and create a fairer system to distribute what is a valuable resource.”

Cuddly Dudley, whose own comfortable household benefits from generous allowances of around £90,000 per year paid by the council, will no doubt be crafting some similar soothing words when Croydon’s Council Tax benefit localisation proposals are announced.

According to the report that went to the Croydon Council cabinet on Monday, “As part of the Spending Review 2010, the Government announced that it intends to localise council tax benefit (CTB) from 2013-14 (1st April) with a 10% reduction in the cost of meeting these needs”.

That all sounds innocent enough. But what does it really mean?

It could be characterised as another post code lottery, with different rates of Council Tax benefit being paid to people with largely similar circumstances, just because they live in a different part of the country.

Government ministers were urged to drop the plans, with Helen Jones, the Labour party’s Communities spokesman, saying in a Commons debate, “You need to accept the scheme you are proposing is arbitrary, unfair and hits the working poor most.

“How can you possibly justify cuts of between 13 per cent and 25 per cent in benefits for people of working age and a switch from annually managed expenditure to grant, which means any increase in claims will be paid for by cuts in benefits for the poorest people?”

Croydon CEO Jon Rouse: does he have any influence on the local economy at all?

The Commons’ select committee was also critical of the proposals. In particular, this all-party group whose job it is to scrutinise such proposals took a dislining to the scheme because they saw it as offering local councils an “incentive” to get more of their residents back to work (not of itself a “bad” thing), so that they would no longer need Council Tax support. The select committee spotted the massive flaw in this thinking: the assumption that local economic circumstances are within the control of local authorities, when clearly this not the case.

You only have to look at Croydon’s vast tracts of empty office space, the undeveloped building sites and boarded-up shop fronts, and the hundreds of jobs which have been cut by Croydon Council itself in the past 18 months or so, and then consider whether the fate of the borough’s local economy really is in the hands of  council leader Mike Fisher or chief executive Jon Rouse?

The very arbitrary nature of the Council Tax benefit proposals is that they will give each local council the power to determine how it will allocate the benefit, and just to make them really think about it, central Government will give councils 10 per cent (“Hey! Let’s pluck a random figure out of the air!”) less than they currently spend.

After some lobbying, the Government was forced to make a U-turn as far as its proposals affected pensioners, who will now not be hit by the changes. But this just means that other groups will be even more vulnerable to having their Council Tax benefits reduced, if not cut altogether.

In Bradford, the local council has already had a full-blown debate with a motion highlighting the impact on poorer communities and instructing their director of finance to write a report on the implications for communities in the borough. The Conservatives on that council voted against.

In Croydon, where its reserves have reached £50 million, and are rising, the council’s 2012-2013 budget is already moving financial support away from the vulnerable. Some of the cuts in the Children’s, Families and Learners’ department will hit services to early years, children with learning difficulties, and cut the domestic violence services.

During 2010-2011, Croydon administered more than £38.5 million of Council Tax benefit. So they are already planning on receiving £3.85 million less from Government for the scheme when it is due to start in April next year – barely 12 months ahead of the next council elections.

The next passage of the council report makes for particularly chilling reading. They note that the Government wants local Council Tax benefit schemes to “support work incentives, and, in particular,  avoid disincentives to move into work”. Is this code – council-speak – for removing the benefit from the long-term unemployed?

“The Government is also clear that local authorities are expected to manage the financial risk of any local scheme,” Croydon’s report continues. “This means that should demand for council tax support increase then the cost of this stays with the local authority, this is currently estimated as an increase of £1.3m per year.

“The Council therefore needs to make a policy decision, to absorb these costs or to redesign the local scheme to reduce the level of benefits for an identified group which ensure the reduced level of central government funding is in turn passed through the new local scheme to the council tax benefit claimant.” Those are our italics, for emphasis.

“An identified group”? Who could they have in mind?

Sources in Taberner House have told Inside Croydon that the council cabinet has already been briefed (in secret, of course) on the options, by Nathan Elvery, the deputy CEO whose award-winning council finance team will be charged with coming up with those options. Some consideration ought to be given to the impact of the changes applied in neighbouring boroughs – Croydon cannot practically be more (or less) generous than Sutton or Bromley, for instance.

But there is an ultra-Thatcherite tendancy among some members of the ruling Tory group on Croydon council, who seem to think they are on a sort of holy crusade against any form of socially responsible care for the old, the infirm and the vulnerable.

Given that, the people of Croydon should stand by in the coming months for the rolling out of what may well prove to be a hideous attempt at social engineering, with those unable to find work – in many cases through no fault of their own – facing the invidious choice between going homeless or hungry in their own borough, or being shipped up north in one of Dudley Mead’s schemes to re-house poorer Londoners in Hull or Manchester.

Next, they’ll be singing “Tomorrow Belongs to Me” instead of prayers before council meetings.

• Inside Croydon: brought to you from the heart of the borough, free of charge, an independent voice standing for freedom of speech for the people of Croydon

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• Croydon spends £1.7m on consultants and saves… £800,000 (insidecroydon.com)
• Mead says he’s “proud” of Croydon’s £50m uncollected tax (insidecroydon.com)

Paul Anderson: a foundation stone for a successful club

One of those who assuredly would have been present to see England’s possible Triple Crown decider against Wales would have been Warlingham stalwart Paul Anderson. Anderson had undertaken many volunteer roles at the club, including being youth chairman around the time that Robshaw was playing mini-rugby at Hamsey Green.

But last week, after spending yet another evening helping to organise club rugby business, Anderson died of a heart attack. He was just 54.

So this Friday afternoon, Anderson’s family, friends, Warlingham clubmates and the broader rugby family from south London and Surrey will be at Croydon Crematorium for his funeral, followed by a celebration of his life at the clubhouse, including a veterans’ match with Old Cats.

Having played for the club up to 20 years ago, as an official Anderson was well-known in local rugby, working not just at Warlingham, variously as club chairman, the vital role of fixtures secretary and most recently as administrator, but also with Surrey county for many years. He also served as a magistrate in Kingston.

Anderson was exactly the sort of community-minded person who poured hours of his time, expertise and effort into his passion. “For people who arrived at the club for the first time, Paul was almost always there at the weekend, whether watching his son, Ben, playing, or helping out with the junior section on a Sunday morning,” one club member told Inside Croydon.

“He was always helpful, cheerful and, above all else, wise, someone whose advice was always worth listening to. He was the foundation for much of the success the club has enjoyed in recent years.”

John Collins, the Warlingham chairman, said, “Paul will be sadly missed by many, not least his wife Ann and children Ben and Rebecca, to whom we extend our thoughts and condolences.”

• The funeral will be on February 24 at Croydon Crematorium at 3.45pm, and afterwards at Warlingham RFC. The club says that all are welcome to attend. “The family wish this to be a celebration and have requested that black need not be worn.”

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Ikenna Ezegbe-Akpunonu: two-year fight over residency

Ikenna Ezegbe-Akpunonu, known to his mates at the Old Mid-Whitgiftian rugby club at Sanderstead as Ikay, was recently granted discretionary leave to remain in the UK until January 2015. It ended a two-year wait for an official decision which, had it gone the other way, would have seen the 35-year-old facing deportation to Nigeria.

Now, he is able to find regular work, possibly in IT, and to fulfil one of his lifetime ambitions – to sign up for the British armed forces. He says that he feels “more British than some British people”.

A lack of status had previously stopped Ezegbe-Akpunonu from signing up to serve in the Royal Navy.

Likely to be as fearsome a force on the battlefield as he as a lock forward on the rugby field with Old Midwives, when Ezegbe-Akpunonu lost his right to work in the UK he became dependent on his friends from the rugby club, who took him in and provided him with food and shelter.

His rugby team mates’ support only increased when Ezegbe-Akpunonu was told by an immigration judge that had he not played by the rules he would have found it find it easier to secure residency in the UK. Only his friends’ intercession saved him for deportation, with just hours to spare.

“I don’t know how to re-pay these people,” Ezegbe-Akpunonu said.

It does seem that some people at the rugby club have a few ideas… Russ Jones at Old Mid Whitgiftians says that, “Ikay has continued to play an active role in the rugby club and is waiting to do a referee and coaching course, as he wants to give something back to the community and club through being more involved with the juniors.”

Jones thanked club members for all the support given to Ezegbe-Akpunonu. “From the letters you have written to your MPs, to the day you all turned up at the club to show support when Andrew Pelling (the then MP for Croydon) came up to find out about the case, to the donations some of you put in for Ikay’s legal funds, to even providing Ikay with a roof over his head when he lost his permit to work…

“It has all made a difference and it has made me proud to be associated to this great club surrounded by so many great people.”

• Inside Croydon: brought to you from the heart of the borough, free of charge, an independent voice standing for freedom of speech for the people of Croydon

So where were we?

Well, the impending axing of a number of the council’s Street Scene Officers in the next few weeks could make the random dumping of rubbish on our streets all the worse, since there will not be anyone from Croydon Council actively monitoring the state of our streets. It will all be down to you, dear reader, to ensure that you log your complaints to the council’s helpline:

020 8686 4433

From Inside Croydon Towers, this heap of rubbish has been seen festering on the street for the past two weeks.

South Croydon, February 2012

We reported the dumped rubbish a fortnight ago. Since then, a fairly disengaged roadsweeper has pushed his cart past the pile a couple of times, poking and prodding here and there. But the rubbish remains.

Who dumped it there? Why? And why is it still there after such a long period of time?

South Croydon, February 19, 2012

One part of the answer might be because the first pile of crap is on a residential side road, it is out of sight, out of mind as far as Croydon Council is concerned.

The rubbish pile in the second picture – apparently comprising domestic rubbish and packaging – was left out within a day of the regular weekly refuse collection, literally on the doorsteps of a couple of shop and flats, and on a busy main road. The council – and Council Tax-payers – incurred the cost of someone being called out to clear up someone else’s mess and it was gone within 24 hours.

The problems for Croydon Council, and residents, continue to pile up, together with the rubbish, even in the Shangri-la of the leafier suburbs such as Selsdon and Shirley.

The recent bad weather meant that for some roads, the wheelie bin collections were missed at the start of the month. In the past, when the collections were weekly, the matter would be resolved within a matter of days.

But in another case of the Law of Unintended Consequences, Croydon’s new fortnightly schedule has left some Shirley residents with four weeks’ worth of black bin bags piling up in their wheelie bins, until earlier today.

In a residential area where many of the householders are elderly or infirm, shunting an overloaded wheelie bin containing up to four times the contents it is designed to hold on to the pavement is almost impossible. Even some of the brawny bin men struggled to move the bins to their van.

Shirley, February 21 2012

According to our (unscientific) survey, only 1 in 5 of Inside Croydon readers are entirely satisfied with the new rubbish collection routine, while more than 50 per cent of our readers say that they have endured four or more missed collections of their bins or recycling since Croydon Council introduced this latest cost-cutting wheeze in October.

Feb 9: UPDATE 5: Welcome to Croydon!

Here’s a picture of the mess on the doorstep of the reception to Croydon Council’s own offices. Looked at, it seems to be blow-in street rubbish that has been accumulating there for some time.

Rubbish outside the corporate reception entrance at Taberner House, central Croydon, February 8

We wonder whether CEO Jon Rouse will be phoning the customer services department to add to the 150 per cent rise in complaints about the failings of his council’s services?

Such has been the success of our Garbage Gallery that today the Croydon Guardian has joined in, posting a report and photos from Heron Road, Addiscombe, where fly tippers had dumped a van load of rubbish on Monday. It was not cleared until yesterday. Click here for the Guardian report.

Feb 1: UPDATE 4: So much for Gavin Barwell MP’s merry band of litter pickers and their efforts to clean up at College Green last weekend – these refuse bags have been piled up, somewhat picturesquely, for the past two days.

Croydon Council’s press office denied that it was bagged-up and dumped after planning executive director Stephen McDonald cleared his desk on Tuesday.

More rubbish piles up in central Croydon, between Fairfield Halls and College Green. Jan 31- Feb 1

And thanks to Inside Croydon‘s loyal reader, the rubbish pictures keep piling up. There’s more below

Check out our report on the failings of Croydon’s rubbish collection and recycling system by clicking here.

More rubbish, carelessly dumped, on the streets of Croydon: The Retreat, Thornton Heath, Jan 20

This delightful sight was to be found round the back of Selhurst Park and Sainsbury's. Every little bit helps. Jan 20

Jan 27: UPDATE 3: Further proof, if any were necessary, that Croydon is becoming a grubbier place, litter-strewn and with an inadequate bin collection or road sweeping service, comes from Croydon Central MP Gavin Barwell.

Barwell has a merry band of litter pickers that has regularly toured Croydon’s parks and open spaces. But tomorrow, Gav’s top team is coming close to the centre of town.

Barwell writes: “The volunteer clean-up team that I set up is out this Saturday morning but rather than clean up a local park we are going to turn our attention to Croydon town centre, specifically College Green (the area between Croydon College and the Fairfield Halls) and, if we get enough people, Cherry Orchard Road.

“We are meeting at 10.30am on College Green outside the new Croydon College buildings.”

Can there be stronger affirmation that one of the council’s services that is paid for out of our Council Tax is not being done adequately?

Certainly, Inside Croydon readers’ pictures seem to demonstrate that rubbish is piling up on our streets. Keep sending in your pictures to insidecroydon@btinternet.com, noting the date and location of when the photograph was taken.

The over-flowing wheelie bin pulled out and obstructing the pavement is rapidly becoming emblematic of Croydon in 2012. With collections reduced to once a fortnight, residents' bins are inadequate for the number of bin bags they generate. But worse - this set of pictures was taken on Sanderstead Hill last week (Jan 20), on the day AFTER the bin collection was supposed to have taken place. Another missed collection

Sanderstead, Jan 20, the day AFTER the collection was due

Sanderstead, Jan 20

Going to the next Crystal Palace home game? Better hope it doesn't rain the day beforehand. This rubbish-strewn puddle, Selhurst Park, Jan 15 2012

Thornton Heath High Street, Jan 17, 2012: Isn't this "bin" emblematic of Croydon today? It is one of two bottomless council bins on the high street at Thornton Heath that have been unrepaired or replaced for longer than locals can remember

Near East Croydon station, Jan 18: a wonderful welcome to the delights of Croydon for arriving commuters

Even Croydon Council's contractors cannot be held responsible for the over-spilling rubbish outside someone's home on Galpins Road; Jan 14 2012

The delights outside some private garages in Thornton Heath. Picture taken in second week of January

Sunday morning in January in South Croydon: dumped rubbish, someone else's problem

Some residents are taking direct action. The signs read: "continued fouling by dogs with anti-social and irresponsible owners" will lead to prosecution. Wandle Road, central Croydon, January 2012

Another example, were any needed, that fortnightly collections are not frequent enough for some households. South Croydon, Jan 2012

Article first published Jan 16 2012
First update: Jan 18 2012
Second update: Jan 21 2012
Third update: Jan 27 2012
Fourth update: Feb 1 2012
Fifth update: Feb 9, 2012
Sixth update: Feb 21, 2012

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Mike Fisher, Croydon's brave leader - wants cuts for everyone else, other than himself and a few of his mates

So, no Council Tax increase in Croydon for a second year. That’s got to be a good thing. Isn’t it?

Inevitably, a no-increase Council Tax is only a good thing if you accept the propaganda issued by the council’s press office on a superficial, no-questions-asked basis. In fact, the residents of Croydon are effecyively paying considerably more for fewer services than they were in the past.

Take this example: Say on one day, half a dozen eggs in the local corner shop or Tesco’s cost you £1.20. The next day, when you went to buy some more eggs, they were still £1.20 per box, but inside each box, you only got five eggs. Is that really a price “freeze”, or is it in fact an increase in what you are paying?

That’s exactly what’s happening in Croydon over the past 18 months, and looks set to continue for another year.

One of the documents being considered in this week’s annual round of budget discussions is the report from the council’s scrutiny committee meeting last month which invited Mike Fisher, our brave leader, and key officers to explain the setting of the Council Tax.

At that meeting, Fisher said that the budget options highlighted a desire not to increase Council Tax as the council recognised the increased financial pressures on residents.

Of course, what that comment fails to point out is that Croydon Council is not allowed, by the government, to increase Council Tax without risking swingeing financial penalties – something that Fisher and the council’s “Efficiency Tzar” Nathan Elvery omitted to mention in all their reports. Thus the illusion is created that Croydon is freezing Council Tax for the sake of the residents, instead of the reality – because they have been told they have to.

Fisher also says that the council wishes to protect frontline services. But even a cursory glance at the so-called “efficiencies” and cuts being proposed to council services demonstrates that in reality, this is very far from the case.

“Frontline” services, such as those provided by Adult Social Care and the Housing and the Children’s departments are to suffer another round of cuts in the coming year, each of around 2.5 per cent.

Fairfield Halls to get £26 million from the council, as Croydon wields the axe on its own arts and heritage department

Meanwhile, Taberner House’s “central” departments, which include Finance (the people who write the budget), and those who provide support to councillors, the chief executive’s department and Human Resources, have been lined up for a cut of less than 2 per cent.

It could be argued that it is unwise to cut the finance function, as even with their current staffing, they have failed to stop an overspend across the council, which stood at £2.4 million before £1.6 million was slipped on to the balance sheet from the council’s reserves in December.

The scrutiny committee did ask about the need for reserves and at that point they were advised by officers, presumably Elvery, that it was the reserve for unexpected emergencies, like the riots. Unmentioned was the annual exercise of raiding the reserves to hide the corporate failure to stick to the council’s annual budget.

So given the failure to balance the books and meet budget targets, a few less bodies in the finance department could cost the council dearly – after all, it has still got that £50 million mountain of uncollected Council Tax to address. Oddly, one thing missing from the scrutiny presentation was Croydon’s Council Tax collection rate (which is among the worst of all outer London boroughs).

Primary schools to get a fraction of the millions given to Fairfield Halls

Fisher stated that the council was making “significant investment” to the borough’s infrastructure, a point reinforced by Jon Rouse, the chief executive, who talked about the desperate need for repair within the fabric of the borough.

Hold that thought for a moment, and then consider that the third highest amount of the council’s capital investment is actually going to Fairfield Halls (a private commercial organisation), to the tune of a staggering £26 million.

Now compare that to the amount of money which Fisher and our councillors are setting aside as what they describe as “significant investment” for the 85 primary schools across the length and breadth of the borough: a grand total of just £7 million, and this at a time when Croydon has a large number of children sitting at home not being educated because they can’t get a school place.

Of course, the lack of primary school places is a London-wide problem. Had Fisher bothered to attend the London-wide congress of council leaders last year, where this issue was discussed, he may have been better informed.

The “Public Realm” across the borough is to get £16 million – or £10 million less than one privately owned building, the Fairfield Halls, that arguably does not serve all communities and age groups equally across the borough, given its rather limited programme of events.

In fact, the privately run Fairfield Halls is even getting more from Croydon Council in 2012-2013 than the regeneration pot allocated to the refurbishment of London Road following the riots.

The London council leaders’ congress that Fisher, who receives allowances of £53,000 per year in his role as Croydon’s council leader, failed to attend also discussed the post-riots London Recovery Plan and the special fund of £50 million which had been set up.

Elvery explained that for services and departments that were not judged a “high public priority”, the emphasis was to seek to reduce overhead costs and identify efficiencies.

Now, under the proposed council budget, gross expenditure in Elvery’s own department increases by 9 per cent. That will mean that the Finance department has more than three and a half times the spending of the Planning and Environment department, and nearly double that of Adult Social Care and Housing. A “high public priority”?

The true extent of the spend here is hidden by recharges and other income generation that keeps the actual net budget relatively small. However, finance still has 700 staff, and of these only around 145 work in the contact centre. That means that the bulk of the staff in Elvery’s apparently ring-fenced department do not have a “public-facing” role.

That also makes it one of the council’s largest departments – huge compared to the chief executive’s 166 (although nine of these are dedicated to working in Jon Rouse’s office). That empire-building 700 under Elvery is unprecedented for a central department in Croydon Council.

The new council HQ building - built at a cost of at least £123 million

Fisher was challenged at the scrutiny meeting on the need to make significant numbers of staff in the Children’s department redundant while continuing to build the shiny new Headquarters.

In response, Fisher said the costs of the HQ – part of a £450 million regeneration scheme of council properties – were exaggerated. The only trouble is, we just have to take Fisher’s word for that, because the council has never been transparent about the costs of building the wonderful, new, palatial council offices, and it still refuses to provide key information – even to the point of defying the Office of the Information Commissioner over FOIs on the subject. So any “exaggeration” of figures about the new HQ building is really all Fisher’s own fault.

Fisher did put a figure on the cost of building Bernard Weatherill House: £123 million. “Whilst still a substantial investment, this figure represented the most cost-effective way of delivering efficient services for the future,” the minutes record our brave leader as arguing.

One of the key reasons for moving to new offices, Fisher went on to say, was that Taberner House would be too expensive to continue to maintain and run. This decision was based on the report produced by Mace, one of Croydon Council’s favourite consultants and contractors, and a company which stands to benefit financially from the building of the new HQ as they were already lined up as the project managers for the build. Mace were paid £750,000 by Croydon Council last year, presumably the bulk of which was for working on the HQ project.

And what was the cost of keeping Taberner House fit for purpose for another 10 years? The committee noted that it was £40 million – more than £80 million less than the cost of building the shiny new replacement.

Incidentally, the scrutiny function itself is up for a cut of two staff – maybe they are scrutinising too much?

Council claims to save millions, by hiring someone on £765 per day

Let’s consider the investment items, where the council is putting in extra money. When we look at Planning, it’s all very important stuff, with more money for town centre cleansing, and more money for the marginal ward of Waddon, whose three seats keep the Conservatives with a majority on the council.

Then we come to Nathan Elvery’s award-winning Resources and Customer Services and we see items like:

• Court Cost income unachievable
• Access Strategy Benefits shortfall
• Contract Centre Voice Recognition savings undeliverable

These are all things that have failed, while the council has incurred considerable extra procurement costs for its ICT contract. This from a council which barely a week ago was defending the use of a £765 a day interim head of procurement because he was supposed to be saving the council millions in procurement. Croydon Council spent a total of £20 million of your money last year on expensive interim staff and consultants.

Croydon's deputy CEO Nathan Elvery: empire building, while cutting services elsewhere?

Meanwhile, there are to be cuts to staff in areas such as learning disability, welfare rights and the tenancy relations team, along with a massive cut in the Children’s department where there are to be 10 redundancies in the early years section alone, along with cuts in areas like the safeguarding board and reductions to the school improvement programme. All of these points were picked up by the scrutiny committee.

Fisher’s reply was that the government wants councils to have less to do with education. But what about overseeing the welfare of Croydon’s children?

Further reductions include staff cuts to the domestic violence unit, although one growth area seems to be picking up stray dogs. Croydon really does understand where its priorities are. Further savings include a reduction of one press officer. Just the one?

Then we move on to the Step Change efficiencies which include 34 job losses through closing children’s homes, five redundancies in school improvement and a staggering 27 jobs to go in what is left of Arts and Heritage. This from a council that is lobbing £26 million to a private arts venue in the borough. This looks less like a strategy for cuts, and more like favouritism and patronage.

Then we move on to the cuts where the council has decided to stop doing things. In Adult Social Care and Housing, that includes the closure of Craignish Short Stay Unit, at a saving of £186,000 – or the cost of hiring one interim consultant for a year, such as the aforementioned Paul Davies.

The cuts in the Children’s also include a reduction in funding to voluntary groups for supplementary education, mentoring and community languages – vital for these organisations to survive, and all for the sake of saving £30,000.

Throughout Croydon Council’s cabinet papers, services to the most vulnerable in Croydon are being axed, while multi-million pound capital grants to the likes of the Fairfield Halls and the budget for failing, large internal council departments, such as Finance, are ring-fenced.

Last week, in looking at the top salaries on Croydon Council, we posed the rhetorical question: are we really all in this together?

One passage from the Appendix to the scrutiny committee’s report demonstrates beyond question just how concerned Mike Fisher and his mates are primarily concerned with feathering their own nest, rather than the interests of the people of Croydon, who they are supposed to represent.

“Members [of the scruting committee] asked for confirmation of the percentage decrease in funding that the Council had received. Officers [that is, Rouse and Elvery] explained that the available funding had decreased by 13.5 per cent over the last four years.”

Then comes the good bit: “It was therefore suggested by some members of the Committee that it would be appropriate for the Cabinet to have a corresponding reduction of one post, to reflect the Council’s diminished size and as a symbolic gesture, especially as each Cabinet Member was in receipt of £40-50,000.”

So, let’s cut the number of Conservative councillors who pocket £40,000-plus per year, as a symbolic gesture, to show we’re all in it together, right? Wrong, according to Mike Fisher.

The report says: “The Leader explained that whilst this was an option, he was concerned at the impact on democratic responsibility that could be caused by concentrating decision-making power into fewer positions.” Like making key decisions in secret, among 10 hand-picked Tories, rather than debated and discussed in full council with all 70 elected councillors?

The report continues: “He was also confident that all ten members of the Cabinet carried out vital functions and performed well.” Mike Fisher trousers £53,000 in allowances each year as leader of Croydon Council.

When you analyse the areas to suffer the greatest cut-backs in council funding, it is clear to see where Mike Fisher, Jon Rouse and Nathan Elvery’s priorities lay.

• Inside Croydon: brought to you from the heart of the borough, free of charge, an independent voice standing for freedom of speech for the people of Croydon

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June Ross-Wildman wants Croydon to Give More - even if it is close to its sell-by date

So it was good to see this week a woman from Croydon helping to launch a national campaign to encourage us all to try to “do our bit”, however modestly, but to give just a little extra.

Give More is a campaign to encourage people to give more – it might be time or energy, not just cash, in 2012 to the causes they are care about.

June Ross-Wildman, from Croydon, founded Esther Community Enterprise in 2005, a charity organisation whose work for the homeless and disadvantaged throughout the borough and the capital has been recognised by the Queen’s Award for Voluntary Service. “Giving Purpose to Surplus” is ECE’s mission statement, as it sets out to redistribute food, clothing and other consumables that they receive from retailers.

Access to food is a right and not a privilege, ECE says, maintaining that “everything that we take, we use. Nothing get’s wasted”. With several bases throughout Croydon and the rest of London, ECE says it helps to provide food to more than 8,000 people every month.

ECE supports organisations, groups and projects across London and the UK, working with retail organisations who share the same goals of reducing food waste that would be destined to landfill sites.

On Tuesday, Ross-Wildman spoke at the Give More launch in the BT Tower to encourage everyone to try to offer a little more support to organisations such as ECE.

“I realised I could make a difference in my community by redirecting food from retailers to those who would benefit – but I can’t do this alone,” she told the audience at the press launch.

“Esther Community Enterprise has been sustained through the goodwill and hard work of over 100 drivers and countless volunteers, who contribute their time, transportation and finance. We collect near sell-by date food on a daily basis from a range of retailers and divert it to those that need it most,” she said.

And like other organisations involved with Give More, ECE is always seeking additional volunteers, in Croydon and elsewhere.

BT, NSPCC, Marie Curie Cancer Care and high-profile public figures, including broadcaster Martyn Lewis and founder of ChildLine, Esther Rantzen, have already signed up for the Give More campaign.

For many, times are tougher than ever. Nearly 3 million are unemployed, there’s record rates of youth unemployment, 1 in 5 children are below the poverty line and 5.7 million households struggling to pay bills – while public services and voluntary organisations are struggling to cope with increased demand and face funding pressures of their own.

Tamar Ghosh, Campaign Director, Give More, said: “Our natural response is to look to the state, but it is unable to respond to all the issues. So who can? The answer is ‘all of us’.

“The UK has a long tradition of giving money, time, and energy to charity – so the aim of Give More is to harness this generosity and inspire us to become an even greater giving nation – because we can all make a huge difference by making a public commitment to give more and talk more about giving.”

• The official launch of Give More is in mid-April 2012, but in advance people are being urged to pledge their support at www.givemore.org.uk

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There’s a mystical land out to the west of us.

From Croydon, you can’t get there by tram unless you go to Wimbledon and change.

You can’t go there by train unless you go to Clapham Junction and change.

You can’t get there by bus unless you change at Sutton.

By car, you need to put your shock absorbers to the test via the speed humps of Cheam and North Cheam.

No wonder Worcester Park remains a mystery to Croydon people. Even Sutton politicians sometimes say it has more in common with Kingston.

In that far off place, there’s been a bit of a political earthquake this week, whose shock waves will yet reach to Croydon.

Over in Sutton, the Conservatives are not the force that they are in Croydon. The Conservatives enjoyed an encouraging performance at the council elections in 2006, when the Tories won 22 seats on Sutton council, up from a rump of just eight seats. For the 2010 election, the presumption was that one last push would take the Conservatives up to and over the 28-seat threshold needed to gain control of Sutton’s local affairs.

Send for “Super” Steve!

Yet on the night when the electorate across Britain forced Nick Clegg and David Cameron into a shot-gun marriage of a coalition government at Westminster, the Tories in Sutton were routed by those tricky Lib-Dems. Sutton’s Conservatives lost half their seats, clinging on to just 11, as their rivals on the council, running on the coat tails of the two local Liberal Democrat MPs running in the General Election, produced a very good result.

Another 350 votes for the Lib-Dems in key wards would have reduced the Conservative representation on Sutton’s council even further, to just six.

Following this electoral debacle, Sutton’s Conservatives turned to the Croydon and Sutton London Assembly member, Steve O’Connell, and asked him to be the Conservative Parliamentary spokesman for the borough of Sutton, with a view to plot a Tory return to power on the council.

For O’Connell, who is also the Croydon councillor for Kenley, of course, this added yet another job to his bulging portfolio. At the time, we reckon that the former mortgage salesman was trying to fulfil five jobs – though he’s back down to a “mere” four now, since last month’s abolition of the Metropolitan Police Authority, where he was once the chairman of the finance committee.

We live in interesting times. When Sutton’s Tories called for “Super” Steve to mastermind their revival, the Lib-Dems – in government for the first time in almost a century – were being vilified in the national media for breaking their extravagant election promises. In Sutton, the Tories hoped to capitalise on the Lib-Dems’ weak showing in the national opinion polls to allow them to pick up a council seat in a by-election in Worcester Park, called after a Liberal Democrat councillor stood down.

The by-election took place on Thursday and the result was an astounding further swing from the Conservatives to the Liberal Democrats, beyond even the victory secured when Nick Clegg was basking in the bright lights of his General Election TV debates.

Roger Roberts: Lib-Dem who gave Tories a bloody nose in Worcester Park by-election

On Thursday, the Conservatives slumped, failing to secure even 1,000 votes in a ward where they had managed to hold one of the three seats less than two years ago. The Lib Dem candidate, Roger Roberts, took 47 per cent of the vote (nearly a 3 per cent improvement), while the Tories were down from 41 per cent in 2010 to just 33 per cent, for a seat where they had serious ambitions of victory.

The swing from the Conservatives to Liberal Democrats was so large that if it was repeated at an election for the whole of Sutton council, the Conservatives would be left with just two councillors, against 52 Lib-Dems. Even O’Connell was forced to concede that the Tories’ performance was “poor”.

Labour also suffered, just putting on 1 per cent to their 2010 share of the vote, though at least they got into double figures.

That was all a welcome relief compared to their previous fourth placed crushings by tactical voting squeezes orchestrated by the Lib-Dems in neighbouring wards’ by-elections. Labour had been shamed in securing just 3.2 per cent behind UKIP in 2008 in Cheam and an even worse 2.7 per cent behind the BNP in 2009 in Nonsuch ward.

Certainly, Labour did better than the Greens on Thursday, who polled a pitiful 1.6 per cent. Worcester Park is up-wind of Beddington Lane, so while it is Sutton Council which is to build the waste incinerator, neither Greens nor Labour made the incinerator issue count in the election.

Fundamentally, Thursday’s result leaves the Conservatives wondering whether they’ll ever get close to power again in Sutton Civic Centre, where the Liberal Democrats have ruled now for 26 years.

Such a strong showing will also get Croydon Conservatives worrying about the mixing of the bloods that will come from having Parliamentary boundaries crossing the borough border with Sutton.

Steve O'Connell: has he taken on at least one job too many?

There is a crisis brewing for Sutton Conservatives arising from a further reduction in their vote in Worcester Park which leaves O’Connell reading the runes carefully for the London Assembly election at the beginning of May. It is not as if his new role in Sutton has been a wonderful success so far. If anything, parachuting in the country’s most overpaid local councillor seems to have had a deleterious effect on the Conservative vote in Sutton.

If the Lib-Dems repeated this improvement in their electoral standing in Worcester Park in their vote share across the whole of Sutton in the London Assembly elections in May, O’Connell could even see his own vote outpaced by the Lib-Dems by almost 2 to 1 in the smaller of the two boroughs in his Croydon and Sutton seat, based on assumptions using the 2010 local election results in Sutton.

An erosion of the Conservative vote in Sutton would also leave the Conservative candidate exposed to a strong showing by Labour in Croydon. The Lib-Dems remain weak in Croydon and this geographical split of the Conservatives’ main opponents – Lib-Dem in Sutton and Labour in the almost twice as large Croydon – gives the Tories their main buttress in defending the Assembly seat.

Tories in need of a “Boris Boost”

A likely overall result in the Croydon and Sutton Assembly seat would now see a Conservative majority over Labour of just 11,500, compared to the impressive 42,665 majority over Labour secured four years ago in 2008, when O’Connell first won a place at City Hall.

This result prediction relies on adjusting for the Worcester Park result as applied against the 2010 Sutton local council elections and using changes in national opinion poll standings to adjust the Croydon 2010 local election results. An assumption is also made using differential turnout figures from Croydon local elections, because of the lower turnout seen on Mayoral election day compared to General Election day among Labour supporters.

The likely share of the vote for Croydon and Sutton can currently be predicted as:

• Conservative 35.1%
• Labour 28.1%
• LibDem 26.4%
• Others 10.4%

Good cause then for O’Connell to motivate his troops and to sort out the crisis over the future of Conservatives in Sutton.

A different result prediction can be computed employing adjustments for opinion poll changes using the 2008 Assembly election figures in Croydon as the base assumption for performance where Boris Johnson’s strong showing in outer London gave a significant boost to Conservative Assembly candidates. Adjusting the prediction to factor in a “Boris boost” and the usually better performance by Conservatives over Lib-Dems and Labour in London government elections would see the O’Connell majority stretch to 17,000 and the overall result stand at

• Conservative 36.7%
• Labour 26.2%
• LibDem 24.1%

An important rivalry between Lib-Dems and Labour for second place is re-opening as well,  after the Lib-Dems’ Worcester Park showing.

If the Lib-Dems can find the resources to export their spectacular performance in the small Worcester Park ward to the whole of Sutton on May 3, they’ll get closer to recapturing the second place they had in the Assembly seat up to 2008. That would be
important to any Lib-Dem candidate, perhaps Tom Brake MP, fighting a mixed Sutton/Croydon parliamentary seat and wanting to use the old but still effective Lib-Dem slogan “Liberal Democrats – Winning here”.

It would also have the side-effect of improving the prospects for a Conservative win in May as the Lib-Dems support in Croydon is currently so paltry that they can only distract from Labour setting a challenge to the Tories.

• For more on the mysteries of Worcester Park, the area’s own hyperlocal blog is well worth a look.

• Andrew Pelling is a former Conservative Assembly Member for Croydon and Sutton, and until 2010 was MP for Croydon Central

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Tram-unlink: this morning's derailment

The multi-million pound Tramlink upgrade in central Croydon went well and truly off the tracks this morning, with a derailment opposite East Croydon station.

The derailment meant even more disruption for tram users, with the already reduced service now forced to operate eastwards from Sandilands and westwards from George Street.

Rail accident investigators were on the scene.

The incident occurred when the first carriage of a westbound tram, which was proceeding to the southern-most platform, but that after travelling over the points east of the tram stop, the second carriage was directed to the middle platform.

The tram started to jack-knife but lost power after disconnecting from the overhead power supply so limiting further damage.

There were no reports of anyone being hurt in the incident.

Investigators on the scene at East Croydon

An official from the Rail Accident Investigative Branch would not comment on the possible cause of the incident.

The central section of the Tramlink network has been closed for a week while TfL conducts £5 million-worth of upgrades to the system to provide “a smoother ride”, according to a TfL spokesman.

The works, which were due to be completed this weekend, include adjustments to the track bends and platforms, thought in part to be to accommodate the six new trams bought from Switzerland, which are longer than the existing stock.

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