Town Hall reporter KEN LEE on how even insiders have been forced to admit that the Mayor’s plan to ‘fix the finances’ has flopped
Waste of money: Mayor Perry approved spending £6m on consultants for the transformation plan which has failed
The council and the government-appointed Commissioners are “concerned with transformation pace, focus and outcomes” related to the Town Hall “transformation” plan, according to a leaked internal report which has been published today by The Municipal Journal.
Jason Perry, Croydon’s failed Mayor, approved the move by the council’s previous chief executive, Katherine Kerswell, for the cash-strapped council to spend millions of pounds on external consultants, including Boston Consulting, Impower and Newton, which provided what they called a “transformation” plan.
It was supposed to resolve the authority’s long-standing financial problems. But according to internal document seen by The MJ, the transformation plan has failed. Continue reading
‘Croydon’s Green Belt under threat!’ was the deliberately alarmist headline on a mass email from the Croydon South MP last week. Some have described it as ‘reckless scaremongering’. Others have called it ‘outright lies’.
BARRATT HOLMES, housing correspondent, puts down firm foundations with the facts
Green flash: it is said that you can see MP Chris Philp’s home from Hampstead
At risk of sounding like Corporal Jones from Dad’s Army…
“DON’T PANIC!”
Croydon South’s Tory MP Chris Philp issued another of his data-scraping petitions last week, effectively claiming that London Mayor Sadiq Khan wants to build thousands of homes on Croydon’s Green Belt.
Except Philp’s claim is entirely misleading. And it is entirely false if you live in Sanderstead, or Purley Oaks and Riddlesdown ward, or Purley and Woodcote, Kenley, Coulsdon Town or Old Coulsdon.
Inside Croydon can exclusively reveal that the Green Belt green spaces in all of those wards of Philp’s Croydon South constituency are perfectly safe.
How do we know that? Because the London Mayor’s revised London Plan says so in black and white. Continue reading
The NHS is asking more members of London’s black communities to come forward to donate blood, to assist the thousands of sickle cell patients living in the capital.
Give blood: close to half of the country’s patients with sickle cell live in London, which is why the NHS needs more blood donors from the black communities
Nationally, just 3% of blood donors are black, yet people of black African and Caribbean heritage are up to 10 times more likely to have the Ro blood type required by many sickle cell patients for lifesaving transfusions.
Sickle cell disorder is the fastest-growing genetic condition in Britain, affecting almost 20,000 people – half of those living in London. Continue reading
EXCLUSIVE by STEVEN DOWNES
Closed shop: the Coughlans on High Street Croydon is one of the six that will not be reopening
At least six former branches of Coughlans, the bakers business which wasn’t making enough dough and went into voluntary liquidation earlier this summer, will not be re-opening under the branding of the Gloucestershire-based business that acquired the chain of shops last month.
Documents filed at Companies House show that the appointed liquidators, Bailey Ahmed Ltd, have officially “disclaimed” the company’s interests in the leasehold of six Coughlans branches, three of which are in Croydon and Sutton. Continue reading
Open house: Stanley Halls has guided tours and a public consultation this Sunday
South Norwood’s Stanley Halls is among the many Croydon venues taking part in this weekend’s London Open House Festival.
And as well as two guided tours to look behind the scenes at the heritage and history of the 1903-built Grade II-listed Edwardian theatre, gallery and public hall, there’s also a public consultation meeting taking place on Sunday, September 13, looking at the venue’s future.
Architects Of Change and the venue’s operators, Stanley Arts, will be discussing a three-year capital works regeneration project funded by the National Heritage Lottery Fund. Continue reading
Croydon’s failed Mayor, embarrassed by having his secret plans to axe the council’s adult education programme exposed, has issued a belated explanation to councillors. EXCLUSIVE by STEVEN DOWNES
After months of secrecy and suspicion, Jason Perry, Croydon’s failed Mayor, has finally issued a statement to the borough’s elected councillors about the fate of CALAT, Croydon’s long-standing and widely admired adult education service.
Perry was forced into offering some kind of explanation by this website’s exclusive report earlier this week, which revealed the Mayor’s intention to outsource adult education – that is, cut costs – while forcing CALAT out of its home base in the Croydon Clocktower.
Inside Croydon has obtained a copy of piss-poor Perry’s email to councillors sent on Thursday. It begins with the heading: “Looking to the future of adult learning in Croydon”. It appeared as if it had been drafted by AI. Continue reading
Staged show: (from left) cast Ben Norris, Tim Bentinck, Charlotte Martin and Annabelle Dowler went through their Archers’ schtick at Wimbledon this week
A stage homage to the world’s longest-running soap opera was a nostalgia trip for hundreds of people this week, and another reminder of where Croydon is missing out. By STEVEN DOWNES, who survived the experience without buying any ‘merch’
Week’s wages: the Archers tea towl
There are families, apparently, which define as “Tum-ti-tum, ti-tum-ti CLICK” families.
These are families so averse to The Archers that they turn off their radiogram the moment that Barwick Green crackles out over the airwaves.
There were at least two members from such families on stage for The Archers Live at 75! in Wimbledon this week. And they are both long-standing cast members of the long-running radio show. Both appear to have been won over to a show they could not stand, after benefiting from decades of steady work by the producers of the world’s longest-lasting soap opera.
The Archers Live at 75! is, if the Wimbledon show is anything to judge by, a massive love-in of devotees to the (now) six-times-a-week 15-minute blast of rural melodrama (plus the omnibus on Sundays, of course). The New Wimbledon Theatre was packed with adoring fans, the latest sell-out show in a six-month national tour, where audiences get to see some of their faves in the flesh. Continue reading
A stretch of Purley Downs Road, which runs between South Croydon up the hill to Sanderstead, is to be closed for eight weeks for “essential” gas supply works, starting from this Monday, September 7.
The road will be closed from the mini roundabout at the junction of Riddlesdown Road, up to the railway bridge by Beech Avenue.
The closures are expected to last until Friday October 16. Continue reading
Another three days have passed, and there has still been no news of the 16 members of a tour group from the Coulsdon Mandir who were lost in last week’s catastrophic flooding while on pilgrimage in the Himalayas.
Still no news: some of the pilgrims from the Coulsdon temple, before last week’s horrendous flash flood
It is now being reported that as well as the pilgrims from the Coulsdon temple, four tour guides also remain missing.
Some news is emerging from Nepal, which was devastated by the glacier collapse flood. It is being reported today that two workers have been rescued from deep in tunnels at a hydro-power plant.
News from Tibet, however, where the Coulsdon group led by priest Nabhi Nandan Das was believed to have reached on their pilgrimage to the sacred Mount Kailash, has been more difficult to obtain. Tibet is under control of China. Continue reading
A massive engineering scheme to untangle the tracks that cause the ‘Selhurst bottleneck’ was dumped by the Tory government. Croydon East’s MP has got it back on Westminster’s agenda.
By our transport correspondent, JEREMY CLACKSON
First up: Croydon, and the Selhurst bottleneck, were raised at Andy Burnham’s first PMQs by MP Natasha Irons
Prime Minister Andy Burnham has told the House of Commons that he wants to look at unblocking the railway’s “Selhurst bottleneck” and get a long-standing engineering proposal “back on track”, recognising the importance of transport connectivity and public investment to stimulate growth.
Known formally as CARS – the Croydon Area Remodelling Scheme – the proposals from the rail companies were first raised more than eight years ago, but dumped by the previous Tory government. Continue reading
Spectrum on site: the former pupil’s firm power-washed graffiti and undertook other repair works – all for no fee
Pupils at the world-famous BRIT School in Selhurst returned for the start of their new academic year this week to find the place having undergone a bit of a facelift.
A former pupil at the school, Lucian Ivan, had returned over the summer holidays to carry out repair, cleaning and maintenance services for the school through his business, Spectrum Specialist Support. The work carried out is reckoned to be valued at £40,000. But Ivan did it all for nothing, giving back to the school that he loves.
Doing the right thing: former BRIT pupil Lucian Ivan
“It’s easy to feel frustrated when wider systems leave gaps in something as fundamental as education,” Ivan said.
“But we still have a choice about how we respond. It’s not just about waiting for big top-down changes. When we see gaps, we still have the right to take things into our own hands when something is not right.
“I believe that if someone or something has helped you get to where you are, it is your duty and responsibility to give back when you are able to do so.
“The BRIT School helped me, and now I can involve my company and use what we do every day to help the school.
“This summer, that is exactly what Spectrum has done.” Continue reading
While Ponte Nuovo, one of Croydon’s top-end Italian restaurants, undergoes an expensive refurb, Castellas Fish and Chips, a fixture on Selsdon Road for 60 years, urgently needs replacement parts
Croydon’s so-called “Restaurant Quarter” could be on the brink of suffering its worst blow yet, with the closure of Castellas Fish and Chips on Selsdon Road.
Battered: the South Croydon chippie has been closed for almost a week
Castellas is rated 6* (out of five) and Croydon’s best chippie by Inside Croydon’s intrepid undercover reporter for its excellently cooked cod, brilliant batter and huge portions of on-the-premises prepared chips.
But this fixture of the South Croydon community since 1963 has been temporarily closed for almost a week, as they urgently seek replacement parts for their vintage fryer. Continue reading
Cash-strapped Croydon now has at least three execs, two of them interims, being paid at rates of £200,000 per year or more. But someone in Mayor Jason Perry’s council is trying to keep the latest appointment a secret.
EXCLUSIVE by STEVEN DOWNES
Croydon has appointed a new assistant chief executive, the third one in less than a year, as the churn of top officials at Fisher’s Folly continues unabated, despite dire warnings for Jason Perry’s council from government-appointed Commissioners.
Stephen Gaskell started as the interim assistant chief exec in July, an appointment strangely unmentioned by the propaganda bunker in the council HQ. But our style-over-substance senior civic servants have managed to invent a councilspeak acronym for Gaskell that they use in internal publications: ACE. Geddit?
Unannounced: Stephen Gaskell is ACE, apparently
Gaskell has been recruited because his immediate predecessor, the well-regarded Jenny Rowlands, took barely eight weeks to see the chaos at Croydon Council before she scarpered off to a less-badly run organisation. Perry and his Tory muppets in the council cabinet must be keeping everything crossed that Gaskell manages to stick it out at Croydon for a little longer, at least.
Rowlands was appointed following the abrupt exit in October 2025 of Katherine Kerswell after five years as council CEO and three Section 114 notices. Kerswell quit Croydon just weeks after the government’s Commissioners arrived to oversee the management of the council. Kerswell was helped on her way by a £50,000 pay-off authorised by Mayor Perry.
When Kerswell’s assistant chief exec, Elaine Jackson, stepped up and into the breach, that created the vacancy for an assistant CEO. Continue reading
Night of dance: Morris groups from across south London, Surrey and Kent will be gathering in Addiscombe next week
The glorious local tradition, the annual Croydon Night of Dance, bobs and jingles across the streets of Addiscombe next Tuesday, September 8.
The celebration of Morris dance, maids and men, will be gathering with their bells and instruments outside The Oval Tavern from 7pm, where food and drink will be available for sale and children welcomed, even inside the pub, until 9pm. Continue reading
Council briefing document says Mayor wants to outsource borough’s widely admired adult education service as his latest cost-cutting wheeze.
EXCLUSIVE by STEVEN DOWNES
CALAT, the council-run Croydon Adult Learning and Training organisation, has effectively been evicted from its home in the council-owned Clocktower, amid growing fears that its education services are the next for the chop by the borough’s Mayor, Jason “Philistine” Perry.
The Town Hall Labour opposition has called for an urgent meeting with council bosses, saying that CALAT’s 500-or-so staff, their jobs at risk, are “angry” at the way the situation has been mismanaged. Continue reading
The steady hollowing out of what was once Croydon’s thriving town centre will take another step on September 12 when the Slug and Lettuce on Park Street brings down the shutters after 13 years.
Up for offer: Stonegate Group is inviting applications to take on the town centre pub
The current tenants running the venue, which pitched itself somewhere between a cocktail bar and post-work drinks pub, described the closure as “gutting news”. The venue has not had a refurb for nearly a decade, and like much of its neighbourhood, the Slug was beginning to look a little sad and neglected.
Being located immediately opposite what has been a demolition site since 2019 – the Nestlé Tower and St George’s Walk, where building work ground to a halt six years ago – and the seemingly permanent hoardings across the road will have nothing to provide an attractive prospect for potential customers.
Combine that with the general pressures on the pub trade, and the bar’s management, tenants of the vast Stonegate Group pub business, last month took the decision to close, noting that, “the site is no longer commercially viable”. Continue reading
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