UPDATE 4: September 27: And still our loyal reader continues to find examples of criminal fly tipping, lack of good neighbourliness or plain and simple selfish laziness, and send us pictures of the sad and bad state of Croydon’s grotty streets.

Just off Thornton Heath High Street last month: maybe those rubbish collections once a fortnight isn’t working?

• Don’t forget, send us your rubbish pictures to inside.croydon@btinternet.com

This, too, was spotted in Thornton Heath, earlier in September. Dumping old furniture on the street clearly makes it someone else’s problem

What is it about the area around Thornton Heath that makes some think that they can get rid of their rubbish and unwanted furniture by leaving it on someone else’s doorstep (this is a rhetorical question)?

Every action has an equal reaction: And here, on Upper Grove, you can see the impact of Croydon reverting to fortnightly bin collections – a scene that is repeated on streets across the borough

And it is not just in the north of the borough where there’s a messy problem smeared all across our streets.

Here’s a grubby street scene on Southbridge Road: while local Tory councillors boast about “record” rates of recycling, some flat dwellers simply dump their rubbish on the road. This picture was taken on the afternoon last week after the regular rubbish collection. The council appear reluctant to act against those who do this

UPDATE 3: September 21: Thanks to our loyal reader (and we think there might be more than one), the email inbox at Inside Croydon Towers is full to bursting with rubbish pictures. Either that, or the iOS7 download has gone horribly wrong.

What has come, with some pictures having been taken over the last six weeks or so, demonstrates that it is not just fly tippers who are using Croydon’s streets as a dumping ground.

The first image was contributed by the Sage of Waddon, Arfur Towcrate.

This picture, taken on Church Street on Tuesday, demonstrates the scant respect some Croydon residents (this has the look of a domestic dump, rather than industrial-scale fly tipping) have for their neighbours or neighbourhood. But it saved them a few bob from getting their old suite down to the tip

Some dumping “sites” around the borough appear to be used by people just too lazy to put their bins out when the regular collections take place.

Scroll down this page to September 14 and see the fly tipping on Fairgreen Road.

Once that got cleared, barely a day later this was the scene…

Look familiar?Reader Terry Coleman says that these bags were dumped at this street corner within a day of the council having cleared the previous fly tipping

But local businesses and neglect by the council also contribute to the problem. The absence of Street Scene officers – axed by this council to “save” money, regardless of the costs incurred in clearing up the mess left on our now unpatrolled roads – is repeatedly demonstrated to be a penny wise, pound foolish decision.

Our loyal reader tells us that this heap of rubbish is on Hathaway Road, near the junction with London Road. The pile has been added to, bag by festering bag, for about three weeks.

“It’s an absolute health hazard and an eyesore,” our reader says. “Unfortunately, it’s not at all unusual for this location.”

Eyesore: Hathaway Road. When reported, this pile of festering sewage that had been allowed to build-up over three weeks, was not known to the council

There’s more pictures of random rubbish vandalism which we will have to post in the next day or so.

The Drive, Thornton Heath: this picture was taken during the summer, but somehow symbolises the state of Croydon’s streets in 2013

For the time being, we leave you with the picture above, from Thornton Heath, which somehow symbolises Croydon in 2013…

UPDATE 2: September 18: And now we are shown how potentially dangerous Croydon Council’s neglect of our streets can be… and not just in the non-Tory-voting areas of the north of the borough, either.

Today’s Croydon Guardian carries a damning report about the council’s failure to act on residents’ reports of fly tipping, highlighting the instance of a lorryload of dangerous asbestos dumped in Coulsdon. The council has been accused of being “negligent” over the matter.

It took Croydon Council six weeks to clear the rubbish – which requires specialist waste handling procedures because of the long-term damage to health, including causing cancer, which inhaling asbestos dust can have. The council only cleared the waste after intervention on behalf of the residents by the newspaper and their MP.

According to the Croydon Guardian’s front page report, “Experts have said the waste material should have been cleaned up within 24 hours and was particularly dangerous because it had been broken up.

“But instead council contractors refused to touch the dangerous corrugated asbestos sheets when they visited the alley – where children regularly play – in early August.”

UPDATE 1: September 14: And still the rubbish piles up in our streets, while residents’ reports of fly tipping to Croydon Council pass, apparently ignored and not acted upon.

This was spotted on Thursday, at Fairgreen Road (how did you guess?). Since the Estate Agents are responsible for their own signage, we wonder whether any enforcement action might be taken against them. We shan’t be holding our breath

The picture above was submitted by a reader Terry Coleman to our Twitter feed, @InsideCroydon.

There are some sites around the borough, such as this one in South Croydon, which made an appearance when we ran the Garbage Gallery 18 months ago. It seems that dumping rubbish is habit-forming

And as the picture above shows, rubbish dumpers around the borough regard the Croydon Council’s warning signs with complete disdain. Clearly, the council’s reputation for inaction against fly tippers is well known.

First published September 11: Here at Inside Croydon Towers, we like to think of ourselves as being “green” (with a small G), dutifully putting out our recycling boxes each week. Though we had no idea that it was these boxes that were part of some hideous Brussels conspiracy to cause ever-rising levels of fly tipping on our streets (click here and scroll down to read the comment from local UKIP big-wig Peter Staveley, for surely the most specious piece of anti-Europe nonsense since the Daily Wail accused the EU of banning bent bananas).

Trafford Road, Thornton Heath: one of the many incidents of fly tipping around Croydon

We digress. We like to think our journalism is green, too, never failing to recycle a story when appropriate.

And so it is that we are re-visiting the Garbage Gallery, last seen in the spring of 2012 but clearly well overdue for another airing.

And with some of the smells being wafted from the many piles of rubbish around the borough, uncleared and uncleaned by Croydon Council, we are sure that our loyal reader will be able to assist with providing us with plenty of material.

Our first Garbage Gallery was posted around the time that Croydon was axing of a number of the council’s Street Scene Officers early last year. Clearly, that’s something that has worked well, with the amount of fly tipping across the borough more than doubled in the subsequent 12 months. Well done Phil “Two Permits” Thomas and his Tory colleagues in charge of the council for making yet another cut in services which ends up costing the Council Tax-payers of Croydon even more.

Here at Inside Croydon, together with our loyal reader, we intend to do our bit: we’ll post your images of the rubbish lying across our streets if you send us jpgs of the incidents, to inside.croydon@btinternet.com, together with an idea of where the picture was taken and your name and a contact number (these are not for publication, but just so that we can contact you if necessary).

And our loyal reader will of course lodge the incident with the council’s helpline –

020 8686 4433

– though this, of course, will only be done between 9am and 5pm on weekdays, as the council call centre has also seen its hours of service cut (presumably so that Council Leader Mike Fisher and his chums can divert public money to pay for the £140 million cost of the shiny new glass palace, or Fisher’s Folly, which opens later this month, and which is so essential to the lives and well-being of the borough’s residents).

Here at Inside Croydon Towers, though, we are open all hours, so keep sending your rubbish pictures to us.

Tanfield Road, Waddon, September 2013: while local Tory councillors distribute leaflets boasting of record levels of recycling, their ill-served residents have to endure record levels of fly tipping. Our loyal reader will recognise this as a favourite site for tippers – it featured in our original Garbage Gallery 18 months ago, when it took the council nearly two weeks to clear the mess. This rancid rubbish pile has been growing for SIX WEEKS, unattended by the council despite at least six notifications

This pile of rubbish appeared just off London Road in the north of the borough overnight earlier this week. This is clearly not just the result of a resident of a local flat who has put out an over-flowing bin bag. This is fly tipping on a commercial scale. Yet despite Croydon being covered by hundreds of CCTV cameras, there’s little evidence of the council taking any enforcement action against the tippers

Don’t forget, send us your rubbish pictures to inside.croydon@btinternet.com

• Croydon in 2012: The Garbage Gallery
• Fly tipping more than doubled in Croydon since 2010
• Dirty Croydon: “I’m ashamed of the dirty state of my road”
• Croydon in a Pickles again over its rubbish service
  

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  Coming to Croydon

  • Tea at Five at the Spread Eagle: Oct 2-4
  • Minster’s musical celebration for Silver Sunday: Oct 6
  • Rent at the Secombe Theatre: Oct 9-12
  • Debate the future of arts in Croydon: Oct 10

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