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Lebanon Road pair launch site to give East Croydon a voice

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A website to voice the views and concerns of people living around East Croydon Station has been launched.

The people behind the East Croydon Community site are Rod Davies and Sasha Konechni, residents of Lebanon Road, who say that they aim to “help develop the voice of the East Croydon community and to represent its interests”.

They define the area of coverage for ECC as Cherry Orchard Road, Addiscombe Road (north side to The Cricketers), and Colson, Blake, Brickwood, Bisenden, Chisholm, Cedar and Addiscombe Court Roads, plus Tunstall, Oval, Leslie Park Road and Cross Road, Leslie Grove, John’s Terrace, Jackson’s Place, Leslie Grove Place, Edwin Place, Alpha Road and Bridge Row.

“We want everyone to feel included and to contribute to the development of a strong coherent community voice,” Davies said.

They distinguish their patch from the rest of Addiscombe, the council ward in which the station lies: “East Croydon has suffered from a lack of an effective voice to argue its case, whereas other areas across Addiscombe have established residents’ associations. A significant part of this is due to the high level of rented properties that has led to high turnover of population.”

The site professes to be apolitical – Addiscombe ward is one of the two most marginal in the borough, and is expected to be key in the 2015 parliamentary election for the Croydon Central seat – and it provides links to the Tory MP and Labour councillors, as well as political parties from the Communists to Plaid Cyrmu.

Davies believes that the absence of a strong community voice for the neighbourhood has allowed the local authority an easy ride when it comes to planning matters and other developments: “The absence of a residents’ association or other coherent community representative body means that the council can largely ignore our concerns. It is very noticeable, for instance, that Addiscombe retail centre has received considerable amounts of public money to improve the street scene.

“Cherry Orchard Road has been abandoned, and seems to be left to decay,” he said.

Cherry Orchard Gardens: eight years after demolition work began, no homes have been built on either of side of the road

“The proposed developments along Cherry Orchard and Morland Roads will bring in large numbers of new people and create a significant increase in demand for public services, such as health centres and schools. In addition the very large numbers of new residential properties proposed or under construction in the centre of Croydon will have an impact upon the East Croydon area.

“We are all aware that we all work longer and longer hours and it leaves little time to get engaged with the community to voice our concerns and support each other. It is for that reason that this website has been launched.

“While we all may be frustrated that the council does not appear to take our interests into consideration, if we do not put forward our views and provide a means to engage with us then the council officers cannot help us. I hope we can all make this website a valuable forum for the East Croydon Community.”

 

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