Croydon may be staging a bike race around the town centre’s streets again later this year, but Cycling Weekly, which has been covering the sport for 125 years, won’t any longer be based in our borough by the time the council dignitaries and other VIPs hand out the prizes.

Time Inc, one of the world’s leading magazine publishers and owners of the venerable bicycle title, is moving the weekly, and their four other cycling titles and websites, out of Leon House, to be based in new offices in Farnborough, Hampshire.

In all, around 50 staff will be leaving Croydon as a consequence, the latest in an exodus of jobs from the borough, which started with the council’s blood-letting of its own staff, continued with Nestle four years ago and which, despite one or two modest “wins” of businesses setting up here, has shown little sign of abating since.

Having the council erase the bike lane that runs past Leon House, the 19-storey 1960s tower block on Croydon High Street, just south of the flyover, probably did not help win friends and influence people working on magazine titles such as Cycle Sport and Mountain Bike Rider. Not even having a Tesco Express close by could persuade the pedallists to stay in Croydon.

A spokeswoman for Time Inc told Inside Croydon that the move was intended to bring all of the company’s sporting titles together, “and consolidate under one roof, where we can grow our ambitions”.

[Write in obligatory gag about the council’s “Ambitious for Croydon” mantra here. Or maybe it’s not so laughable any longer]

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