The PR flunkies putting together Croydon Council’s delegation to next month’s “booze and hooker fest” in the South of France are refusing to say who is paying for the junket. WALTER CRONXITE reports

Croydon will be one of 16 London boroughs attending next month’s MIPIM conference in Cannes, what has in the past been described as a property developers’ “booze and hooker fest” in the South of France.

Earlier this week, Inside Croydon revealed that Sutton is sending a delegation of three senior council executives to Cannes for the four-day “conference”, on a budget of £30,000, all paid for by sponsors, including house-builders Barratts and property developers Mizen.

Sources close to Croydon Council suggest that this borough’s delegation could consist of as many as six senior council executives, led by Jo Negrini, the council’s £185,000 per year chief executive.

“If they can have so many out of the office for most of a week, it might suggest the council is still overstaffed,” one unimpressed Katharine Street source said.

But a world-weary council official based in Fisher’s Folly disagreed: “If they are all senior council directors out of the office for a week, I doubt whether anyone will notice that they’ve gone.”

The springtime visit to the Cote d’Azur for Sutton CEO Niall Bolger and his two colleagues is being arranged by 3Fox International, a Croydon-based public relations agency which gets the bulk of its work in contracts from local authorities.

But 3Fox isn’t working with Croydon on MIPIM this year, even though they have in the past co-founded Develop Croydon, the group of major businesses based in the town centre.

Develop Croydon, as well as Stiles Harold Williams, the estate agents who manage much of the Whitgift Foundation’s large property portfolio, will also be in Cannes alongside the council, but their trip is being put together by another Croydon PR agency, Grey Label.

And Grey Label ain’t saying who is ponying up the cash to pay for it all. Inside Croydon has had no response to our questions to Grey Label, whose commission for this job will probably be coming out of any sponsorship fees paid.

“No business is going to hand over thousands of pounds in sponsorship and not expect something in return,” the Katharine Street source said. “So if Croydon’s trip to MIPIM this year is sponsored, that information should be placed in the public domain immediately.”

Croydon Council’s last trip to MIPIM in Cannes was costed at £8,000, though that was not sponsored by any commercial “partners”, and was paid for by Council Tax-payers. Negrini authorised that spend herself, under delegated powers, without any discussion among our elected councillors.

Much of the “promotional” activity at MIPIM conducted by Croydon, Sutton and the other London boroughs attending this year will be in the “London Pavilion”, handily positioned right next to the Mediterranean.

“The last time there were this many Londoners on a beach in France was D-Day,” our underwhelmed council source said.

“Seriously, even if Sutton’s budget is typical for them all, and I am sure it is at the ‘bargain’ end of what some of the delegations are working on, then that totals nearly £500,000-worth of PR money for around 50 local authority employees to attend a conference that doesn’t last a week. That’s a lot of money for little tangible benefit.

“Surely City Hall should be pulling something together to represent all of London in a more concerted, and less expensive manner, than this free-for-all?”

Self-promotion expert Negrini clearly enjoys mixing with property developers and the like, perhaps more so than she does fulfilling her function as Croydon’s most senior public servant.

She recently absented herself from a meeting of the full council – always considered to be one of the rare but more important public tasks of the CEO – so that she could go off to a social event with her architect pals at RIBA, who were presenting her with some worthless award.

Negrini’s moment in the spotlight at MIPIM will come in mid-afternoon on Wednesday, March 15, when she is on a panel for a session called “Croydon Urban Edge”, which is “in association with” Develop Croydon.

Also on the panel are the usual suspects from among those with much to gain from the borough’s development, and over-development:

• there’s Kevin Zuchowski-Morrison, from the Rise Gallery (who appears to be the go-to person these days whenever Croydon wants to demonstrate its “hipster” credentials, and – what a surprise! – is to be handed new gallery space in the re-opened Fairfield Halls);
• Steve Yewman, the development director of Westfield Europe (who doubtless will provide the property developers at MIPIM with more information about his stalled £1.4billion supermall than anything that has been released to the people who actually live or work in Croydon);
• Steve Sanham, from Hub (property developers who have somehow been granted permission by a Labour-run council to build on a public open space at Queen’s Gardens, in addition to using the former site of Taberner House);
• and finally there’s Stuart Cade, who is a partner of Rick Mather Architects (who Negrini had appointed to undertake the design work on Fairfield Halls and College Green).
  

So no vested interests at all then. Oh no. And no answers, yet, as to who is paying for it all.

• Inside Croydon Events: for the most comprehensive community events listings, updated daily

---

• Inside Croydon is Croydon’s only independent news source, still based in the heart of the borough. In 2016, we averaged 17,000 page views every week
  
• If you have a news story about life in or around Croydon, a residents’ or business association or a local event to publicise, please email us with full details at inside.croydon@btinternet.com