CROYDON IN CRISIS: The council’s ‘asset disposals’ programme is making desperately slow progress, as it adds tennis clubs, community centres, scout huts and a rugby ground to its list of available properties. But few, if any, existing tenants have been told of their fate by the council.
EXCLUSIVE by STEVEN DOWNES
Football club owner: is Stormzy’s Croydon Athletic about to have its ground sold from under them?
The Mayfield Stadium, home of Croydon Athletic, the football club bought in the summer by rap star Stormzy, former Palace striker Wilf Zaha and Danny Young, is on a list of properties that Croydon Council wants to sell to help pay down its massive debt.
Only no one at Croydon Council has bothered to tell the nice people at the football club that they might be getting new landlords sometime soon.
Nor has any council official or agent even had the business nous to offer multi-millionaires Stormzy and Zaha first refusal on the stadium.
Inside Croydon reported last week of the shock and uncertainty caused to a set of charities and community groups after they discovered that the council would be looking to flog off their buildings, some which they have occupied for 60 years.
A report going to tomorrow night’s Town Hall cabinet meeting shows that its property sales have shown painfully slow progress since the process began almost three years ago.
Grounds for concern: Mayfield Stadium is among the assets that the council wants to sell
Official figures show that the council, which has debts of £1.6billion, has sold £72.9million of assets since 2021, and is hopeful it might be able to unload another £52million of properties (thought to be two larger Brick by Brick developments) by the end of the financial year in March.
Often, the sale price achieved by the council is far below the market price, and even less than what the council paid for the property. The £72.9million sales figures include the Croydon Park Hotel (£24.9million – £5million less than the council paid in 2018) and College Green (£22million – a site with planning permission that a developer might expect to generate £130million-worth of sales).
The latest “Tranche 2” properties are valued by the council at £24.6million.
Further investigations have uncovered that in this council property fire sale, Croydon will be unloading several sports interests, as well as properties that have served the community for decades.
And those approached who work or operate the council-owned premises have all confirmed to Inside Croydon that they have not been approached about the sale plans by anyone from Fisher’s Folly.
Under par: Addington Court has three courses open to the public on a pay-to-play basis, all now up for sale
As well as the Mayfield Stadium in Thornton Heath, the 32 properties listed on the council document, released to last week’s scrutiny committee, include two tennis clubs (Spring Park Road in Shirley and Norbury TC on Ederline Avenue), five golf courses (Shirley Park, a members’ club next to posh Trinity School, Coulsdon Court, together with its hotel, and the public courses at Addington Court – two 18-holers and a 9-hole course), as well as the quaintly named Parsons Pightle rugby ground in Old Coulsdon, where Purley-John Fisher are based.
The “For Sale” list does not discriminate on grounds of age, with buildings used by pre-school nurseries in Addiscombe and Shirley South that will be looking for new owners, as is the Turnaround Centre on South End, and Alwyn Close, New Addington, used by the British Legion.
All of the council-owned scout huts in the borough are to be sold, too. The council officials who drafted the list haven’t even bothered to itemise them – suggesting it might be some kind of bob-a-job job-lot.
The cash-strapped council’s first tranche of property sales was released in February 2021, soon after the financial collapse which has delivered hundreds of job losses at the authority and steepling increases in Council Tax for residents.
As tomorrow’s cabinet papers show, sales on “Tranche 1” have so far been slow, which is not much help to a council needing to pay down its debt in a hurry. Sales for the current financial year are a mere £0.82million – with Mayor Perry and the council sweating on £51.66million of property “under offer”.
On Tranche 2, many of the properties come with various covenants to restrict development possibilities or are simply slap bang in the middle of Green Belt. But given that in every case the vendor is also the local planning authority, capable of easing any profit-hungry developer’s route to riches, some residents may be at least wary of what might become of council-owned properties near them.
Most of the properties are listed as “To be sold, with lease to current tenant in place”. These include the charity buildings, Mayfield Stadium, the rugby ground and the tennis clubs (the golf courses all seek to extend long-term leases while keeping the current tenants). In effect, this would mean the existing tenants hoping that any new landlord will allow them to carry on as before. Fingers crossed!
For sale: one rugby ground, one careful owner… Parsons Pightle has restrictive covenants that would limit development of the PJFRFC grounds
AFC Croydon Athletic have played their home games at the Mayfield Stadium for most of the club’s existence, and Stormzy and Zaha have both promised to expand the club’s involvement in the community. “Suffice to say that we weren’t aware of this,” a club official said of the sale plans when approached by iC.
“I don’t believe anyone at the club is aware of this.”
Another of the properties being put up for sale (with no caveat about any lease to existing tenant) is Coombe Wood Pond Cottage, which is used by charity The Conservation Volunteers as the base for their operations around the borough’s green spaces and parks. “We’ve had no official contact,” a source at TCV said.
“We are left in limbo.”
Inside Croydon’s investigations might have speeded up some of the asset disposals, though, and without the cash-strapped council having to fork out a penny of agent’s commission, either.
Purley-John Fisher rugby club has recently come into a bit of money after a property sale of their own. Niel Kenny, the club chairman, said, “We only learnt of the potential sale of our Parson’s Pightle sports ground freehold from Inside Croydon yesterday.
“We’d be interested in purchasing the ground as per covenant that designates that the land can only be used for sports purposes – and we shall be contacting Croydon Council to express our interest.”
Happy to help, Jase…
Read more: Tory Mayor Perry admits: ‘Essentially, we’re insolvent’. Again
Read more: Stormzy and Zaha team up to buy their hometown football club
Read more: Council puts hotel and College Green up for sale for just £40m
Read more: Town Hall staff braced for £31m more cuts and job losses
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ROTTEN BOROUGH AWARDS: Croydon was named among the country’s rottenest boroughs for a SIXTH successive year in 2022 in the annual round-up of civic cock-ups in Private Eye magazine
This is nothing to do with getting rid of Croydon council’s debts, which is an impossible task. It’s about a Tory mayor privatising public assets. The £125 million proceeds raised already and forecast due by the end of the financial year are a drop in the ocean of the £1,600 million (i.e. £1.6 billion) that’s hanging around our collective neck.
The Conservative government’s scorched earth approach to the economy and local government means that other councils will be going bust too. We shouldn’t suffer because they hate local democracy.
What do capitalists do in these situations? Do they pay off every penny they owe or die trying? No. They declare bankruptcy, and start again.
A decent Mayor would wave two fingers at Gove, provide the services the Croydon public need and hang the consequences. We need a Red Ted, but instead we’ve got a blue turd
Do you really want ‘Red Ted’ back from the dead? Remember his chaotic reign at Lambeth where the late-lamented District Auditor judged Knight and others of “wilful misconduct”? Knight was ordered to repay the interest his actions lost the council, plus a surcharge. Neil Kinnock, blamed your hero for bringing the Labour Party into disrepute.
And what’s the result of all this, a few million against the total deficit and lives destroyed – the tenants could be kicked out, the rents almost certainly will go up. Everything turned into yet more flats.
The fabric of our society is being destroyed by these despots. It’s really painful to see an organisation which should be helping everybody in their community – a council – causing such wanton vandalism of our community..