One of the borough’s community groups is to vote on whether to pack up and give up at a special “do or die” meeting this evening.
No through road: Selsdon Road has become Vape Central
The South Croydon Community Association has been hard-hit since the first covid lockdown in March 2020, and the absence of residents prepared to step forward to volunteer to take on roles within the organisation has forced the few people left on its committee to ask the existential question.
They are probably just fed up with being dicked around by the council, with poor street cleaning, no real parking enforcement, ever-present street drinkers and anti-social behaviour, and vans and HGV lorries exercising their god-given rights to pavement park to deliver to the vape warehouses on Selsdon Road.
The Association has nearly £2,000 in the bank, of which £1,500 is from council ward grants (from Jason Perry’s old South Croydon ward, at the time he was a mere councillor), for projects that have never been delivered. What to do with that cash will be among the issues up for discussion at the EGM tonight.
A motion recommending that SCCA should be wound up has been tabled by two of the remaining committee members, including John Clingan, who has been involved with the Association since it was formed in 2012.
“The issues which SCCA sought to address in 2012 have not gone away,” a statement on the Association’s website says. “The pandemic and recession have heightened numerous social and economic concerns in our area as recent public meetings on Safety and Security on Selsdon and Croham Road have shown.
“But SCCA in its current form is not working. It has run out of steam, particularly in terms of people coming forward to make things happen.” That “running out steam” might also be connected with Charlotte Davies, the Association’s founding chair, having given up on living next to a HMO and all the anti-social behaviour that came with it, and moving out of the area altogether.
SCCA was formed before the revised South Croydon ward boundaries existed, and had a somewhat relaxed approach to what is, or is not, “South Croydon”, even allowing a busy-body Sanderstead resident to take up a place on its committee. But as a measure of how residents have been reluctant to actively get involved, while SCCA once had 450 people registered as “interested” in its activities, just 50 of those were actually paying subscriptions.
Festive feel: last summer’s South Croydon Food Festival. One day a year when South Croydon gets some attention from the borough’s Establishment
“SCCA was one of many community groups that came into being across the country after the financial crisis in 2008 and following widespread city riots in August 2011, including in Croydon,” Clingan’s statement buried deep in the the SCCA’s website states.
“It recognised the opportunities afforded by the Mayor of London’s regeneration fund of £23million for Croydon’s town centre at the end of 2011, followed soon after by the £50million Outer London Fund designed to boost local economies.” It might have “recognised” this, but the accounts show it didn’t access any such funding.
Indeed, with a South Croydon business association, comprising the owners mostly of restaurants and bars on the misnamed “Restaurant Quarter”, managing to hoover up public grants while aided and abetted by Grey Label (the council’s and Develop Croydon’s pet PR agency), the residents’ association were left with crumbs… Even an application to the National Lottery for a heritage trail was turned down.
In common with many of Croydon’s residents’ associations, planning applications kept SCCA officials busy. Apparently, SCCA “contributed significantly to the design of the South End regeneration project” (What that? Ed), while the Association also organised “litter picks”, usually because the council’s contractors were failing to do their job.
“Social activities helped to build local networks. A dining club introduced local residents to South End restaurants. A film club was launched. Bunting and reading groups flourished.”
But under the heading “SCCA’s Achievements”, the long-standing committee makes this point: “It is legitimate to ask whether SCCA has had any impact in making South Croydon a better place since 2012.” Apparently, “the modus operandi of the association” is to blame.
Beyond its Facebook page, since 2020, the SCCA has become just a virtual organisation.
A snazzy poster describes tonight’s meeting as “do or die”, and says that the committee will resign en masse, “unless others take over”.
“New people and new ideas needed”, they say. “The meeting is a chance for new and active local residents to create a new, vibrant committee and bring alive their new ideas…”. It mentions “the central South Croydon community”, whatever that is.
With its assets earmarked for good causes in the area, plus a donation for the use of the church hall for what could be its final meeting, “it is recommended for consideration at the EGM that the South Croydon Community Association be wound up”.
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