Spectacularly useless: how Private Eye gave extra prominence to the scandals in Croydon earlier this year, including highlighting the delay with publication of the Penn Report
THE YEAR IN REVIEW Part 2 – May to August
If there was one good thing to come out of Croydon Council this year, then it must have been the Penn Report.
Katherine Kerswell, the council’s chief executive, had held on to the report for more than two years, using a succession of excuses not to make the document public, and to take no action against those who had bankrupted the borough, despite the considered recommendations of the report’s author, Richard Penn.
Following up on Inside Croydon’s reporting, Private Eye, the country’s biggest-selling satirical fortnightly magazine, described Croydon as “the ultimate rotten borough” and “spectacularly useless”.
Lord Gnome noted that in his report, Penn had written, “Those with the biggest responsibilities and with statutory duties let the organisation down”, and suggested that Kerswell’s two-year go-slow had left the borough’s residents and council staff let down yet again.
All those official delays imposed by Kerswell had been to make eight brief redactions and only a single factual alteration – most of which revolved around that sometime diva of local government, Jo “Negreedy” Negrini, the former council CEO.
Page-turner: six months after iC had published extracts from the Penn Report, the council got round to doing what it might have done in 2021
Inside Croydon had, of course, published extensive extracts from the Penn Report in October 2022 – much to Kerswell’s and the council’s lawyers’ discomfort.
As a result, by this spring it had become well-known that the Penn Report had recommended that three (by now former) senior executives at the council – Jacqueline Harris-Baker, who was the council’s most senior lawyer, Shifa Mustafa, who was in charge of development and planning, and Lisa Taylor, the finance director – should all be reported to their relevant professional bodies.
It also recommended that Tony Newman, the former Labour leader of the council, and Simon Hall, the cabinet member for finance from 2014 to 2020, needed to be reported for possible breaches of the councillors’ code of conduct.
Penn also recommended that his findings be referred to the police “for assessment of any further action being warranted in regard to the handling of public money and conduct in public office”. By withholding the report for two years, Kerswell ensured that any such police investigation had been unnecessarily delayed.
Loss leader: Labour’s Tony Newman
As we reach the end of 2023, with the council’s financial collapse now more than three years ago, few of the Penn recommendations have been carried out by Kerswell’s council.
If a complaint was ever filed to the police, nothing has come of it.
If the council’s lawyers were chasing Negreedy for a refund of some of her £437,000 pay-off from 2020, nothing more has been heard of that.
And as for the adverse reports to the former executives’ professional bodies, according to Mayor Jason Perry, even that simple piece of admin has been left undone.
Three years since the Penn Report was completed and handed over to Kerswell, it has become to appear less of an exercise in investigating how “collective corporate blindness” led the the council’s collapse, and now resembles more a deliberate effort by certain officials to turn a blind eye to past mispractice.
Mentioned in despatches: how the Penn Report recorded the valuable service provided to the people of Croydon and council staff…
Here, through some of the better-read articles of each month, we continue to re-tell the story of the past 12 months…
May 2023
Where you bin? Croydon wheelie turns up in west Africa
Bin and gone: a Croydon Council wheelie, thought to be in Ghana
Our council’s rubbish reputation has spread all the way to west Africa.
According to a member of the Twitterati, this bin was sighted in Ghana, approximately 4,600 miles outside the regular Veolia bin collection routes. Try logging that on the council’s Crap App.
Previous iterations of the image have claimed it to be a sighting elsewhere in west Africa, such as Nigeria. The definite location is impossible to verify. All that can be said is that it is definitely not Croydon High Street…
In a busy month for news, we had also reported on a consultation for a scheme to build nearly 800 flats next to the Fairfield Halls, a stabbing (another one), this time outside Sanderstead Station, as well as the handover of the Spreadeagle pub, next to the Town Hall, from Fuller’s to local pubco Whelan’s.
Croydon is made a national laughing stock, Part 94. And Part 95
Mugged off: Borough of Culture posters left the public, and Private Eye’s Ian Hislop, baffled
Twice in a fortnight, Private Eye (yes, them again) homed in on Croydon’s shortcomings, this time around the way the council was spaffing £1.2million of public money on the late-starting Borough of Culture.
That included squandering £135,000 cash on a marketing contract which had delivered a set of posters that leave punters none-the-wiser about what it is they are meant to be publicising. Sources suggest that the story was a particular favourite of Eye Editor and Have I Got News regular Ian Hislop.
But the coverage also elicited an altogether more sinister explanation of the Borough of Culture’s gnomic slogan: “This is Croydon. And you’re welcome.”
They published this letter: “As a former resident of Croydon, who has been mugged more than once while living there, I can confirm that ‘This is Croydon and you’re welcome’ was a favourite catchphrase among the plundering youth of the borough in the early noughties (I am referring of course to the muggers and not to the local councillors of today).
“I would wonder at the rather obvious metaphor the council seems to be going for with its message.”
Khan warned: axing travelcard will damage London’s reputation
An influential travel group representing public transport passengers in Coulsdon, Sutton and east Surrey, warned London Mayor Sadiq Khan that the withdrawal of the One Day Travelcard would lead to added costs, more complexity and even conflict between staff and the public.
The campaign worked: a couple of months later, Mayor Khan and TfL reached an agreement with rail operators and abandoned plans to withdraw the travel card.
June
Hardships and dangers on the Utah trail heading to Croydon
Resident historian David Morgan has been on his (metaphorical) travels in 2023, checking out the Croydon connections with different towns and settlements all around the world. This account of life on the frontier, in the old Wild West, drew readers from around the globe.
Now German shoe retailer decides to give Croydon the boot
In a month with other, major announcements about the future of the town centre and the Whitgift Centre in particular, the closure of Deichmann’s store on North End was the latest body blow. In this instance, the parting of the ways was only temporary: Deichmann was back, further up the street in bigger premises, just in time for the Christmas rush.
Writing’s on the wall: Sainsbury’s exit was more gloom for mall
Sainsbury’s confirms it is to close Whitgift Centre store
Another Inside Croydon exclusive, and one of the most-read stories of the year, the decision of Sainsbury’s to pull down the shutters on one of its first supermarkets, and a store that had been an ever-present since the Whitgift Centre opened nearly 60 years earlier, looked to be a significant milestone in the continuing decline of Croydon town centre, thanks to the development blight caused by developers Westfield and land-owners the Whitgift Foundation.
Little did we know then, though, that worse was to come later in the year…
July
Not so superloopy about our Superloop route into London
Lick of paint: Superloop is more a rebranding than a real increase in bus provision
Transport news always sparks the interest of our readers, and iC is well-served by having an army of well-informed experts and enthusiasts among its supporters who are always ready to turn citizen journalist to cover a topic close to their hearts.
So it was, when London Mayor Sadiq Khan announced some new, London orbital bus routes that Bernard Winchester took a closer look at exactly what was being offered. He didn’t find very much…
Brick by Brick’s unsold homes are costing Croydon a fortune
More scandal from the failed council-owned house-builder – as the poor finish and sky-high prices of BxB’s slowly completed homes were putting off buyers.
And the slow sales hit Croydon residents – money that has been tied up in loans to BxB still has to have its interest paid, prolonging the cash-strapped council’s misery.
Take as an example what was now being described as the “final phase of development” in Heathfield Gardens, in South Croydon, one of the controversial in-fill sites which took away existing residents’ garages and green space. Here, Brick by Brick properties were being marketed at £440,000 for a two-bed flat.
This “final phase of development” was happening almost three years since building work on the Heathfield Gardens site was completed.
Suspicions are raised over blaze at Warlingham restaurant
The most-read news article of the month was iC’s exclusive report on a suspicious blaze at the Spaghetti Tree restaurant on Limpsfield Road.
The Surrey Police – the incident occurred in their area – have yet to issue any updates or reports on the progress of their investigation, despite the helpful video footage showing a man throwing petrol bombs into the restaurant’s outdoor seating booths.
August
Kangals seized after Lloyd Park attacks may never be returned
But this month brought news of a small pack of giant Turkish guard dogs, called kangals, that had broken out of their compound and run amok in private gardens and into Lloyd Park.
A town centre amble that goes from the sublime to ridiculous
Phipson view: an artful display of the artless
As Inside Croydon prepares to enter its 15th year of publication, the dedication and sheer brilliance of our citizen journalists never fails to amaze.
Among the most productive is Ken Towl, whose meanderings, metaphorically and otherwise, are clearly well-received by our loyal reader. In August, Ken neatly summed up the difference between art and the artlessness of so many of the people in charge of running the borough, and who invariably have their hands on the pursestrings.
Thus, in a short stroll from the Clocktower and the Croydon from the Palette of Evacustes Phipson exhibition, he went from the sublime to the ridiculous, as he encountered for the first time in their “natural” habitat the plastic giraffes which had attracted £50,000 of Borough of Culture cash, to help bolster a business organisation. The Phipson exhibit had been handed only a fraction of that amount.
Another of our citizen journalists, David Morgan, also marked the 80th anniversary of arts group CODA, the Croydon Operatic and Dramatic Association, with a trawl through their storied history this month. Well worth a read…
Perry is director of company handed £50,000 culture grant
And there you have it. They are having a giraffe – and at our expense.
It just so happens that the £50,000 Borough of Culture grant for the artless giraffes went to Croydon BID, the business improvement district, which just so happens to have the borough’s Tory Mayor, Jason “Piss-poor” Perry, on its board of directors.
What was it Richard Penn had said in his long-delayed report about those with the biggest responsibilities and with statutory duties letting our borough down?
- Click here for Part 3 of our review of Croydon’s 2023 – from September to December, and some of the biggest stories of the year
- Click here to discover what the biggest stories in Croydon were for January to April 2023
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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
I wrote to the Commissioner of Police about the unlawful act I suspected. A Detective Ch Inspector contacted me and said the Council were the only ones who could ask Police to investigate. I was later told that had been done.