The New Addington tram crash memorial: earlier this week, this shrine to all the victims of the 2016 tram crash was looking unkempt and badly neglected

Earlier this week, this was how the tram crash memorial at New Addington looked.

Unkempt.

Unswept.

As if it was uncared for.

It is a little over seven years since that terrible morning when an early morning tram full of commuters on their way to an ordinary day’s business had their lives shattered forever by the trauma and pain as the vehicle came off the rails at Sandilands.

Seven people died that day: Dane Chinnery; Donald Collett; Robert Huxley; Philip Logan; Dorota Rynkiewicz; Philip Seary; Mark Smith.

Many other passengers suffered life-changing injuries.

Rolling their sleeves up: locals stepped in to clean up the memorial and they had been let down by their council

A year later, Croydon Council and London regional authorities unveiled memorials close to the crash site at Sandilands, and this one at New Addington, from where the tram had begun its fateful, tragic journey, and where many of the passengers lived.

The inscription on the memorial at Central Parade, New Addington, says:

In memory of the seven people who lost their lives and those affected by the tram derailment close to Sandilands on 9 November 2016.
Croydon will never forget.

Sadly, the sight of the memorial earlier this week suggested that that pledge had been forgotten.

But certainly not by the community of New Addington.

After the picture of the neglected memorial appeared on social media, a small crew of locals rolled up their sleeves and did what had to be done.

A thorough sweeping.

A bit of a jet power wash.

And there it is, as it should be: a fitting memorial in a respectable state.

Well done, New Addington: locals at the spring-cleaned tram memorial yesterday

There is a growing feeling around the many communities of Croydon that they can no longer rely on the local authority to carry out even the most basic of services. Routine tasks, such as the cleansing of the Croydon war memorial on Katharine Street (only done just in time for Remembrance Sunday last year) or the sweeping of the tram memorial at New Addington have too often been neglected by our council.

We are all paying more and getting less.

But you would think the council would at least ensure that precious memorials around the borough should be maintained with the respect they deserve.

While we are all, daily, failed by our elected representatives and the political system of which they are part, the whole borough of Croydon owes a debt of gratitude to the handful of New Addington volunteers who stepped in this week and provided the respect that the tram memorial needed and deserved.

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