‘Unmanaged’: conservationists highlight the huge amount of volunteer work undertaken on Shirley Heath
Conservative councillor Jason Cummings last night joined more than 4,400 others in signing the petition that calls on the Mayor of Croydon to refuse to allow public open space at Shirley Heath and Addington Hills to be developed by The Addington Golf Club.
The petition, first reported by this website, demands that Mayor Jason Perry “does not allow the club to build their facilities on our public land”.
Cummings is the council cabinet member for finance and the Conservatives’ parliamentary candidate for Croydon East.
He agreed to sign the petition following the publication of what was described as “disgracefully dishonest” social media messaging put out yesterday by Croydon Council, endorsed by Mayor Perry, which appeared to try to diminish the development threat to the heathland around the golf club.
Petitioner: Tory councillor Jason Cummings
The Town Hall’s propaganda department has refused to respond all week to questions regarding any discussions that the council has had with The Addington GC about potentially leasing the land at a very low rent.
Inside Croydon also asked for details of any gifts or hospitality received by Mayor Perry and councillors, from The Addington, and whether Perry or other councillors are members of the exclusive £2,000-per-player membership club.
The council has also refused to answer these questions.
Croydon Council stated yesterday, “We’re aware of rumours about Addington Golf Club and plans to turn Shirley Heath into a driving range. We’d just like to clarify we do not, and have not ever had, any intention to sell this land. It’s Green Belt land and subject to the most stringent planning policy protection.”
Significantly, the council’s statement did not rule out the possibility of leasing the land to the millionaire-owned golf club, which has always been a more likely proposition.
Peter Underwood, who started the petition, highlighted how disingenuous and deliberately misleading the council’s messaging is: “They aren’t ‘rumours‘, they’re plans drawn up by the club. We’re not asking about a sale of this land. We want to know what the council has said to the golf club [about] using it and if they will allow a driving range to be built there.”
Since the start of this year, Addington Golf Club has been discussing with residents’ groups its plans to build a driving range, an irrigation reservoir and other buildings on Shirley Heath, and sports pitches and other unspecified “facilities” all over the rest of the heath and Addington Hills.
Masterplan: The Addington Golf Club has been giving residents this outline since the start of the year. According to Croydon’s disingenuous council, these leaflets are just ‘rumours’
“It is quite clear that the golf club just want to grab public land to build the driving range for the members of their private club,” Underwood told Inside Croydon this week.
Matthew Frith, from the London Wildlife Trust, described The Addington’s proposals as “a typical pretext that we see in many development proposals that seek to damage or remove areas of nature conservation importance”.
Potentially the most serious, and seriously damaging, proposal from The Addington GC is the digging out and lining of a vast irrigation reservoir on Shirley Heath, together with piping over to their golf course. This could destroy a vast tract of the delicate heathland eco-system on Shirley Heath – which is registered as a Site of Importance for Nature Conservation. This part of the golf club’s scheme is vital to their profitability, since it is intended to reduce the costs of spiralling water bills incurred in keeping their greens lush and verdant, just as their members expect.
According to Cummings, “The club has not made a formal request to the council about this and as such we have nothing to formally respond to.” Note the use of the weasel words: “formal request“. Which, quite deliberately, fails to rule out less formal, preliminary discussions, which Inside Croydon understands have taken place with the borough’s planning department.
“Legally we can’t refuse an application that hasn’t been made!” Cummings said in response to Underwood, who is the Green Party’s parliamentary candidate in Croydon East, where Cummings will be standing for the Tories.
Cummings then, whether inadvertently or not, contradicted the council’s own messaging by confirming that some approach has indeed been made by The Addington Golf Club to cash-strapped Croydon Council. “Was the council aware of the club’s aspiration? Yes, of course,” Cummings said. So much for “rumours”, then.
“As a ward councillor would I support this? No,” Cummings wrote.
“Is there actually an application to do it? No.” At least, not yet… though Cummings did not mention that.
Cummings was challenged to sign the petition opposing development of Shirley Heath, in his Shirley South ward. He duly tweeted that he had done so.
Which is a marginally more encouraging response from one of the borough’s politicians than that received by an Inside Croydon reader who contacted their Labour ward councillor in Broad Green asking what action they will be taking to prevent the golf club’s egregious land grab.
“I agree it would be a shame if the flora and fauna are lost,” their councillor simpered.
They then referred to a “Mayor’s proposal” for “an asset sale or lease”. Which, again, suggests that the council is further along negotiating a deal with the £165-a-round, Bertie Wooster-inspired golf club than they are prepared to admit…
According to the response from the Labour councillor, he and his colleagues, “may well oppose the proposal”.
But he added, “Unfortunately, the new Mayoral system gives all the power to the Mayor and the councillors would need a two-thirds majority to change his decision.
“With regard to planning permission, the applicant is not intending to build flats but wants to build recreational facilities so it will be harder to stop, if the proposed facility is for public use.”
The feeble response came from Councillor Stuart Collins, the same Stuart Collins who for six years was the council’s deputy leader under the discredited Tony Newman in the Labour administration that crashed the borough’s finances.
Collins is also known to enjoy the occasional round of golf.
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ROTTEN BOROUGH AWARDS: In January 2024, Croydon was named among the country’s rottenest boroughs for a SEVENTH successive year in the annual round-up of civic cock-ups in Private Eye magazine
Worrying as this is, i am also anxious that the residents of Croydon and thus the owners of much of the land proposed to be sold, should be consulted on the conditions attached to such land – before sales take place. I worry particularly about Shirley Park Golf Course which is an important part of our green belt and a wonderful sanctuary for birds and wildlife.
We need to find the means to punish those responsible for reducing the town to its present state. The Italians say La Vendetta is a dish best eaten cold.
I think Shirley Park golf course is on a very long lease to the golf club there.
But if the golf club buy the freehold what then? They might want to get back their investment or the membership might be bought out.
The good news is that the “Local Conservatives” are falling apart at the seams, with their candidate for Croydon East contradicting the local party leader / Mayor and signing a petition launched by, er, the Green Party
You may think that the local Conservatives ‘falling apart’ is good news, but so is the ‘Local Labour’ party; leaving us with the hapless Greens and the hopeless Lib-Dems. You may well be a leftie (!) but I cannot see that local political parties falling apart is good news for us. That way Armageddon lies
What a load of right whinging bollo. Keep up being embarrassing.
This reminds me of the proposed development on the edge of Hutchinson Bank three or four years ago which luckily died. Let us hope that this dies as well.