Time for a reminder: climate protesters outside Croydon Town Hall five years ago. Progress at the council since on the issue has been … ahem… glacially slow
It is now five years since Croydon Council grandiosely issued its Climate and Ecological Emergency statement – and a group of environmental organisations are planning to protest on the steps of the Town Hall ahead of Wednesday’s meeting of full council to ask: just what has been accomplished by the council since then?
As loyal readers might be aware, Croydon has more excuses than many all lined up for doing sweet FA to meet its climate emergency commitments – there was covid, and then the authority’s financial collapse. But as latest data demonstrates, the relentless march of a climate disaster will not wait for such distractions to be squared away.
The Croydon Green Network, Croydon Community Energy, Christian Climate Action, Croydon Climate Action and Extinction Rebellion are among the groups who will be in central Croydon on the evening of April 17 demanding greater urgency from Mayor Jason Perry and the borough’s councillors.
“This protest coincides with the full council meeting, during which questions will be asked about Croydon Council’s lack of transparency on this matter which is crucial for the health and well-being of its citizens,” a statement from the protest organisers says.
As part of the Climate and Ecological Emergency pledges made by the then Labour council under leader Tony Newman (someone never known to hold good to a promise), the council committed to being Carbon Neutral by 2030 – now not even six years away.
“Since that date, there has been a Citizen’s Assembly, a Climate Commission and an Action Plan, all of which required the time and effort of local volunteers and other citizens of Croydon, not to mention the costs to the council, but it has resulted in very little meaningful action,” a spokesperson for the protest group said.
Words not deeds: Tony Newman offered empty promises in 2019
Newman’s promise from five years ago of “Deeds not Words” has, the environmental groups say, “sounded increasingly hollow with each year that passes”.
At Newman’s launch event, he claimed to be “ambitious” for Croydon to become “London’s Greenest borough”.
There is a perverse irony that this week, Newman’s effective successor, Jason Perry, has also claimed the mantle of “London’s Greenest borough”, in the midst of the Tory Mayor selling off Croydon’s parks and green spaces (while also being caught lying over having held secret discussions about off-loading a large section of Green Belt to private business interests).
Most of Labour’s Newman’s anti-environmental policies remain firmly on Croydon Council’s agenda today under Tory Mayor Perry:
- Support for the building of a second runway at Gatwick Airport – Newman had claimed that solar-powered aircraft will resolve his pollution dilemma for him
- A commitment to paying £10million per year to burn the borough’s rubbish, including material which should be recycled, at a polluting incinerator at Beddington, where Croydon has a contract with the operators which includes disposing of radioactive waste
- Backing Westfield’s plans to “regenerate” the town centre with hundreds of flats and a shopping mall – all that steel and concrete! – which was estimated to attract 10,000 cars and their exhaust fumes into the town centre daily
The only anti-environment council policy that has been firmly dropped since 2019 has been the concreting over of playing fields, kids’ playgrounds and patches of green space by Brick by Brick, the failed council house-builder. And that’s been abandoned not out of policy conviction, but only because Newman and his mates’ pet project managed to bankrupt the borough.
“In a year which has seen global temperature records topple month after month, droughts sweeping across southern Africa, wildfires blazing across Australia and increasing extreme weather events around the globe, it is inexcusable not to treat climate and ecological crises as an emergency,” the campaign groups spokesperson said.
“And yet Croydon Council seems unable to progress further than words without deeds.”
Next week’s peaceful rally will be staged outside the Town Hall from 5.30pm on Wednesday April 17. “Anyone who thinks that local authorities should play their part to tackle this global issue is welcome to join and add their voice,” the organisers say.
Read more: Extinction Rebellion challenge Newman’s hypocrisy on climate
Read more: Climate Commission report presents challenges for council
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