Under attack: the owners of the Lord Roberts On The Green fear being driven out of business by vigilante villagers
Neighbour disputes, rows over property boundaries, differences over parking spaces… all can descend into some of the bitterest, nastiest arguments to be encountered. Woe betide the unwary reporter trying to navigate such choppy waters as they cover such a story. Pity the poor local council official caught in the middle of such a dispute.
Even in the plushest, leafiest of suburbs, such disputes can occur, and it is here that they can turn into the most bitter and nasty kind of rows.
And there’s a simmering row going on around Woodcote Village Green, on the plush and leafy Webb Estate nestled between Purley and Coulsdon, as some residents seek to enforce a parking ban that the owners of the local café fear will drive them out of business. In this case, there’s more than a suspicion of insidious racism involved.
It was in the early years of the last century that estate agent William Webb first began developing his model village of 225 homes, which his successors running the Webb Estate today describe as “secluded and exclusive”. Perhaps with an emphasis on the “exclusive”.
Even small, two-bedroom houses these days sell for close to £1.4million on the Webb Estate, where its famous residents have included Status Quo’s Francis Rossi and Bernard Ingham, Margaret Thatcher’s irascible press secretary, as well as former Palace footballer Wilfried Zaha.
New home: Laura Hamilton and her family moved into the Lord Roberts in 2017 and transformed it
TV presenter Laura Hamilton and her husband moved into the area in 2017, buying the Lord Roberts, the village shop and Post Office. This, as we now know, was no time to be a sub-postmaster, and Hamilton opted to convert the business into a café.
The Lord Roberts On The Green dates from 1907, originally named The Lord Roberts Temperance Inn, after Boer War hero Field Marshal Lord Roberts.
It was famous locally for being a “pub with no beer”.
According to the Webb Estate’s own website, “Lord Roberts on the Green is now a stylish coffee shop.”
Hamilton had her own run-ins with Croydon’s planning department, but seemed to keep mostly on the right side of the net curtain-twitchers and the residents’ association, the very exclusive Upper Woodcote Village RA. But after soldiering on through the covid lockdown, including temporarily converting the café into a corner shop-style store, in 2022 Hamilton sold up, and businesswoman Ghazala Akhtar took the freehold of the Lord Roberts.
Akhtar’s staff and customers come from not just within the exclusive confines of the village, but from further afield around Croydon, reflecting the borough’s more diverse mix. Young mums and pregnant mothers meet at the Lord Roberts and enjoy afternoon teas at “the stylish coffee shop”. The past two Christmases, Akhtar’s Lord Roberts has put on a free lunch for vulnerable young people and pensioners from the local community.
These customers, and the Lord Roberts staff, often arrive by car, parking their vehicles perfectly legally on a nearby public verge.
But some village residents are trying to put a stop to that – and are threatening to resort to illegal means to achieve their desired parking ban.
“If this is allowed to come into force it will mean that you no longer be able to park at Lord Robert’s or on the Green,” Akhtar has told her customers in a petition she has raised to maintain the parking status quo.
“If this is allowed to happen, it could drive us out of business.” More than a thousand people have signed the petition so far.
Today, Akhtar said: “I recognise the residents’ right to not have people parking in front of their own drives, and I support whatever they do within the law to stop that. But the Green belongs to the people of Purley and Croydon.”
Meetings of the Upper Woodcote Village RA have been held, but in keeping with the “exclusive” area, Akhtar has been excluded, neither invited nor allowed to attend.
Exclusive: residents claim that the village is being plagued by joy riders and drug dealers
The UWVRA wants to enforce “residents only” parking outside the café. They have even had their own “no parking” signs made and positioned along the roadside.
The RA’s application to Croydon Council to enforce their parking ban on public areas was given short shrift, though, and only managed to attract an official warning to remove all the unlawful signs.
It has now emerged that the UWVRA has decided to go rogue and engage a private parking enforcement firm, even though the council has advised them that this, too, would be illegal.
They are planning what amounts to vigilante action for July 1, when some of them intend to gather outside the “stylish coffee shop” to inform all drivers seeking to park there that they’re not welcome, and to take down the registration numbers of vehicles using the legitimate parking area.
As one local told Inside Croydon, “I believe this to be not only illegal, but a flagrant attempt to intimidate the cafe’s customers.
“I’m disturbed that many of the residents ‘ concerns seem to be based in no small part on race and a worry that the café has become a ‘little Baghdad’.”
Some in the residents’ association have sought to justify their actions because of joy-riders plaguing the Webb Estate’s previously quiet roads, coupled with claims that the area has become a location for drug deals to take place. A local source told iC: “All of which might be legitimate concerns, and all of which ought to be reported to the police. None of it has anything to do with the café.”
The opposition to the bullying tactics of the rogue residents appears to be gathering. One customer of the Lord Roberts said, “I intend to make myself a nuisance to the residents on the morning of July 1. I shall be demanding to see their data protection statements and policy. I also intend to park and leave my car there all day.
“If I feel that the intimidation shown by them is sufficient to call the police, I shall do so.”
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The residents putting up illegal signs should be handed massive fines, got to fund this council somehow!
“Ooh! A nice drive out to a lovely café on a summer Monday sounds perfect! I’ll put the date in the diary.”
Off work that day. In addition to my already VERY busy schedule, I will be taking afternoon tea at Lord Roberts on the Green, joined by friends and family. Such fun!!
The whole campaign against the Lord Roberts’ owners and clientele smacks of racism and/or Islamophobia. That and snobbery
That stuffy old Residents’ Association needs a good dragging into the 21st century, and something worthwhile to do with their time. Most Purley and Croydon residents see this racism and bigotry for what it is. Let’s name and shame each of them on social media and maybe even show them they need to get out more.
Snobbery yes: but I reckon cries of racism and Islamophobia are off the mark, betraying an ignorance of the demos of the Webb Estate.
Check out the directors of Webb Estate Ltd – the umbrella organistion for the road associations – for instance.
Regardless, good luck to Ghazala. I suspect she will be fine in the end, as UWVRA/ WEL doesn’t have full control of Upper Woodcote Village and shares it with Croydon LBC, which is plainly not keen on these manouevres.
On a point of order, Irascible Bernard Ingham didn’t live ON the estate … he was nearby in Monaghan Avenue. IC’s athletics correspondent will be fascinated to know that my old club, South London Harriers, often trained around the estate on a Tuesday evening.