Not for the first, and probably not the last time, either, Croydon Council, unable to perform its basic tasks to a reasonable level, has opted to shut down a piece of public amenity.
Legacy issues: Croydon Council appears to want to abandon its duties to clean and maintain pedestrian subways, such as this one near East Croydon Station
The council has blocked off all access to a pedestrian subway near East Croydon Station, forcing the public to take their chances with the traffic by crossing the busy junction at surface level.
The council says it made the decision to permanently close the subway under Altyre Road because it “attracted repeated antisocial behaviour”. Which suggests a failure of local policing, and a failure of the council to house the homeless people who had been bedding down there.
“A fire in the subway under Altyre Road led to the entrances being closed and fenced to prevent entry to the disused and unsafe site,” the council’s propaganda department said in a statement issued last night.
“However, people still gained illegal access to set up an unauthorised encampment in the subway, leading to further antisocial behaviour.”
According to Jason Perry, Croydon’s £82,000 per year Mayor, “Our community outreach teams sensitively supported all those involved.” Which is nice. Though whatever that sensitive support entailed, it did not appear to extend to finding homes for those involved.
Council hype: how the Mayor’s propaganda department decided to illustrate this latest abandonment of a public amenity
The council says that “the subway closure is part of the work of the council’s new town centre taskforce – a group of key statutory, community and voluntary sector organisations, working together to share intelligence to clean up hotspot areas and deal with antisocial behaviour”. So dealing with symptoms, rather than causes.
“The subway is now temporarily secured with steel gates and fencing, preventing further access and reducing the risk of more serious incidents taking place there. It will be filled and no longer used.”
And according to the council, “Pedestrians wanting to cross the road will not be impacted by the closure and will be able to do so using the designated crossings.” So that’s alright then.
Croydon’s pedestrian subways, dotted around the town centre and through to Old Town and Waddon, are a legacy of the massive 1960s road building programme, which destroyed many residential streets and replaced them with six-lane urban motorways, including the Croydon Flyover, the roads all hostile environments for pedestrians.
After 60 years, Croydon’s subways had become neglected by the local authority, and avoided by the public, who had good cause to seek other routes to get to where they needed to go.
Many of the urine-tainted subways had become rubbish-strewn and prone to flooding, as well as being used by muggers and other violent attackers. Even before Croydon Council went bust, it rarely maintained the subways as clean, safe environments for the public to use for their intended purpose.
There have been discussions before about blocking off some of the subways, most notably along Roman Way by Croydon Minster, though those plans were abandoned when Transport for London withdrew funding as it sought to rebalance its books following lockdown.
Croydon Council failed to mention how it would be paying for the work on the Altyre Road subway.
FREE ADS: Paid-up subscribers to Inside Croydon qualify for a free ad for their business, residents’ association or community group, just one of the benefits of being part of our online community. For more information about being an iC subscriber, click here for our Patreon page
PAID ADS: To advertise your services or products to our near 10,000 weekday visitors to the site, which is featured on Google News Showcase and followed by 16,000 on Twitter/X, email us inside.croydon@btinternet.com for our unbeatable ad rates
- If you have a news story about life in or around Croydon, or want to publicise your residents’ association or business, or if you have a local event to promote, please email us with full details at inside.croydon@btinternet.com
- Our comments section on every report provides all readers with an immediate “right of reply” on all our content. Our comments policy can be read by clicking here
- Inside Croydon works together with the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, as well as BBC London News and ITV London
