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Majority of councillors sign letter of support for Nightwatch

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Under threat: Croydon Nightwatch and its volunteers have been providing hot food, help and hope to the homeless and working poor from Queen’s Gardens for almost half a century

CROYDON IN CRISIS: Open letter to Mayor Perry describes the ‘shocking way’ the council has treated one of the borough’s most-respected charities.
By STEVEN DOWNES

Under pressure: Croydon’s £82,000 per year elected Mayor, Jason Perry

More than half of the borough’s elected councillors have signed an open letter to Mayor Jason Perry calling for his urgent, personal assurances that Town Hall officials will abandon any threat of legal action against Croydon Nightwatch, the charity which has been providing hot meals, help and hope for almost 50 years.

Inside Croydon reported last week how a council bureaucrat, Huw Rhys Lewis BSc, BArch, MSc, MRIBA, MRICS, MAPM, the council’s “interim director of commercial investment and capital”, had issued the written threat to Nightwatch, ordering them to relocate their nightly service for the town centre’s homeless, rough sleepers and working poor, which has operated in and around Queen’s Gardens since the 1970s.

At a Town Hall meeting last week, when asked about the threat of a court injunction to stop Nightwatch feeding the homeless, Tory Mayor Perry provided no undertaking that the council would drop its callous threat against the volunteer-led charity, nor that he would not – again – waste public money on a futile legal case.

The councillors’ letter to Perry, released this morning, was circulated over the weekend. All 34 Labour councillors and the borough’s two Green and one Liberal Democrat have signed the letter. No Conservative councillors added their signature to the letter.

The letter to Mayor Perry states:

We call on you to support Nightwatch, a charity that has been serving some of Croydon’s most vulnerable people for almost 50 years, most visibly at Queen’s Gardens.

Nightwatch has been asking for a dialogue with the council about a permanent shelter with lighting for the charity to operate from, which they would fund themselves. Despite their service, we are concerned about the council’s interactions with this charity, which they say have included repeated failures to reply, confusion and legal threats.

This is a shocking way to treat one of Croydon’s most highly regarded charities, which has also been adopted as the official charity of the civic mayor.

We would therefore like you to answer the following questions:

  • Can Nightwatch continue to serve the homeless at Queen’s Gardens?
  • Can you confirm that the council will not be using public money to take this charity for homeless people to court?
  • Can you make sure the council has respectful and timely communications with this charity, including from planning officers about a potential new shelter?
  • Can you confirm your personal support for Nightwatch?

We note that during the redevelopment of the park and Taberner House, both landscapers and developers assured Nightwatch that their volunteers could continue to help feed and support their clients at Queen’s Gardens, as they have done every night for years.

We know that Croydon has seen a frightening increase in homelessness, and people from all parties and none are conscious of the huge human cost that brings to people as well as the financial cost to the council.

Given the council’s financial challenges, we know we are increasingly reliant on Croydon’s community and voluntary sector. We must support those voluntary groups who are doing everything to safeguard the health of our most vulnerable population whilst also helping them to get into employment and stable housing.

Please reflect Croydon’s commitment to this treasured local charity and their clients by answering these questions and giving Nightwatch the support it deserves.

Last night, Nightwatch’s team of volunteers were out in the cold and wet at Queen’s Gardens once again, where more than 100 people came seeking a hot meal and some help.

Nightwatch, with more than one hundred volunteers, is among the borough’s largest and most active charity groups. In 2022, Croydon Nightwatch volunteers received the Queen’s Award for Voluntary Service “for their tireless work for the homeless and otherwise vulnerable people in Croydon”.

Nightwatch and their nightly service have been shunted from pillar to post over the last decade, sometimes allowed to set up their tables under the cover of the steps area in front of the council offices, Fisher’s Folly, and sometimes persuaded back into the much-reduced public park.

Nightwatch maintain that through all this, they have acted properly, responsibly and, above all, legally, setting up only on the public highway and in public open spaces.

Jad Adams, Nightwatch’s chair, had approached council officials to try to progress long-running discussions about the possibility of providing some kind of shelter from the elements for the charity’s volunteers during their nightly shifts in all weathers in Queen’s Gardens.

What he got back as a “somewhat intemperate” threat of legal action.

Adams says that the bureaucrat’s email to the charity was “inaccurate in almost every single particular”.

Any legal action taken against the charity, Adams said, “Would be a considerable waste of public money, it would be fiercely contested by us and would generate a deal of bad publicity.”

Read more: Perry’s council threatens legal action against homeless charity
Read more: No money, no plan, no honesty: Mayor still closing 4 libraries
Read more: ‘The council is dismantling our borough, service by service’

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