Cars parked: Kia has taken possession of the car park at the former CALAT in Coulsdon. The promised NHS medical centre on the site appears no closer to delivery
EXCLUSIVE: Coulsdon residents have been waiting a decade for a promised medical facility in the town centre. In March, the council announced it had sold the site to the NHS. In the summer, local MP Chris Philp promised work on the medical centre would start in months. Now, residents have discovered the council has leased the site to a private company, for at least 12 months. By KEN LEE, Town Hall reporter
Croydon Council has delayed any development of the long-promised Coulsdon medical centre by at least a year, after signing a secret money-grabbing deal to lease the CALAT Centre site to a local car dealership.
Coulsdon’s Tory councillors did not know anything about the deal when first approached by concerned locals earlier this week, but they swiftly did a handbrake turn and went full throttle into news management mode on behalf of piss-poor Jason Perry, the borough’s Mayor, by declaring the deal “a win-win”, to the astonishment of residents.
The car park lease with Kia Coulsdon was arranged by council officials, apparently without the knowledge of Mayor Perry or councillors, and with Matthew Kershaw, the chief executive of Croydon Health Services NHS Trust, also kept in the dark.
In March, the council announced the sale of the former CALAT site to the NHS.
‘Work on the site should start by the summer’: MP Chris Philp’s predictions appear ill-informed
By the summer, when he was desperate for votes at the General Election to secure his re-election to Parliament, Chris Philp boasted that work on the medical centre might begin within just a few months. The Tory MP for Croydon South is now the Conservatives’ shadow Home Secretary.
“Once final NHS project approvals are obtained, which I am hoping will be successful and happen very soon, a planning application will then rapidly be made and physical work on site should then start by the summer,” Philp wrote to his constituents less than six months ago.
Claiming credit for the health centre, Philp promised to “stay in regular contact with the NHS to monitor delivery against the milestones”.
Philp’s never said anything about the Kia car park deal – and the fresh delays to the centre’s overdue arrival.
Inside Croydon has learnt that the council quietly fears the NHS will take much longer to work through planning consents and final building details, not to mention funding.
Kia has been given a 12-month lease by the council, subject to one month’s notice either side.
No consultation: the first notice locals got of the car park’s handover to Kia were sniffy notes slapped on their windscreens
Dozens of Kias, worth hundreds of thousands of pounds, have been parked on what was once a school playground, and don’t look like they will be going anywhere in a hurry.
The use of the site for commercial storage will irritate long-suffering Coulsdon residents no end. The site had been in use since 2015 as a temporary 32-space public car park to help ease Coulsdon’s chronic congestion, an attempt to mitigate the loss of spaces at the nearby Lion Green Road council car park when it was handed over to Brick by Brick for housing development.
Parking in Coulsdon has become a farce, with public amenities sold off, while council does nothing to stamp out nuisance, illegal parking in the town, which is now commonplace.
Cars are often parked up illegally on roundabouts and pavements in the evenings, blocking rights of way for pedestrians and holding up buses and traffic. The council has provided no new signage to steer drivers towards Lion Green Road, where now development work has been completed, there remains some public parking available.
The farce over the CALAT site being leased commercially came to light this week, after business owners who’ve parked there for years received a note on their windscreens: “Attention! Kia Coulsdon are now in possession of this land, with an agreement lease from the council. Please refrain from parking.”
Shortly after, the gates were locked.
“We weren’t even asked, let alone told,” one angry business owner told Inside Croydon.
“Croydon Council decided to lease a public car park to a car dealership without any notice or public consultation. They didn’t even put it up for tender, so there was no chance for locals to have their say or propose alternative uses.
Medical centre: there does not appear much chance of delivering the NHS facility while Kia are on site
“It’s a community asset, and we should’ve been involved in the decision.”
Kia, whose glitzy showroom is on Farthing Way, also has parking provision at nearby Coulsdon Manor, as well as immediately behind on private road Station Approach.
Coulsdon’s lack of joined-up parking policy has been rumbling on for a decade now, with Labour and Conservatives squabbling between themselves as council officials appear to do as they like, and locals are left to bear the consequences.
Most recently, Aldi has been allowed to restrict its car park to customers of the supermarket, breaking its original promise to let the general public park there, too, which had been a condition of being granted planning permission to build the large store.
Inside Croydon asked Croydon Council’s propaganda department when and where, and by whom, the deal to lease the car park to Kia was agreed. We also asked when the Coulsdon medical centre, after empty promises for the last 10 years, will be open for use.
We even invited Mayor Perry to comment. Neither the executive Mayor nor any council officials responded to our questions.
‘Win-win’: Ian Parker, who only found out about the Kia car park when asked by residents
But at lunchtime today, one Conservative councillor broke off from his apparent obsession with conducting spats on social media and baiting his political opponents, and whizzed off an email to one residents’ association, asking them for their help.
“A short-term 12-month let to Kia for their vehicles whilst the NHS finalise their project details, planning consent and funding has been agreed,” wrote Tory councillor, and professional Conservative shill, Ian Parker.
“The notice period for Kia vacating the site is one month. This arrangement will provide much-needed income for the council. It’s a win-win situation. Please be reassured this arrangement in no way threatens the long-fought after medical centre.”
What Councillor Parker’s note failed to explain, if there really is nothing for the people of Coulsdon to be concerned about, is how the council is leasing out a site that it said in March it had sold to the NHS for the medical centre…
Read more: Long-planned Coulsdon medical centre in ‘critical condition’
Read more: Coulsdon ‘shafted’ by Tories as NHS centre site put up for sale
Read more: ‘Underhand’ Tories blame residents for medical centre delays
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So who precisely owns this land? The council or the NHS? Is it at all possible that the council have illegally made an agreement to lease a piece of land that they no longer actually own? Surely that’s impossible. I’d love to know what the NHS make of this.
This is a developing story, Yusuf, with more to come soon.
It seems very likely that the slow pace of funding streams for NHS projects meant that someone, somewhere, became aware that the purchase price and budget for the development would not be coming through immediately. So this becomes an interim measure.
But at our unaccountable council, where officials are able to do as they please, if this is in fact the case then no one has bothered communicating the decision to the public or elected councillors.
Which makes the case that Mr Perry as Executive Mayor does not run the Council but is actually the postboy, PR apologist and general spin first aider and snake oil purveyor for those that do?