Long-awaited investment: Ashburton Park has been awarded a £1.6m Heritage Lottery grant to celebrate its centenary. Which was in 2024
No mention of the former ‘home for inebriates’ in council’s restoration plans for public park in Addiscombe, KEN LEE reports
The National Heritage Lottery Fund has provided a £1.6million grant to Croydon Council to upgrade Ashburton Park to celebrate its centenary, in a project that won’t be completed until at least four years after that 100th anniversary.
The park was acquired by Croydon Corporation in 1924, so the council’s efforts to “celebrate” Ashburton Park’s significant anniversary are already running a little behind schedule.
At the centre of the project will be the repurposed Edwardian-era park lodge, which was handed over to the Oasis education charity to use the building as a youth centre in memory of 15-year-old Zaian Aimable-Lina, who was murdered in Ashburton Park in December 2021.
The Heritage Lottery grant announced this week follows surveying work conducted by the council to develop a conservation plan and landscape designs.
The council has been “consulting” the public and conducting surveys about Ashburton Park for almost a decade, in efforts to “revitalise the former library, pavilion and open spaces of Ashburton Park”. Notably, the former library building in the park got no mention in Croydon’s latest announcement.
The Heritage Lottery grant, £1,593,762, comes after the council claims to have “worked closely” with the Friends of Ashburton Park, by holding “workshops” and “events with the wider community and young people”.
In an announcement from the propaganda bunker at Fisher’s Folly, they said, “This new funding will support the ambitious ‘100 Years of Ashburton Park’ restoration and improvement programme, which will see upgrades to the park highlighting its historic and ecological features, making sure it stays as a treasured community space for generations to come.”
Water feature: there’s always been drainage issues in Ashburton Park, since before it was first acquired by Croydon Corporation in 1924
The park is on the former site of the Woodside Convent, of which all that remains today is the chapel. In the Victorian era, the area now occupied by the park included an orphanage, which, according to Croydon Council, later became “a home for inebriates”. The council gave no indication whether a revival of this prior purpose is to be included in its restoration plans.
One hundred and one years after the council’s predecessor authority purchased the park, the latest plans include “restoration of the park’s historic wetland” (it’s what used to be a paddling pool; there’s an area of the park which is notorious for being poorly drained and which floods; the plans appear to have opted not to try to hold back nature in that respect), as well as a new bandstand to replace the existing tea kiosk, the creation of a community garden and improvements to pathways and lighting.
“A series of heritage-focused activities, including a community archaeology project and guided heritage walks and audio trials are also part of the exciting plans,” states the council’s propaganda department, which clearly gets over-excited very easily.
The cash-strapped council, which in the past has struggled to show a proper grasp of numbers, says, “There will also be community events to celebrate Ashburton Park’s Centenary this summer and the 100 years of women’s right to vote during 2028.”
The council says, “As part of the project, the Council has worked closely with the Oasis community hub team, and a dedicated schools programme will include a food-growing enterprise within the newly developed grounds of the park lodge.
“This will complement Oasis’s wider aim to restore the park’s lodge into a community hub, which is being fundraised separately by Oasis.”
The Oasis Charitable Trust was founded in 1985 by Rev Steve Chalke. It now operates three secondary schools, two primary schools and a children’s centre in Croydon, and according to Charity Commission records, has nearly £400million-worth of assets.
Yet the charity has sought public donations as they “fundraised” towards paying an undisclosed amount for their acquisition of what had been publicly-owned property.
In 2023, in response to a Freedom of Information request regarding the management and disposal of the publicly owned lodge building – it is a five-bedroomed house in the middle of the park – Croydon Council responded as follows: “The council cannot locate this information.”
Bargain: Ashburton Lodge was put up for auction in 2022 for £320,000. A year later, the council claimed to have no records of the sale proposals
The Heritage Lottery Fund project, the council says, “is expected to start in the summer and be completed by November 2028″. Which will be four years after the park’s centenary.
“We are delighted that this grant will enhance the park’s safety for children and young people in Croydon,” said Andy Gill, from the Oasis educational business organisation.
“After the tragic events of previous years, this investment is a demonstration of how working with local people can bring about lasting change, improving the life chances of our young people at a time when support is most needed.”
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(Croydon) “council claims to have “worked closely” with the Friends of Ashburton Park, by holding “workshops” and “events with the wider community and young people”.”
By naming them separately, clearly the council do not consider “young people” to be part of the “wider community”?!
How much money have they spent on consultations over the past few years?
You could always ask them Matthew. Just send the council a Freedom of Information request.
Lots of consultations gives work to consultants, and means the money spent on them doesn’t have to be used to actually do something. That’s good for the timid souls in positions of power who don’t like doing anything.
For those with a bit more determination, consultations can be used as a way deferring decision making until they get the answers they want.
We’re being consulted about a massive retirement complex to be built by a dodgy company when all people wanted was a swimming pool in Purley.
We can expect to be “consulted” about plans for the new flats in central Croydon, years after we were told, then asked, about various incarnations of a “Westfield”
As I’ve said on these pages ad nauseam, there’s “consultation with” people, where you canvass for opinions with a view to coming up with a scheme with which most will be reasonably comfortable. Then there’s “consultation to,” where you canvass for opinions with a view to ticking the box saying you must do a consultation and then carrying on regardless. Croydon, like most official bodies, never has any intention but to do anything but the latter.
It was always such a lovely park until, like much of Croydon, it was run down. How much of this money will actually get spent on the park? How much will go on consultants and companies connected to staff? I hope the Council is prepared to be fully transparent so that we can see exactly where and with whom the money is spent so that it’s not another Fairfield. Or will they fail to locate the information?
Joker Bains trying to give Perry some credit for this! I guess I should take some credit because I occasionally play Euromillions!! I hope they make that £1.6m stretch and then things actually stay maintained…