Jose Joseph, the Surrey Street stall-holder who provides hot meals for the homeless in Croydon town centre every week, has been recognised for his efforts in the community with a special certificate at this week’s Civic Mayor Awards ceremony at the Town Hall this week.
Business leader: Jose Joseph, chair of the Croydon Business Association, has been recognised for his community work
Joseph is also the chair of the Croydon Business Association, a relatively new organisation representing local small and medium-sized businesses which is actively campaigning for improvements to their trading conditions around the town centre, in particular over the spending of £4.2million in grants for Surrey Street market.
And when he is not running his market stall or feeding the homeless, Joseph is out and about helping with community litter picks in Queen’s Gardens (made necessary because of the thoroughly negligent job that the council and their contractors make of the task).
“What an honour!” Joseph said on Tuesday evening after receiving his certificate from ceremonial Mayor Kola Agboola.
Good deeds: some of the Kairali volunteers at their May Day litter pick
Joseph won the Mayor’s Community Award for his outstanding charitable work.
“This award isn’t just for me,” Joseph told Inside Croydon, “it’s for the entire Croydon Business Association family, whose tireless efforts continue to make a difference in our community.”
Joseph and his family didn’t stop too long at the Town Hall partying. While others were celebrating, they were back out in the town centre serving up more than 100 portions of delicious homemade chicken biryani to those in need.
Joseph had last week been at the centre of a May Day clean-up in front of the Town Hall with other volunteers from Kairali UK Croydon.
“We do it with love. We do it with pride,” Joseph said of his community efforts.
Anyone who wants more information about the Croydon Business Association should email info@croydonba.org.uk.
But you will struggle to find any recognition of Joseph and other award-winners’ deeds anywhere on the cash-strapped council’s own website.
Behind the times: council staff haven’t bothered to update this web page for five years
The council, which aspires to be “digital-first” and wants the residents it is supposed to serve to conduct all their council business online, has failed to publish any news coverage of the event on its website, nor issued any press release about its Civic Mayor Awards.
Indeed, a search of the digital-first council’s website finds the most recent item for the Civic Mayor Awards to be five years old, suggesting that £204,000 per year chief executive Katherine Kerswell’s council’s propaganda team hasn’t managed to update this page since 2020.
They’ve probably been too busy spending their publicly-funded time handling the personal, political propaganda of the non-civic and not very civil Mayor, Jason Perry.
Read more: Fix! Internal Labour inquiry confirms selection stitch-up
Read more: 98-year-old Scout troop in urgent appeal for adult volunteers
Read more: Surrey Street traders give Mayor Perry their own shopping list
PAID ADS: To advertise your services or products to our 10,000 weekday visitors to the site, as featured on Google News Showcase, 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
