Squatters have taken over the café in Wandle Park.

Open for business: squatters have served more teas and coffees in Wandle Park over the past fortnight than all of Croydon’s politicians have managed to achieve in five years

And they have been making a better job of serving the community than the council has managed in more than five years.

Mayor Jason Perry first promised to have the café re-opened by 2023. But that year came and went, and so too has 2024, without a can of fizzy pop or an ice cream being sold in the park.

Earlier this year, Perry said that he would re-open the purpose-built café, and importantly the park’s toilets, by May. May has come and gone, and the café has not re-opened – at least not in any form that Mayor Perry had intended.

This is after three years of the council trying, and failing, to find an operator willing to take on the onerous task of managing a café in Wandle Park, which has gained an unwelcome reputation for anti-social behaviour and drug-dealing.

Sources at Fisher’s Folly suggest that the principle reason that Mayor Perry has broken another of his promises is that the terms demanded by the council, as the café landlord, are unrealistic for any operator to make a profit. And any operator would also need to maintain and clean the park’s toilets, into the bargain.

Inside Croydon understands that one successful bidder for the café licence pulled out at a late stage. Another round of bidding was conducted that restricted offers to traders based in Croydon, a short-sighted imposition which immediately ruled out dozens of potential bidders from nearby in south London.

Wandle Park, wedged in alongside railway and tram tracks on the western edge of the borough close to the Purley Way, is among the oldest public open spaces in Croydon.

The café was built in 2013 as part of a multi-million-pound restoration of the park which also saw the culverted river brought back to the surface, the bandstand restored and instead of the Victorian ornamental lake, a wildlife pond was dug out and more modern amusements, a basketball court and skate park, created.

There in black and white: from the council’s own website. The park’s toilets remain closed as long as the café remains closed

The optimism and hopes of a decade ago around this revived community facility have slowly, quietly, been eroded. The covid lockdown saw the café closed up and it has not re-opened since.

Unwittingly, the council’s website highlights the fundamental problem they have created: “Café  – Currently closed,” it reads. “Toilets in café.” Oh.

The shuttered front of the café was “bleak,” Rowenna Davis, a councillor for Waddon ward and Labour’s 2026 mayoral candidate, said in a letter to Mayor Perry at the start of this year.

“There is nowhere to rest, change a baby, go to the bathroom or buy a hot drink in the winter.”

Residents and members of the Friends of Wandle Park maintain that having a functioning café open will help draw more families to the park and also help deter some of the less welcome visitors. It is a view supported by the Metropolitan Police.

“A café would provide sustenance and community to local people, particularly during our fantastic festivals in the summer, as well as a source of employment and business rates,” Davis wrote to Perry in January, attaching a petition signed by dozens of residents.

“Local police have also said they believe reopening the café would deter the anti-social behaviour that has been growing in the park.”

Then, around a month ago, there was some activity around the cafe – but not by anyone on behalf of Croydon Council.

Instant success: Reclaim Croydon outlined their plans for the Wandle Park café

The group Reclaim Croydon had moved in.

Reclaim Croydon have already operated a series of squats around the borough, often in vacant, neglected public buildings, providing accommodation for people who would otherwise be forced to sleep on the streets.

In one instance, they turned a disused restaurant near West Croydon into a community bookshop.

Most recently, Reclaim Croydon reclaimed a former children’s home in Reedham, their “Autonomous Winter Shelter” helping almost 60 people who would otherwise have been forced to sleep rough for more than four months.

When the council took legal steps to evict the squatters, they turned up in court without the right papers to show that the building was in fact council-owned. The judge’s patience was sorely tested, so much so that he questioned the council’s long-delayed eviction notice, suggesting that Reclaim Croydon was doing a better job of housing the homeless than Croydon Council was.

In Wandle Park, Reclaim Croydon opened the doors of the café over the Bank Holiday weekend offering teas and soft drinks, and last weekend had arranged an even more elaborate programme of events, including a collective lunch, a circus show and a clown workshop. Inside Croydon has been unable to confirm whether Mayor Perry attended the latter.

Embarrassing as it is for piss-poor Perry and his council’s bungling bureaucrats, Reclaim Croydon’s brand of direct action has also exposed how ineffectual the conventional political approach from opposition councillors has become.

“We know so many community members have been campaigning to get this café reopened,” Councillor Davis wrote to residents at the weekend.

“The Mayor promised it would be opened by May, but unfortunately we now know that squatters have broken into the building and secured it. This was completely preventable if the Mayor had stuck to his word and reopened the café – a plan that will now be delayed even further.”

Read more: IT’S OFFICIAL: Croydon still among country’s worst councils
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