‘Ello, ‘ello, ‘ello: police officers and Reclaim Croydon squatters have a quiet chat, as the eviction in Wandle Park took place this morning. There were no reports of any ‘incidents’
EXCLUSIVE by STEVEN DOWNES and AUSTEN COOPER
Officers from the Metropolitan Police moved in on the squatters at the Wandle Park café this morning – without any prior notice as is usually required to secure an eviction.
Send in the clown: did Mayor Jason Perry tire of waiting for the council’s legal department to take action? Or was he just angry that he missed the clown workshop at the weekend?
It is suggested that the police action was at the behest of a humiliated Mayor Jason Perry, after the action group, Reclaim Croydon, had succeeded in reopening the café and as well as providing a much-needed shelter for the homeless, also serving drinks and refreshments from the council-owned building – something that the £84,000 per year Tory politician had failed to do in more than three years.
At around 11am today, Reclaim Croydon issued what amounted to a social media distress signal.
“Police are evicting Wandle Park café right now!” a notice on their Instagram account said.
Eviction notice: Reclaim Croydon say that the council notice is unlawful, and that there was never any ‘anti-social behaviour’
“No notice given!
“Removing a community space that was left empty!”
According to one eye-witness, the people who had occupied what they’d called Reclaim Café “were forced to dump their possessions and tools on to the grass outside the now empty building, as officers, working with council officials, secured the disused building”.
The squatters trudged away down Waddon New Road, with some of their cooking tools and and art equipment hurriedly loaded on to a “borrowed” supermarket trolleys.
Masked up to avoid being registered on the government’s facial recognition database, a spokesperson for Reclaim Croydon said that the eviction notice was illegal. It had been served simply for the “crime” of giving people free tea and coffee.
The notice also cited “anti-social behaviour”, which Reclaim Croydon strenuously deny.
The Reclaim Croydon spokesperson also said that the group had even been in discussions with council officials on legitimising their re-use of the facility, which places today’s actions in a particularly sinister and cynical light.
Reclaim Croydon were known to have made some repairs to the building, which despite being only 12 years old is already suffering from poor maintenance by the cash-strapped council and roof issues.
The café, and the park’s public conveniences inside, have been closed since the first covid lockdown five years ago. Croydon has since failed to find a business operator prepared to take on the property under the onerous terms demanded by the local authority.
Last month, Reclaim Croydon stepped in and demonstrated the art of the possible. Over the Bank Holiday weekend, the squatters’ group arranged an elaborate programme of events, including a collective lunch, a circus show and a clown workshop.
Mayor Perry might have learned something useful if he’d bothered to turn up for that event.
As Inside Croydon reported earlier this week, piss-poor Perry had first promised to have the café re-opened by 2023. But that year came and went, as has 2024, without a can of fizzy pop or a single ice cream being sold from the park’s caff, where the toilets remain steadfastly unopened.
Wheeled away: Reclaim Croydon move their equipment out of Wandle Park
Earlier this year, Perry made yet another promise, saying that he would re-open the purpose-built café by May. May has come and gone, and still the café remained closed, at least in the conventional sense.
Other news outlets, not based in Croydon, have since followed up on our exclusive report. The council was reported as saying it is “still trying to gain repossession via peaceful means”.
But this is the same council where the most senior legal official is Stephen Lawrence-Orumwense, whose staff earlier this year turned up at a court hearing to evict Reclaim Croydon from a children’s home in Reedham, but had their application thrown out by the judge when they couldn’t prove that the council owned the property.
Reclaim Croydon is the same group of anarchist squatters who took over the vacant offices of Brick by Brick on George Street in 2023, until bailiffs smashed in the doors and the group were forced to leave.
For an ineffectual and increasingly untrusted Mayor, headlines ridiculing Perry’s impotence appear to have been the final straw and are understood to have prompted a call from the Town Hall to the local Old Bill to request assistance with an urgent intervention.
There are some questions about whether the police action, without the usual legal nicety of a warning from bailiffs, may have gone beyond what is lawfully allowed.
“The cops just turned up with an eviction notice, but without prior warning,” according to one source.
It has been suggested that the eviction was a Croydon Council operation, with police officers attending only in order to prevent any “escalations”, and “simply in a supporting capacity”.
What we’ll be missing: the activities offered each week at the caff by Reclaim Croydon, now ended by Jason Perry
There were no reports of any “incidents”.
The Metropolitan Police and Croydon Council have been asked for comment.
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.
As Reclaim Croydon left Wandle Park this morning, they were defiant, saying, “We’ll be back.”
Meanwhile, thanks to Mayor Jason Perry, anyone now needing to use the toilets while in the park will have to head for the bushes.
The flushable ones are in the locked-up café.
Read more: Reclaim Croydon’s free bookshop and café closed by bailiffs
Read more: Welcome to the House of Fun! Squatters claim court victory
Read more: Activists provide shelter to 40 people ignored by council
Read more: IT’S OFFICIAL: Croydon still among country’s worst councils
*Updated at 1.15pm to add Reclaim Croydon quotes and images
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