The latest golden goodbye for a departing council CEO, the terrible state of even new flats around central Croydon, Westfield and the Allders kiosks, and what looks like the hot ticket for Christmas entertainment – all get discussed on our latest Croydon Insider podcast
Top of the agenda in this programme is the £50,000 of public money handed to the departing chief executive, Katherine Kerswell, so she does not have to work her three-month contractual notice period.
Our readers’ panel this episode comprises someone who works in HR, a former Croydon councillor and someone who has worked in youth services in the borough – but trying to get to the bottom of whether Kerswell was forced out and given a golden goodbye by Mayor Jason Perry raises more questions about the way the council is being run.
“A continuation of the chaos,” was how it is described by one panel member, Anya Destiney.
Brian Finegan, a former councillor for Woodside ward, takes a sympathetic view of Kerswell’s time in Croydon, where the debt was £1.4billion when she arrived and was £1.4billion when she left, after three Section 114 notices of effective bankruptcy.
Finegan believes Kerswell’s task was “impossible”.
“There is no real way out of this… without selling off every asset and closing down every last non-statutory service,” Finegan says, and airs his fear that the government-appointed Commissioners intend to conduct a “scorched earth” policy on what remains of Croydon’s services.
HR specialist Austen Cooper describes as “bizarre” the circumstances surrounding Kerswell’s abrupt departure. “She left in a hurry with a sum of money,” he says.
“It doesn’t look good.”
Also in our news podcast, our guests talk about the work of the South Norwood Community Kitchen, they flag up this Christmas’s hot ticket – My Fair Lady by Theatre Workshop Coulsdon – and we get the first review of the Allders kiosks.
And there’s more discussion on Westfield and the state of Croydon town centre.
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