CROYDON COMMENTARY: Addiscombe campaigner and former councillor JERRY FITZPATRICK, says that after a 13-year wait, it time for some answers and honesty from Network Rail and the Croydon Mayor about East Croydon Station
It was Christmas 2012 when the pedestrian bridge over the northern end of East Croydon Station was inched into place, in the impressive piece of engineering shown in the video above.
We’ve been waiting for the bridge to be completed ever since.
For 10 years, we were starved of information. We only knew that the land on the eastern side was a building site for Menta Towers. So Menta couldn’t construct the eastern bridge link which was its responsibility.
By March 2023, Menta’s contractors had cleared off. Finally, the bridge link is constructed and ready to use.
It was never Menta to be this way: the developers finally finished their flats on Cherry Orchard Road in 2023 – but still the footbridge has not been opened
But the bridge didn’t open. We tried to get answers.
All we were fed was a diet of misinformation, and a few vague promises.
ECCO, the East Croydon Community Organisation, has tried to get at the truth. At its annual meeting in July 2024, senior representatives of Network Rail and Croydon Council answered questions about the delay. We heard for the first time that the bridge had deteriorated so much in its decade of disuse that significant remedial work was required.
Network Rail had a cost estimate. It was more than they wanted to pay. They were in the process of getting a further estimate, which they hoped would be cheaper. There was a real prospect of work commencing in early 2025 they told us then.
Heather Cheesbrough (then the council’s planning chief) was in attendance. She could have stated that the Mayor of Croydon would gallantly step in ensure that local taxpayers would defray the cost. But Heather and the Mayor were silent.
Bridge to Nowhere: three years after the Cherry Orchard Road link was finally completed, Croydon’s planning oversights and Network Rail budgets mean the bridge can still not be completed
Another year has been and almost gone and the Bridge to Nowhere remains stubbornly incomplete. Croydon MPs have reported back from their meetings with the council and Network Rail that the promised opening is just round the corner.
And this week – a triumphalist press release from Croydon Mayor Jason Perry.
According to Mayor Perry, who has been in charge of Croydon since 2022, Labour is to blame for the delay. Something will be done. The opening of the bridge is just round the corner.
It’s been such a long time, but some of us do still remember that it was Mayor Perry, when he was simply Councillor Perry, who was the then Conservative council’s cabinet member for planning and transport when the bridge was planned, the contracts agreed and it was constructed.
It was Conservative Councillor Perry who will have given his approval for £6million of council money to be spent on delivering a bridge that has never been finished.
It was a planning committee with a majority of Conservative councillors which, in 2012, gave Menta planning permission, the implementation of which prevented the construction of the eastern bridge link for an indefinite period.
It was on Network Rail’s watch that the condition of the bridge deteriorated so badly that it now requires significant expenditure.
The remediation work that was promised in July 2024 is soon to be underway “There is a clear pathway to delivery,” puffs Mayor Perry.
But is there?
What is the timescale for the completion of the remedial work?
And what about responsibility for cleaning, maintenance and security thereafter? Who is taking on these? I don’t imagine Network Rail nor Croydon’s Mayor are fighting to be first to get their wallets out.
We know that Menta will continue to be responsible for the eastern lift and the bridge link. But the main costs are in respect of the bridge itself. Has Network Rail agreed to take these on? Mayor Perry fails to say. Will there be a line in the Mayor’s budget for 2026-2027, which is to be published in seven weeks’ time, to cover for these costs?
Dissembling: Perry’s PR puffery fails to mention the Mayor’s role in the long-running farce
Once responsibility for these costs has been agreed, the contracts for cleaning, maintenance and security will have to be tendered. A time-consuming process which seems some distance from starting.
Network Rail has conceded in correspondence with ECCO members that there was no Equalities Impact study conducted when the bridge was constructed. They know that one is needed. There is immense concern in the disabled community about safety issues, which will have been aggravated by Network Rail’s unyielding refusal to provide ticket gates at the eastern end of the bridge, at the Cherry Orchard Road entrance, despite the huge public demand for it.
Community groups will be demanding that there is a clear plan to address safety concerns and will be scrutinising it with utmost care.
Truth is a casualty in the fierce mayoral election war which is unfolding.
Mayor Perry and Network Rail – let’s have some candour. You may even have good answers to the questions raised.
Give us a credible timescale for the opening of the bridge. And give it to us now. We’ve been waiting quite long enough.
Read more: No one can afford ticket machines for the Bridge to Nowhere
Read more: Network Rail can’t afford staff for Bridge to Nowhere ticketing
Read more: After 12-year delay, Perry pipes up on the Bridge to Nowhere
- Jerry Fitzpatrick is a former barrister and Labour councillor for Addiscombe West ward
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Thank goodness we have people like Jerry and journalists like Inside Croydon to keep a forensic check and these things. The saga reveals incompetence and apparent lack of honesty on the part of our part-time Mayor.
£6m for a small bridge? Is it made from gold? Or surely some overseas developer has pocketed the £5.9m leftover?
The bridge initially cost £22million.
£6million was the council’s contribution.
Ah. The ‘bridge’ (of East Croydon sighs) a wobbly, often dangerous to walk on structure, in the wet or dry (it is only part covered from rain, with therefore frequently has slippery deck surfaces and additional hazards of broken tiles) symptomatic of the station…. Add the nice touch that some of the lifts are out of action at any one time and it’s not big enough for the station at peak times. And its ugly. £22m – at least it was not built by the HS2 team?