Here’s more of the most significant or best-read news stories of 2025, as we delve behind the headlines with Inside Croydon reports from the past 12 months
MARCH
No Access Croydon: the increasingly remote council shut the public out of the public access area of Fisher’s Folly at short notice in March
No Access Croydon: Kerswell closes off Fisher’s Folly to public
The increasingly remote and out-of-touch leadership at the council shut its public access area down at short notice.
It was yet another botched operation by the under-resourced authority, which saw staff engaged in public shouting matches at the reception to Fisher’s Folly, while people seeking advice or requiring emergency housing were being directed to Central Library, to use public computers so that they could make an emergency appointment to see someone at the council, where housing the homeless is a legally required duty.
83-year-old Palace fan shaken by Selhurst security shakedown
On patrol: a sniffer dog search at a Crystal Palace game, where staff were properly identified. It was not always been the case, as an iC investigation uncovered
One of the great Inside Croydon exclusives, thanks to former Sunday Times Insight team journalist Peter Gillman, who showed you’re never to old to recognise an injustice, and a news story, when he suffered an ignominious shakedown by dog-handling security at the gates of Crystal Palace FC.
The dodgy search, conducted by a member of a security company that was breaking a raft of regulations and laws, prompted a three-month investigation by Gillman for this website that ultimately led to the company losing its work at Selhurst Park.
Bridge to Nowhere: the £22m public-funded infrastructure has been left hanging since it was installed in 2013. Now Network Rail want to weedle out of their planning obligations and compromise the entire structure
Network Rail’s compromise too far over #BridgeToNowhere
And the Bridge to Nowhere? Yep, still not finished, 13 years after it was first slid into place at the northern end of East Croydon Station.
Even local MPs swallowed Network Rail’s flannel about it being opened in October this year.
Of course, if the council officials and cabinet member responsible at the time, back in 2010 or 2011, had ensured that all the contracts with house-builders Menta had been properly signed off, with specified deadline dates for public access on the Addiscombe side of the bridge, then all of this nonsense might have been avoided.
And who was the council cabinet member responsible when the Bridge to Nowhere, costing £22million of public money, was just left hanging? No prizes for guessing it was then then councillor Jason Perry.
Also in March…
Woman broke her back after Croydon Council cut her care aid
The Masterplan has just one aim, to make money for Westfield
After more than a decade of delays, Westfield’s latest plans for Croydon town centre were late again, and hugely underwhelming.
Mayor Perry lies to BBC over his closures of Croydon libraries
No change here then…
Meanwhile, in Sutton:
LibDems’ sacked deputy storms out of meeting, and council
NUMBER CRUNCHING: For the third month in a row, our page views were close to 300,000 or more – 1million page views in 12 weeks – record numbers in 15 years of publishing Inside Croydon. And our readers were continuing to be engaged with the content, with approaching 500 comments passing editorial scrutiny and published in this month alone.
PICK OF THE PODCASTS: The Croydon Insider, our irregular look behind the headlines with a round-table, panel news discussion thingy, reached out to Croydon’s Conservatives to invite them to put up one of their £40,000 per year cabinet members to face questions from our readers.
They didn’t bother to respond. What could they have to hide?
Listen in to the conclusions our panel reached by visiting our Spotify page here
- If you missed our review of January 2025’s news, take a look at this: That was the year that was: Inside Croydon’s pick of 2025
- For February’s top news stories, have a look at this: Purley Pool, porkie pies and a busted budget
- Check out what was making the news Inside Croydon in April by clicking here
- While in May 2025, we were mostly watching football:After 120 years, the Eagles live the dream at Wembley cup final
- June 2025 was When council boss blocked staff from reading Inside Croydon
- In July, Inside Croydon exposed how Croydon’s cash-strapped council was paying consultant £726 PER HOUR
- Fly-tipped mattresses that the council refused to touch, library books discared all over a street in Broad Green, more buckets than businesses in the Whitgift Centre, and Reform’s dead candidate for mayor. All to be found on Inside Croydon in August 2025
- In September 2025, we were the first to report the latest housing scandal to hit Croydon, and the council
- And in October, we broke the news that Katherine Kerswell had quit as council CEO, and was to received a £50,000 pay-off
- In November and December, we even had cabinet minister Steve Reed retweeting links to Inside Croydon news reports, which included coverage of the spaghetti restaurant named the best in the country
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