Under threat: long neglected by owners Croydon Council, Norwood Grove is one of the public spaces placed on the CPRE’s at-risk list

Despite receiving £23m in grants for the up-keep of Croydon’s parks, only eight of the council’s 127 open spaces have Green Flag status.
GIANELLA A BASILE looks over a new report which details more than 50 green spaces under threat – including parks in Croydon, Bromley and Merton

Sombre reading: the latest CPRE London report

A report from the Campaign for the Protection of Rural England claims that more than 50 parks and open spaces in London are at risk from over-commercialisation or even being developed for housing or other uses.

On its list of sites at risk, CPRE London includes parks and open spaces in Croydon, Bromley and in Merton.

“If you think London’s parks are protected, think again,” CPRE London warns.

The report from CPRE London, called Cashing-in on London’s Parks and Countryside, mentions the former NatWest Sports Ground in Norbury, on the Merton-Croydon-Lambeth boundary, as one of the sites lost since their previous report in 2024. Merton Council recently approved the construction of 353 homes on the site of a former sports ground, despite its designated status as open space.

Also listed as “Under threat” are sites in Bromley – at Biggin Hill, Norman Park and St Mary Cray. The high-profile case of the Wimbledon tennis club wanting to turn public parkland into an extension of their annual sports tournament also rates an “Under threat” rating (objections are going through the High Court at present).

Park vandalism: the All-England Lawn Tennis Club has already fenced off what used to be a public space

And the fear that cash-strapped Croydon Council might flog off Norwood Grove also gets a red flag from CPRE London in its report, which says, “Norwood Grove was once described as the most beautiful park in south London.

“But the 200-year-old Grade II-listed house, public gardens and parkland have been neglected,” CPRE London says, having referred to Inside Croydon’s reporting of the sad plight of the building and its surrounding Metropolitan Open Land.

“The Grade II-listed park and gardens were added to the Heritage at Risk Register in November 2024.”

CPRE London has recruited the help of a verified National Treasure, Dame Judi Dench, to support their campaign to save these and other parks and open spaces. Dench highlights how 10% of the nation’s public spaces have already been lost in less than half a century.

“It is clear to me that it is more important than ever to protect our parks and green spaces, before it’s too late,” said the Oscar-winning actress and environmental campaigner.

CPRE London stresses that the sites it has listed as “Under threat” include pieces of Green Belt land, Metropolitan Open Land, parks, recreation grounds, sports fields, nature reserves and others – all of which are supposed to have some protected status from development.

Bromley is among the most at risk in Greater London, with five sites mentioned in the CPRE report, but also mentioned in the report is Brockwell Park, in Lambeth, not because of any development plans, but because of over-commercialisation by the local council, which sees large parks of the park shut off to the public for weeks on end for a series of music festivals.

This year, the only free public event staged in the park, the Lambeth Country Show, has been cancelled by the council in a cost-cutting measure.

It is symptomatic of the way parks, once the focus of much civic pride, have been allowed to be neglected and run-down, to the point where local councils, already struggling to balance their budgets, are increasingly looking at public open spaces as assets which can be sold off to pay for other, statutory responsibilities.

Winning performer: Dame Judi Dench has backed the CPRE campaign

Alice Roberts of CPRE London said: “Unbelievably, a legal judgement confirmed that councils have unfettered powers to sell parks.

“Elsewhere, parks are being turned into commercial event spaces.”

And in the report, CPRE London also refers to Steve “Build, baby! Build” Reed as housing minister, actively encouraging private developers to apply to turn Green Belt sites into private housing for private profit.

“The government has caved in to lobbying to remove Green Belt protection,” Roberts said.

Roberts describes this as a “grey belt policy”, that enables “landowners to cash-in on protected countryside land they bought cheaply years ago, despite widescale availability of brownfield land in London”.

Caved in to lobbyists: MP Steve Reed

According to CPRE London, planning permission has already been granted for “a staggering” 300,000 homes that remain unbuilt.

“If you think London’s parks are protected, think again.

“Councils are the custodians of public rights over parks. The law must be tightened so councils cannot treat them as financial assets to sell or rent when times are tough,” Roberts said.

“We are also calling for an end to the damaging ‘grey belt’ policy which is threatening Green Belt farmland.”

It’s been a long time since Croydon’s parks were neatly trimmed and watered, with colourful, carefully-tended flower beds, and with the park’s waste bins emptied daily. Now, even picking up litter in Croydon’s parks appears to have been left entirely to volunteers.

Richard Jedrzejczak, of The Conservation Volunteers in Croydon, says that the council is requiring more and more work from his group. Lloyd Park, the largest of the council’s parks, well-used by families, dog walkers and runners, and readily accessible by tram and local buses, has been in a state of steady decline for several years, as if it has been deserted by the council’s maintenance team.

Croydon Council likes to refer to itself as “London’s greenest borough”, thanks to its 127 parks and open spaces, which cover almost one-third of the borough, and include children’s playgrounds, playing fields and 17 allotments.

Yet in 2025, just eight of Croydon’s parks were awarded Green Flag status – the international, audited accreditation for parks and green spaces that recognises well-managed, clean, safe and sustainable outdoor areas.

Bin and gone: it has been years since council contractors did the job they are paid to do

Mind you, that was an improvement on 2024, when just four Croydon parks – Coulsdon Memorial Ground, Happy Valley, Wandle Park and Wettern Tree Garden – were considered up to standard for a Green Flag.

But lack of the Green Flag status does raise serious questions about the poor state of almost 120 parks in the care of Croydon Council. In almost every instance of a Croydon park receiving a Green Flag endorsement, it has had the benefit of an active friends’ group, or input from other volunteers.

Ria Patel, the Green Party councillor for Fairfield ward, said, “We’re moving towards a point with the council where the voluntary sector is filling in the gaps of things that the council isn’t doing.” Councillor Patel is concerned that the voluntary groups may not always be able to continue to fix what the council has abandoned.

Over the last 18 months, Croydon Council says it has been successful in bidding for £23million for parks and green spaces, including £21.5million from the government’s Pride in Place programme for wider improvements, £1.5million for Ashburton Park from the National Lottery Heritage Fund to mark its centenary and a £1million “Sustainable Croydon” fund for local green projects.

Yet according to Jedrzejczak and Patel, none of this money has yet made its way to the volunteers and friends groups who have been doing so much of the maintenance work in our parks.

Photo-op Perry: Croydon’s Mayor is shameless when it comes to taking credit for the work of others. On his watch, only eight of Croydon’s 127 parks are up to standard

TCV, for instance, is a charity. It has to pay for the hire of vehicles and machinery used in the maintenance of Croydon’s open spaces. TCV, Jedrzejczak says, has received no additional funding from the council since it received the multi-million grants.

Given the council’s continuing financial problems, and the government’s emphasis on meeting housing targets, Councillor Patel has expressed her fears that Croydon’s open spaces will be seen as potential building sites rather than public amenities. As she says, “There have already been instances where the council has allowed building on green spaces.”

Given the years of neglect of our parks and green spaces, it can only be a matter of time until they reach a point of no return, where there are more sell-offs – as was the case with the former park keeper’s lodge in Grangewood Park. Efforts to sell part of the Addington Hills and to auction off Heathfield House and some of its gardens were both abandoned by the council, after angry reactions from the public following reports by Inside Croydon.

For now though, Croydon’s green spaces are open to all – especially those in gardening gloves, carrying bin bags and willing to do the work that their council has failed to undertake.

Read more: Locals concerned that Perry plans to sell listed Norwood Grove
Read more: Arson, vandalism, neglect: our parks abandoned to their fate
Read more: Going, going… Labour council flogs off parkland for £600,000
Read more: Build, baby! Build! 626 flats in Mitcham and none ‘affordable’

• Read CPRE London’s report in full by clicking here

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