Turning things on their head: the result of one motorist driving recklessly along 20mph limit Grange Road. Yet Croydon Council has done little to curb speedsters
Transport correspondent JEREMY CLACKSON on a small victory for residents of Upper Norwood after more than a decade of lobbying their council
Back bench success: Steve Reed OBE, Labour MP for Streatham and Croydon North
Steve Reed is claiming his first success in his newly restored role as a backbench MP.
The Labour MP for Streatham (and Croydon North if he can be bothered) has demonstrated that he can indeed be bothered about the plight of his Croydon constituents, after firing off a couple of letters to the council over dangerous driving, often at high speed along Spa Hill and Grange Road, in the area between Upper Norwood and Selhurst.
In an announcement made on House of Commons-headed paper, Reed wrote on Friday: “We’ve persuaded the council to take a fresh look at Grange Road.”
Which is undoubted good news, even if the life-threatening issues were raised with MP Reed by residents and road safety campaigners 12 years ago…
“Croydon Council has agreed to review the road safety measures residents have been calling for a significant change from their original response,” Reed wrote.
“Something had to change.”
With Croydon Council under the control of Jason Perry, an apologist for motoring law-breakers, Reed noted: “The council initially refused to commit to investigating new safety measures.”
But: “I wrote back to the council and challenged their position, making it clear that residents should not have to wait for someone to be seriously injured before action is taken.”
Even so, the concessions obtained from the Town Hall by Reed seem relatively minor. The council will look into the possibility of, maybe, doing something.
Small steps: the council concessions to Reed don’t appear to amount to very much
Says Reed: “The council will consider resident experiences and reports alongside official collision data when deciding what action is needed.
“The council will carry out a scoping review of the safety measures residents have been calling for, including options such as improved crossings.
“The council will consider interim action, such as refreshed road markings and signs.”
Reed portrays this as “an important step forward”. He said: “I’ll continue to push for real improvements on Grange Road.”
The reality is that dangerous driving on these roads has been an issue for more than a decade, in which time there has been little or no enforcement action or efforts to curb the speeding.
Door to door delivery: the damage caused by speeding drivers amounts to more than the occasional lost wing mirror
The roads are now part of the 20mph zones which Croydon’s Tory Mayor is so keen to eradicate, though here the road signs have long been ignored by the Mayor’s motoring mates, as they treat the streets as racetracks.
A petition raised last autumn drew 1,160 signatures. Comments by some petitioners make grim reading, about the fear of people being killed or injured, and residents’ parked cars being damaged.
In March, Reed posted a follow-up video on social media, saying that Croydon council had measured the extent of speeding but had only published the average speed.
This is of course nonsense. You cannot calculate the average speed without recording the speed of every single vehicle passing over the sensor, data which even the cheap rubber tube sensors used by the council would record and hold.
An average of 19mph can easily hide a mix of 80% responsible drivers going 15mph and 20% reckless drivers going as fast as 50mph on a residential street. That’s not the kind of data Perry would want in the public domain as he looks to remove 20mph limits.
Reed realised that he and his constituents were being fobbed off and said, “I’m therefore calling on the council to also track how many cars speed and how fast they’re going.”
Kenley action: in Tory-voting parts of the borough, traffic-calming measures have been introduced because speeds over 20mph ‘can be very intimidating’, according to Mayor Perry’s Conservatives
Reed described the council’s unwillingness to act as “unconscionable”.
It could be worse than that. The council could even be accused of lying to a local MP.
In 2017, when Croydon Council completed the introduction of 20mph zones across the borough, its press release said: “On several roads where 20mph has already been implemented, the council has installed number plate recognition speed visors.
“These record drivers’ speeds, and relevant data is passed to the Metropolitan Police. If speeding remains an issue, options could include traffic calming measures as well as police enforcement.”
A 2023 report on “Road humps and 20mph speed limits” noted that the Traffic Calming Act 1992 gives highway authorities, such as Croydon, the power to construct and remove traffic calming measures.
But, as is well documented, Croydon Council under piss-poor Perry behaves in completely different ways depending on whether you live in the mostly Labour-voting north of the borough, or in the true-blue Tory areas in the south.
This time last year the residents of Kenley (in Croydon’s south) were granted their wish for speed humps along part of Hayes Lane, due to risks to public safety. “Anyone who regularly walks or cycles along this part of Hayes Lane will know how hazardous it can be—especially at night. With no footpaths, pedestrians often have to step into the road or press against walls to let vehicles pass,” Croydon Conservatives observed on their own website.
Twelve-year wait: Steve Reed (right) with members of Croydon Cycling Campaign, observing dangerous speeding on Grange Road in 2014
And they also said: “Our research showed vehicle speeds exceeding 20mph, which can be very intimidating for pedestrians of all ages and mobility levels.” Too bloody right.
But Croydon’s £86,000 per year Mayor, who likes to claim he is “listening” to residents’ concerns, has a bad case of selective deafness when it comes to the northern half of the borough.
Of course, it is also worth noting the utter uselessness of Steve Reed’s mates in Croydon Labour, who had eight years between 2014 and 2022 to do something to slow down the boy racers on Grange Road, but failed to act effectively.
More recently, Labour failed to raise Croydon’s chronic problems of bad and reckless drivers when waving through part-time Perry’s Community Safety Strategy, without a word about people speeding and crashing into other vehicles, homes or people.
But yes, “an important step forward” has been made for the residents of Upper Norwood and Crystal Palace, albeit 12 years later than it could have been done. Let’s hope the MP does their job in 2026 and ensures that Croydon Council implements some truly effective action, and as Reed says, “residents should not have to wait for someone to be seriously injured”.
Read more: Grange Road residents count the costs of speeding drivers
Read more: Perry drives a black cab through council’s consultation rules
Read more: Mayor Perry’s ‘Motorists’ Charter’ to deliver more accidents, higher car insurance and even put children’s safety at risk
Reed more: Reed is first Cabinet casualty under new PM Andy Burnham
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When was the last time anyone with any authority in Croydon did anything good? Croydon residents have been poorly served by:
a) Piss-Poor Perry, our failed, incompetent, self-serving directly elected mayor,
b) Croydon Council, who are bankrupt on many different levels,
c) The Met, who do nothing to stop speeding by motorists in fume-belchers, (Andrew Jagroop’s death on Farley Road in 2006 is a good example of their intransigence and
d) Contractors, who are taking nearly a month to replace the tram tracks in central Croydon, and have had the crossing of the Roman Way racetrack (another place where fume-belchers speed) by the Minster for five months (now scheduled to be reopened on Saturday (15th Aug), but they missed their two previous target dates, so don’t hold your breath !
Reed: vacuum-man
A vacuous political parasite: intellectually barren, morally spineless and catastrophically ineffective. He clings to office without purpose, principle or achievement, confusing self-preservation with public service. Every crisis exposes the same truth: beneath the vanity and bluster, there is simply nothing there.