Soul stars The Stylistics are returning to Britain for a 22-date tour, including at Croydon’s Fairfield Halls on Friday November 20.
And one lucky Inside Croydon subscriber, plus your guest, can be there absolutely free with this exciting exclusive competition.
The Stylistics are the soul pioneers behind a string of hits including You Make Me Feel Brand New and Can’t Give You Anything (But My Love). Continue reading
The Croydon tram network is to undergo another lengthy closure at the end of this month, with no service between East Croydon, New Addington, Elmers End and Beckenham Junction while “essential track renewal works” are undertaken around Arena junction.
Shutdown: the works near Arena tram stop will see half the network closed down for two weeks
Contractors have been fencing off a field in South Norwood Country Park in the past week, in preparation for the “major engineering works” which are scheduled to begin on Saturday October 24 and run for a fortnight through to Friday November 6.
The works are taking place between the Arena tram stop, Harrington Road and Elmers End. “This work is part of our ongoing modernisation programme to improve the condition of the track, making it more reliable and improving the service,” according to a hand-delivered letter to residents in the area from Transport for London.
The works are to be conducted 24 hours a day, to “minimise disruption”. Continue reading
Theatre, cabaret and comedy: the 2026 Croydonites Festival, staged at various venues around the borough, including the Front Room and Stanley Halls, runs from November 4 to 21
The Croydonites Festival returns next month, with theatre, cabaret and comedy, featuring some glorious hits from the world-famous Edinburgh International Festival, plus lots of homegrown talent.
Hannah Maxwell opens Croydonites 2026 on November 4 in The Front Room in St George’s Walk with Turn Your Fucking Phones Off, which just won a Fringe First. Continue reading
After more than 15 years of non-development, Paris-based developers are seriously considering building a data centre close to the town centre’s conservation area, as they crank up plans for 45-storey tower blocks.
By STEVEN DOWNES
High rise: URW has never got any closer to regenerating the town centre than issuing new GGIs
Fifteen years after Westfield first appeared in Croydon offering a £1billion fantasy of a glitzy new shopping mall with a few hundred homes, the now Paris-based multinational wants to build up to 4,000 flats and an energy-guzzling data centre on the site of the Whitgift Centre.
That’s four times as many flats as Westfield were granted permission for in 2018, as the shopping mall specialists have increasingly moved away from developing shopping malls.
The exact figures for the proposed number of new homes, mostly in tower blocks of up to 45 storeys along the Wellesley Road, have yet to be confirmed because the company’s latest planning application won’t see the light of day until “early 2027” – almost three years later than Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield promised.
What ought to alarm existing residents and businesses in the town centre, after having endured more than a decade of development blight and the hollowing-out of most of the shops from the old Whitgift Centre, is the inclusion in the developers’ outline proposals of potential for a data centre. Continue reading
Full description: the British Museum was quick to climbdown and arrange audio guides for the Bayeux Tapestry after a legal threat made by a Croydon accessibility activist
Croydon accessibility activist Yusuf Osman has won a battle with the British Museum to have audio description tours provided for blind people visiting the Bayeux Tapestry.
The tapestry, which depicts the events leading to the Battle of Hastings in 1066 and the Norman Conquest of Anglo-Saxon England, has not been on display in this country for nearly 1,000 years. Demand for tickets has been huge since the 230-foot-long piece of embroidery went on display last month, during a loan from the French government. Continue reading
Joseph Matthews, who runs South Croydon-based Electrotech Construction, has been named Electrician of the Year at the Checkatrade Regional Awards for London.
Bright sparky: Joseph Matthews at the awards night last month
The annual awards shine a spotlight on tradespeople who go above and beyond for their customers. Winners are selected for their commitment to professionalism, reliability and helping homeowners feel confident when choosing a trade.
Matthews was selected more than 2,500 nominations nationwide, and picked up his trophy at a ceremony last month held at Twickenham Stadium. Continue reading
CROYDON CHRONICLES: Much has changed around the town centre over the last 50 years, not least in the area of accessibility to public buildings and spaces. Some of the pioneering work was catalogued by a woman with cerebral palsy, whose scrapbook is now part of the Minster archives, as DAVID MORGAN explains
Do you keep a scrapbook? Have you a collection of newspaper cuttings or football programmes or theatre tickets kept somewhere as a record of what you’ve been doing?
Keeping souvenirs or grainy photographs in a book is not something which happens any longer in our digital age.
But thanks to the recent donation of two scrapbooks to the Croydon Minster archive, we are able to discover all about “Operation Crocus”, which took place in Croydon in the 1970s.
Treasure trove: Mary Care’s scrapbook is full of valuable archive material from 50 years ago
The scrapbooks were diligently kept by Mary Care, a regular worshipper at Croydon Parish Church, what we know today as the Minster, until she became housebound. She was an active member of the Townswomen’s Guild. In November 1965, the guild held an exhibition of arts and crafts in the Arnhem Gallery at the Fairfield Halls.
Mary included a telling instruction in her scrapbook:
“In Barclay Road, take the entrance to Fairfield Car Park. About 30 yards down the slope, go through a pair of iron gates on the left which are marked ‘KITCHEN ONLY’. On the right-hand side of the road there is a ramp up which invalid chairs can be wheeled into the Halls. Arnhem Gallery is on the left of the corridor, just past the kitchen. There are no steps to contend with, this way in.” Continue reading
The Sensible Garden, the patch of waste ground in South Norwood that has been reclaimed for the people and transformed into a public open space thanks to the efforts of local community groups, has been given a bit of a clean-up and a new, bright orange bench, ahead of a couple of events which set out to mark 50 years of punk rock.
Very Sensible: Stuart Collins (left) and Jim McAllister after repairing the public bench on South Norwood High Street
The garden was opened in 2014, the work of the Crystal Palace Transition Team and the South Norwood Tourist Board, and named after Captain Sensible, from the Damned, who had gone to school across the road at Stanley Tech, something he immortalised in his song Croydon.
Good as his word, the Captain attended the opening ceremony in July 2014.
Touring commitments with The Damned’s 50th anniversary tour prevented the Captain, aka Raymond Burns, from being around for the big reveal this time around.
But former councillor Stuart Collins and a group of mates have repaired the bench ahead of a grand re-opening ceremony later this month. Continue reading
‘It was miraculous that nobody was killed or seriously injured’ says Met officer after Kevin Rees is sentenced at Old Bailey
Terrorist: ULEZ bomber Kevin Rees has been given 15 years in jail
“Who radicalised him?” LBC presenter James O’Brien asked yesterday as news broke of the 15-year sentence for terrorism offences handed down to ULEZ bomber Kevin Rees.
The severity of the sentence for the 63-year-old retired electrician may have surprised some.
It may also have alarmed others, such as Croydon South’s Tory MP Chris Philp and Croydon’s failed Mayor, Jason Perry, who in 2023 were part of an anti-ULEZ group on Facebook that publicised destruction and vandalism to public infrastructure, and never condemned it.
This included the destruction of expensive ULEZ cameras, the very act which will see Rees spending many years behind bars.
Rees was sentenced at the Old Bailey yesterday, after he was found guilty of detonating explosives on Wellesley Avenue, Sidcup, at about 6.45pm on December 6, 2023. Continue reading
Croydon’s part-time Mayor’s misuse of public resources takes in photo-ops for his Tory mates, and political appointments paying six-figure salaries. By our Political Editor, WALTER CRONXITE
Jason Perry, Croydon’s self-important but impotent Mayor, continues to spend hundreds of thousands of pounds of tax-payers’ money on personal publicity stunts and political appointees.
Yesterday, despite supposedly being busy working on how to reduce the cash-strapped council’s debts from £1.7billion (it was “only” £1.4billion when he took charge of the Town Hall in 2022), part-time Perry found time in his schedule to go on a guided tour of Croydon’s run-down town centre with James Cleverly, the Essex MP who wants to be the Conservative Party’s candidate for London Mayor in 2028.
With Croydon and Sutton’s potty-mouthed Assembly Member Neil “Father Jack” Garratt in tow, there were, of course, multiple photo ops…
The three stooges go walkabout… : Mayor Perry: ‘You can get anything you need in Surrey Street, Sir James.’ Cleverly: ‘Rohypnol?’
How any of this serves the people of Croydon is a mystery.
“From new shops on Allders Parade to historic Surrey Street, there’s plenty to be proud of,” sub-literate Perry posted on his personal Twatter feed during work hours. Perry is paid £86,000 per year for doing the job of Croydon’s executive Mayor. Promoting Conservative Party colleagues was never in the job description.
Perry said that he and Cleverly discussed “investment, safer streets and our borough’s huge potential”, none of which the MP for Braintree, a backbencher in opposition, has any control over whatsoever. Continue reading
The Paxton Centre, the popular arts and crafts café and bar on Anerley Hill, is to close next March.
Early notice: after 10 years as an arts and crafts café and bar, the Paxton Centre is to close next March
The surprise announcement was made by the centre’s founder, Beth Mander, and comes little more than 10 years since she opened the creative hub and art gallery in what used to be the Paxton Arms. Since when, the centre has survived the strain of the global pandemic and has gone on to stage art classes, exhibitions and provide co-working space.
Mander said that the decision had been reached not to continue operating the centre once its lease expires at the end of March 2027.
It was a familiar tale: “Rising rent and business costs mean the space is no longer sustainable as a self-supporting arts venue,” Mander said.
“I’ve looked at it from every angle, and I know it’s the right decision — but I won’t pretend it isn’t a sad one.” Continue reading
Almost ready: the aparthotel on Altyre Road – handy for the Magistrates’ Court – could be open by Christmas
The first phase of “The Canopy”, the aparthotel on Altyre Road, could be complete before Christmas.
That’s according to Addiscombe West’s Labour councillors, who recently took a tour of the building site, as the former Croydon Park Hotel is being converted into 246 studios and apartments – with massive potential for being rented out to London councils for use in the housing crisis as temporary accommodation.
The Croydon Park Hotel was briefly owned by Croydon Council, after a dodgy deal which helped crash the borough’s finances. Continue reading
Croydon Minster is holding its Harvest Festival service this Sunday, and is appealing for people to come forward with donations for two very hard-working local-based charities.
“Please bring your donations to the 10am Sunday service, where they will be blessed before being distributed,” the Minster says.
The charities to receive the donations ar eCroydon Nightwatch, which is in its 50th year of offering help to some of the borough’s most vulnerable, and the St Alban’s Foodbank, which provides food and household items to families in South Norwood. Continue reading
New members welcome: the Croydon Male Voice Choir’s annual open evening is on Oct 15
Have you ever felt like joining a choir but didn’t know to go about it?
Your opportunity is coming. On Thursday October 15, the Croydon Male* Voice Choir is holding an Open Evening at its Sandilands headquarters which will showcase the choir and invite newcomers to give it a try.
As the choir’s poster for the evening states, “no experience needed – just a love of singing”. The invitation is also for those who may already have sung elsewhere and are looking to join a new choir.
The evening will start with a welcome from choir chair Peter Gillman and an explanation of the choir’s four voice parts: top tenor, second tenor, baritone, bass. Then will come a warm-up sing together. Continue reading
ANDREW FISHER has spent the week at the Labour Party Annual Conference in Liverpool, where the new Prime Minister continued to confound political editors and expert pundits
A Blairite, a Brownite and a Corbynite walk into bar. The barman asks: “What are you having, Mr Burnham?”
Political journalists love the joke, but it also shows how they are struggling to define the new Prime Minister.
Burnham was a minister in Tony Blair’s government, a cabinet minister under Gordon Brown and later shadow Home Secretary under Jeremy Corbyn before he left Westminster to become Mayor of Greater Manchester.
As I walked into the press area at the back of the Liverpool Experience Centre, with my Inside Croydon press pass, I was accosted by more than one lobby hack who wanted to know my view on Andy Burnham, how to define him and what he is really going to do. Burnham is a puzzle they still cannot finish. Continue reading
HOOK’S SHOT: After seasons of domination, Surrey’s performances, men’s and women, were underwhelming this summer, particularly in the County Championship. MARCUS HOOK crunches the numbers and suggests there could be significant changes coming to The Oval over the winter
It’s said that expectation is the root of all heartache. In cricket this summer, Surrey ended the County Championship with many a cause for concern.
‘Tough season’: Rory Burns
Surrey were County Champions in 2022, 2023 and 2024 and runners-up in 2025. But their form this summer, particularly towards the back end of the season (that is, after the Hundred nonsense was finally out of the way), was such that they barely warranted finishing seventh, with just two victories out of the 14 four-day games played.
Thankfully, Essex, Hampshire and Leicestershire were also off the boil.
While Warwickshire were romping to the title with five wins from their last six (including three by an innings), Surrey’s run-in read: Played 9, Won 1, Drawn 4, Lost 4. Continue reading
