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Category Archives: Sara Bashford
Tax-payers get a soaking as council taps run up £20,000 bill
Taking photographs inside gentlemen’s lavatories can lead to some unwanted outcomes, so in the past week Inside Croydon has gone to great, and most discreet, lengths to bring to you the first picture from inside the toilets of the council’s … Continue reading
Council spends £410 on an umbrella wrapper for Fisher’s Folly
It never rains but it pours, as far as Croydon Council’s profligacy with public money is concerned. After the £272 replacement tap in the council headquarters (and there’s more, much more, to come on that story), we bring you … … Continue reading
Croydon Council spends £272 on one tap in £140m new HQ
Croydon Council, which has managed to rack up debts of more than £1 billion, has paid £272.69 to fit a replacement tap in its new headquarters office building which opened just four months ago. And the cost of furnishing Fisher’s … Continue reading
Council forced to re-open David Lean Cinema after three years
Tickets for the first public screenings at the David Lean Cinema at the Clocktower in nearly three years go on sale tomorrow morning – a victory for the “little people”, and Ronnie Corbett. The David Lean Cinema will be re-opened … Continue reading
Posted in 2014 council elections, Art, Cinema, David Lean Cinema Campaign, Sara Bashford
Tagged Captain Sensible, Conservative, Croydon, Croydon Council, David Lean Cinema, East Croydon station, Johnny Moped, London Borough of Croydon, Raymond Burns, Sara Bashford, Save the David Lean Campaign, Tory
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Council risks legal action over decision to sell Riesco china
Croydon Tories deliberately ignored the council’s legal advisers to push through the pawn shop sale of the borough’s Riesco Collection. A confidential document, obtained by Inside Croydon, shows that Steve O’Connell, the cabinet member for finance, and Tim Pollard, the … Continue reading
Council belatedly offers free furniture to community groups
Public pressure, or even a degree of shame, does seem to have some effect on the benighted managers at Conservative-controlled Croydon Council. Last month, our loyal reader will recall, Inside Croydon exposed how the council had given first dibs on … Continue reading
Pollard ducks decisive meeting on £13m Riesco sale
Councillor Sara Bashford spoke up in the Town Hall council chamber last night and tried to justify Croydon’s sale of 24 items from the borough’s priceless Riesco ceramics collection by claiming that thousands of Croydon school children who visit the … Continue reading
Posted in Art, Coulsdon East, Croydon Council, Croydon Natural History and Scientific Society, Donald Speakman, Dudley Mead, Education, Fairfield Halls, Jan Buttinger, Jeet Bains, Julie Belvir, Kenley, Purley, Riesco Collection, Sara Bashford, Selsdon & Ballards, Simon Hall, Steve O'Connell, Stuart Collins, Terry Lenton, Tim Pollard, Toni Letts, Vidhi Mohan
Tagged Arts Council, British Museum, Croydon, London Borough of Croydon, Lottery Heritage Fund, Museum Association, Museum of Croydon, Steve O'Connell
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Croydon is officially the worst English borough on Council Tax
It is official, because according to Eric Pickles, the Conservative Cabinet minister in charge of local government, Conservative-run Croydon has the worst record among boroughs in England for managing its own Council Tax. There are 326 local authority councils in … Continue reading
Posted in Council Tax, Croydon Council, Mike Fisher, Sara Bashford
Tagged Council Tax, Croydon, Croydon North, England, Eric Pickles, Labour, Local government, London
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Redundancies and four-day opening at Upper Norwood library
So much for Croydon Council’s promises of no library closures. The Conservative-controlled council which has already axed the mobile library service and has decided to close New Addington’s purpose-built library to replace it with a few book shelves in the … Continue reading
X marks the spot: Croydon appoints firm in administration
News reaches Inside Croydon of what appears to be yet another epic fail by the leadership at Croydon Council. On February 11, at the Town Hall cabinet meeting, Mike Fisher, the council leader, and his “top team” decided to appoint … Continue reading
Questions Pollard must answer over libraries shambles
Tim “Yes but No but Yes” Pollard ought to come under intense pressure at an emergency meeting at Croydon Town Hall tonight over his handling of the tendering process for the outsourcing of the management of the borough’s libraries if … Continue reading
Laings quit £30m Croydon libraries privatisation deal
Croydon Council’s plan to privatise our public libraries was in ruins tonight, as its hand-picked partners were revealed to have walked away from the £30 million, eight-year deal. And Eddy Arram, the Tory mayor in charge of tonight’s meeting at … Continue reading
Bidders for David Lean Cinema deterred by council delays
£5,000 – that’s the amount of money Croydon Council will have to spend to “re-calibrate” the borough’s own digital cinema projector, after Town Hall staff were ordered to move the £20,000 piece of kit from the council-owned David Lean Cinema … Continue reading
Croydon councillor predicts growing queues at food banks
CROYDON’S UNCARING COUNCIL (part 94): Sara Bashford, the Croydon Councillor who has a “day job” as an employee in the constituency office of Gavin Barwell MP, has admitted that the government’s economic policies are failing. In a bulletin issued in … Continue reading
Posted in Sara Bashford
Tagged Conservative, Croydon, Croydon North, England, Labour, London, London Borough of Croydon
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Calling the council? Try this number if you can’t get through…
Services provided by Croydon Council continue to be axed. From next week, our “Proud to Swerve” council will make it even more difficult for Council Tax-payers to register a complaint about shortcomings in borough services, as the staffing of the … Continue reading
Senior councillor goes west as Tories consider their futures
Phil Thomas, one of the “big beasts” of local Croydon politics for the past decade and the architect of the Conservatives’ 2006 Town Hall election win, is moving from the borough and will not be seeking re-election in 2014. “He’s … Continue reading
Posted in Croydon Council, David Osland, Dudley Mead, Graham Bass, Margaret Mead, Mike Fisher, Parking, Phil Thomas, Sara Bashford, Selsdon & Ballards, Simon Hoar, Transport, Waddon
Tagged Conservative, Croydon, Labour, Mike Fisher, Phil Thomas, Selsdon, Tory, United States
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Labour will cancel library privatisation contract, Godfrey says
Whichever organisation is recommended for a public-funded eight-year contract to run the Croydon’s public libraries – an announcement is expected soon – will also have to consider the possibility that they will have the deal cancelled after barely a year. … Continue reading
Flip flop? Croydon’s library privatisation flipped into a flop
Did we say flip flop? The news of the awarding of the library management contract to swimming pool managers GLL which we related earlier this week has taken a further twist today, with the 14-month-long procurement process which has cost … Continue reading
Library cards and flip flops: GLL is handed £8.8m deal
It is being reported by a library campaign website that an organisation best known for managing leisure centres and swimming pools is about to be handed an eight-year contract worth millions of pounds to operate … Croydon’s public libraries. For … Continue reading
