How the ‘lifestyle choices’ of Tory millionaires is taking the PIP

Posted on May 21, 2024 by insidecroydon

Is there no vulnerable section of society that this Conservative Government won’t try to undermine? In his latest column, ANDREW FISHER, right, looks into the latest attacks on disabled people

Whenever Conservative governments are in trouble they reach not for solutions, but for scapegoats. For weeks, in the run-up to this month’s local elections, the Conservatives spoke of little else other than small boats carrying refugees across the English Channel, and their ludicrous and illegal Rwanda scheme.

Lifestyle choice: Mel Stride, the Tories’ work and pensions secretary

Alongside that, the work and Pensions Secretary, Mel Stride MP, and Prime Minister Rishi Sunak opened a new offensive on disabled people – in particular taking aim at those claiming Personal Independence Payments, or PIP.

Sunak derided a “sicknote culture”, and even in the past week Stride has joined forces with Chancellor Jeremy Hunt to suggest that being on benefits is somehow a “lifestyle choice” – even though being on benefits means a life of poverty, at a time when there are nearly twice as many people unemployed as there are job vacancies.

Continue reading →

Posted in Andrew Fisher | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | 4 Comments

Westfield makes £25,000 annual grant to ensure lasting Legacy

Posted on May 21, 2024 by insidecroydon

Every little helps: Croydon’s Legacy Youth Zone will get £25,000 a year for three years from multi-billion corporation Westfield

Croydon’s Legacy Youth Zone is to receive £75,000 over the next three years as part of a “new partnership” with Unibail-Rodamco Westfield, the French-owned multi-billion shopping centre developers and owners.

URW announced the deal with Legacy, saying that it “forms part of URW’s wider investment in the area and builds on its longstanding relationship with national youth charity, OnSide”. Continue reading →

Posted in "Hammersfield", Business, Charity, Education, Selhurst, Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield, Whitgift Centre, Youth Services | Tagged , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Bourne again: how Carshalton Park is providing an overflow

Posted on May 21, 2024 by insidecroydon

Flowing with wildlife: what for years was a mostly dry, grassy trench in Carshalton Park has now become a haven for wildlife

Where does all that rainwater go from one of the wettest years on record? Well, in the catchment area of the River Wandle, as ANDREW FORD, left, has discovered, it has been taking up quite a bit of Carshalton Park

After the exceptional heavy rainfalls of the last year or so, the stream bed in Carshalton Park, normally dry, is filled with water.

The stream will originally have been a “winterbourne” which would fill with water in winter and dry out in summer, and formed one of the sources of the River Wandle. Continue reading →

Posted in Coulsdon, Environment, History, Kenley, Purley, Wildlife | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Join us for a six-mile guided ramble along the Vanguard Way

Posted on May 20, 2024 by insidecroydon

Take a walk with us: iC readers are invited to get out and about along the Vanguard Way next month

Become a Vanguard with Inside Croydon and walk into summer with a guided six-mile ramble.

Inside Croydon’s guided walks around the outskirts of London offer our loyal readers a chance to find out more about the area, their environment, history and climate change.

Our next walk on Sunday June 2 will be gathering at 1pm from the tram stop at Lloyd Park, and with the help of John Jefkins, we will be exploring six miles of the Vanguard Way, the long-distance pathway from Croydon to the sea at Newhaven in Sussex. Continue reading →

Posted in Activities, Community associations, Croydon parks, Environment, Inside Croydon, Lloyd Park, Walks, Wildlife | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Crystal Palace Park Trust hires head of Horniman as new CEO

Posted on May 20, 2024 by insidecroydon

The Crystal Palace Park Trust has appointed as its new chief executive Victoria Pinnington, who currently heads up the world-acclaimed Horniman Museum and Gardens.

Park keeper: Victoria Pinnington takes over at Crystal Palace Park Trust next month

Pinnington will take up the new post next month, taking over from Val Shawcross, who has worked as interim CEO for almost a year, at a crucial period when the Trust took over the management of the Grade II-listed historic park from Bromley Council.

Pinnington has been a member of the senior leadership team at the Horniman since 2012, in which time the collections of anthropology, musical instruments and natural history alongside gardens and living collections, have been transformed, significantly expanding audiences, improving income, and winning the Art Fund Museum of the Year award, the world’s biggest museum prize. Continue reading →

Posted in Business, Charity, Community associations, Crystal Palace and Upper Norwood, Crystal Palace Park, Crystal Palace Park Trust, Friends of Crystal Palace Park, History, Martin Tempia, Val Shawcross | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Times tables show watchdog Oflog is Gove’s Tory poodle

Posted on May 20, 2024 by insidecroydon

The Conservative government handed ‘fundamentally flawed’ data about local councils to a Murdoch-owned newspaper for publication just days before this month’s local elections. By our Town Hall reporter, KEN LEE

Manipulative: under Michael Gove, Oflog is less a watchdog, more a political poodle

If Jason Perry, Croydon’s part-time Mayor, had any hopes that Oflog, supposedly the new regulator for local government, might help sort out the financial debacle that the council has suffered, he is likely to be very disappointed.

Michael Gove played party political games ahead of the local elections earlier this month, with his Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities providing his former employers at Murdoch-owned The Times with Oflog data in the form of local authority “league tables”, showing that the new watchdog is a mere poodle for national politicians (Gove’s stunt didn’t work, with the Tories still getting a shellacking at the polls, and Andy Street losing the West Midlands mayoralty).

Mayor Perry had said that he hoped that Oflog could “help strengthen local government accountability” and punish those who bankrupt councils. Two years into his term of office, and piss-poor Perry has failed to deliver on his promise to bring local Labour politicians and former senior council staff to justice for crashing the council’s finances.

That kind of local government accountability was dismantled a decade ago by Gove’s predecessor, “Big” Eric Pickles, when he got rid of the District Auditor and began a free-for-all at Town Halls up and down the country. Continue reading →

Posted in Council Tax, Croydon Council, Improvement Board, Mayor Jason Perry, Planning, Section 114 notice | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

75% Croydon teachers say SEND provision is getting worse

Posted on May 20, 2024 by insidecroydon

CROYDON COMMENTARY: Teaching provision for children with SEND – special educational needs and disabilities – continues to be a huge issue nationally and in Croydon, where many pupils across the borough haven’t got the placement required to meet their needs. JENNY WILLIAMS writes about the findings of a recent teachers’ survey

Measuring success: SEND pupils in Croydon often lack the essential support that they need

The SEND crisis in England’s schools continues to impact many thousands of the most vulnerable pupils in the country, including here in Croydon.

The number of complaints upheld by England’s local government ombudsman over Special Educational Needs and Disability education has surged by more than 60% since last year. As well as being an unacceptable situation for SEND pupils, this is costly to local authorities, many of which, like Croydon, are in deep financial difficulties.

Croydon Council is one of about 40 local authorities nationally that has signed a “Safety Valve” funding agreement with the Department for Education. There is growing disquiet about these “Safety Valve” agreements, with many teachers and those working in the education sector fearing that further harsh cuts in SEND provision are on their way.

Continue reading →

Posted in Education, Schools | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Community action groups protest, Town Hall, May 22

Posted on May 20, 2024 by insidecroydon

Continue reading →

Posted in Activities, Community associations, Croydon Council, Environment | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Addiscombe cycle shop-owner who had record-breaking career

Posted on May 19, 2024 by insidecroydon

SUNDAY SUPPLEMENT: Further research into the archives at Croydon Minster has discovered another local who reached Olympic heights in the last century, writes DAVID MORGAN

Cycle star: Charlie Davey was a world championship medal-winner and Olympic cyclist from Addiscombe

The Stockholm Olympics of 1912 were the last Games to be held before the Great War. It was also the final time that the gold medals were made of solid gold.

For countries which ceased to exist after the Treaty of Versailles peace settlement in 1919, this was to be their final appearance at the Olympic Games. This was the case for Bohemia.

For one Croydon resident, their call-up to represent Great Britain in the Stockholm Games was to be a stepping stone in his sporting career.

Charlie Davey was a Croydon man through and through. He was christened on the same day as his sister Elizabeth in December 1889 in Christ Church, Sumner Road, although he had been born three years earlier, in 1886. The Davey family lived at 43 Church Street in his early days, according to the 1891 census.

Thomas and Theodora Davey lived there with their three boys and their daughter. Continue reading →

Posted in Addiscombe East, Addiscombe West, Croydon Minster, Cycling, David Morgan, History, Sport | Tagged , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

Park Hill and Whitgift Safer Neighbourhood AGM, June 27

Posted on May 19, 2024 by insidecroydon

Continue reading →

Posted in Community associations, Crime, Park Hill and Whitgift, Policing | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Summer Garden Party, Sutton Ecology Centre, June 8

Posted on May 19, 2024 by insidecroydon

Continue reading →

Posted in Activities, Environment | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Bat Walks, South Norwood Country Park, from May 25

Posted on May 18, 2024 by insidecroydon

Continue reading →

Posted in Activities, Community associations, Croydon parks, Environment, Friends of South Norwood Country Park, South Norwood, Wildlife | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Free play group for 0s to 5s, Tollers Community Centre, Weds

Posted on May 18, 2024 by insidecroydon

Continue reading →

Posted in Activities, Coulsdon, Education, Old Coulsdon | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Carshalton Jazz poetry and music, All Saints church, Jun 21

Posted on May 18, 2024 by insidecroydon

Continue reading →

Posted in Art, Music | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Toss-cars 2024: We name Croydon’s most work-shy councillors

Posted on May 17, 2024 by insidecroydon

IT’S TOSS-CAR TIME

Now is the time when Inside Croydon can reveal those councillors who really couldn’t give a toss, the ones who have done least to hold Mayor Perry, chief exec Katherine Kerswell and their officials to account, or conduct casework for their residents.

Based on official statistics, we have unearthed some startling figures which suggest that some of our elected representatives are getting tens of thousands of pounds of your cash for doing… well, not a great deal

Mayor Jason Perry and Croydon Conservatives are about to give a hearty slap on the back, and an extra eight grand of tax-payers’ money, to one of the Town Hall’s least busy, possibly laziest councillors.

Richard Chatterjee has been a Croydon councillor for 22 years, yet he is one of the least well-known of the borough’s 70 councillors. Continue reading →

Posted in Alisa Flemming, Croydon Council, Jason Cummings, Norbury Park, Richard Chatterjee, Scott Roche, Shirley North, Shirley South, Sue Bennett | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 5 Comments

Met’s ‘huge setback’ after constable convicted of bus assault

Posted on May 17, 2024 by insidecroydon

The Metropolitan Police has courted further controversy when Scotland Yard issued a statement describing as “a huge setback” the conviction for assault of one of its constables over last summer’s controversial arrest of a black woman bus passenger on Whitehorse Road in Croydon.

Guilty: Met constable Perry Lathwood was found guilty of assault. He may yet appeal

PC Perry Lathwood was today found guilty at Westminster Magistrates Court of assault during the wrongful arrest of Jocelyn Agyemang last July, in scenes which were videoed and widely shared on social media, while the woman’s young son, clearly in some distress, watched on.

The court heard that PC Lathwood “manhandled” Agyemang and called her a “daft cow”. PC Lathwood will be sentenced at the same court on June 14.

The incident occurred during a fare evasion operation conducted jointly with Transport for London. Similar operations, and ticket inspections, were suspended entirely by TfL on buses in Croydon for almost a month afterwards. The Met has not taken part in any such operations since. Continue reading →

Posted in Crime, Policing, TfL, Transport | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 12 Comments

Watch out Michael Gove! Croydon Labour are coming for you!

Posted on May 17, 2024 by insidecroydon

The ink on the formal declaration of her election as a councillor for Woodside was barely dry before the names of one favoured Labour member was popping up as a parliamentary candidate.
By WALTER CRONXITE, political editor

Jess Rich has not yet attended her first full meeting at Croydon Town Hall as the newly elected councillor for Woodside ward before her alter ego, “Jess-Hammersley-Rich”, has been confirmed as Labour’s General Election candidate for Surrey Heath in the latest internal party stitch-up.

Surrey Heath is the stockbroker belt constituency where Michael Gove has been the Conservative MP since 2005. There’s a strong suggestion that Gove might not make it to his 20th anniversary as Surrey Heath’s MP, given the state of recent Tory polling, though it probably won’t be Purley resident Rich/Hammersley-Rich who will unseat the former Murdoch newspaper hack.

Gove’s Tory vote looks liable to get squeezed by a far-right nut-job Reform candidate, and by the Liberal Democrats’ Alasdair Pinkerton, who finished second to Gove in 2019, when the Conservative had an 18,000 vote majority. Rich/Hammersley-Rich is only there to keep up appearances, but Labour’s choice has nevertheless raised eyebrows among some of her local party colleagues.

Continue reading →

Posted in 2024 General Election, Jess Hammersley-Rich, Woodside | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 4 Comments

Passenger fury after being stranded by trams’ early shutdown

Posted on May 17, 2024 by insidecroydon

Long-suffering tram passengers were left furious, and stranded, on Wednesday night after services were suspended in the evening without any notification or warning, while Transport for London’s official online sites were claiming that there was a “Good” service in operation.

Early stopper: trams will not run after 8.30pm tonight and over the weekend

A senior TfL official has this morning issued an apology to those affected, together with a warning that tram services will be shutting down at 8.30pm again tonight, tomorrow and on Sunday. That information, however, was being contradicted by official information at some stops today, which said the service would be shutting down at 8pm.

Navid Golshan. TfL’s manager for London Trams, claimed that passengers were experiencing what he calls “minor delays”.

But one tram passenger who followed TfL’s online status updates on Wednesday, which had no notice of the early shutdown, was angry and seriously out-of-pocket. “I’d travelled into Croydon using public transport, as we’re encouraged to do,” they told iC, asking not to be identified. Continue reading →

Posted in East Croydon, Mayor of London, New Addington, New Addington North, Sadiq Khan, TfL, Tramlink, Transport, ULEZ expansion | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | 6 Comments

Oil painting of Addiscombe actor Pearson in Mall exhibition

Posted on May 17, 2024 by insidecroydon

Adam Pearson 2024 portrait by Tim Benson RP

Portrait paintings have made the headlines this week, and you have just until tomorrow to catch a glimpse of an exhibition of many of the finest modern portraits, including a specially commissioned work of Croydon actor Adam Pearson.

The Royal Society of Portrait Painters’ Annual Exhibition is in its 133rd year, and is open until Saturday, May 18, at the The Mall Galleries (home to the Federation of British Artists, a visual arts charity supporting artists since 1961). Continue reading →

Posted in Addiscombe West, Art | Tagged , , , , | 1 Comment

Toss-cars 2024: How much work has your councillor done?

Posted on May 16, 2024 by insidecroydon

With the council’s annual meeting and Trumptonesque ‘mayor-making’ at the Town Hall just a week away, Inside Croydon can today unveil official figures to show who are the councillors doing the most to hold Mayor Jason Perry, chief exec Katherine Kerswell and their officials to account.

Tomorrow, we will be publishing possibly our most-anticipated report of the year, with our second annual Toss-cars – the awards for the feckless and the lazy, the councillors who really couldn’t give a toss…

Inside Croydon can today reveal that, according to official figures obtained via a Freedom of Information request, for the civic year 2023 to 2024, the councillor who submitted the most number of members’ requests – formal questions about how the council is being run – was:

Consistent: Karen Jewitt, leading the way in asking questions of council officials

Drum roll…

Thornton Heath Labour councillor Karen Jewitt.

One of the borough’s longest-serving councillors, Jewitt receives the basic £11,681.96 councillor allowance. Yet she managed to submit 281 formal enquiries on behalf of the people she represents – which works out to cost the people of Croydon £41.60 per time.

Runner-up this year is Stuart King, the Labour councillor for West Thornton and the leader of the Labour group. Clearly, those political responsibilities were no brake on his efforts on behalf of the residents of the ward he serves, as he submitted 251 member enquiries. Continue reading →

Posted in Claire Bonham, Croydon Council, Crystal Palace and Upper Norwood, Mike Bonello, Richard Chatterjee, Scott Roche, Shirley North, Shirley South, Woodside | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

As Marx (Groucho rather than Karl) once said: ‘Those are my principles, and if you don’t like them… well, I have others!’

Posted on May 16, 2024 by insidecroydon

Ready for power?: Sir Keir Starmer in Essex this morning, tie-less, sleeves rolled up, the messaging being he’s ready to lead the country. But what is he actually offering?

ANDREW FISHER looks at what the latest offering from Labour Party leader Keir Starmer might mean for Croydon

First it was his “10 Pledges”. Then came “Five Missions”. Today Keir Starmer unveiled “Six First Steps”.

Starmer may have eschewed Karl Marx, but he’s embraced Groucho: “Those are my principles, and if you don’t like them… well, I have others!”

Starmer launched his first steps this morning in Purfleet in Essex, within the local authority boundaries of Thurrock Council, which issued a Section 114 notice after the Conservative-run authority there plunged them into financial ruin on a scale that dwarfs even cash-strapped Croydon’s failings. Continue reading →

Posted in 2024 General Election, Andrew Fisher, Croydon Council | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 8 Comments

More than 100 Afghans in Croydon protest against deportations

Posted on May 16, 2024 by insidecroydon

Mass protest: more than 100 Afghanis gathered outside Lunar House. Some served alongside British forces in Afghanistan, but now face possible deportation to Rwanda after attending the Home Office’s Lunar House immigration centre

A crowd of more than 100 Afghan refugees gathered outside the Home Office’s Lunar House in central Croydon today to protest at the Government’s policy of deportation to Rwanda.

The protestors included some who served with the British military, usually as translators, during the conflict in Afghanistan and who were forced to flee their homeland for fear of certain death at the hands of the Taliban.

The protest follows previous efforts by various human rights groups to prevent the forced detention at Lunar House of those seeking refugee status, when some refugees were believed to have been removed prior to being flown – at massive cost to tax-payers – to central Africa. Continue reading →

Posted in Fairfield | Tagged , , , , , , , | 7 Comments

Council workers’ pay offer sets up possible summer of strikes

Posted on May 16, 2024 by insidecroydon

There’s a possibility of a summer of strikes at local councils across the country – including in Croydon – after national negotiators offered a pay increase of barely half of what trade unions had asked for in the 2024-2025 pay round.

More costs: despite its £1.5bn ‘toxic’ debt, cash-strapped Croydon will get no help from Government to meet the latest pay rise to staff

Trade union officials who represent most of the 1.5million workers employed by local councils in England, Wales and Northern Ireland have described the offer as “disappointing”.

The Local Government Association, which represents the employers, has presented a “full and final offer” of a 5.77% increase for the lowest paid, back-dated to from April 1 this year, with a pay increase of at least £1,290.

Council workers on higher grades of pay have been offered an increase of 2.5%. Continue reading →

Posted in Croydon Council | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Sweet shop with an old-style look opens up in Crystal Palace

Posted on May 16, 2024 by insidecroydon

There’s a new, yet nostalgic, ice cream parlour and classic sweet shop opened on the Crystal Palace Triangle, to tantalise the taste buds of children of all ages just in time for the summer.

Old-school sweets: Sweet Child of Mine has just opened in Crystal Palace

Sweet Child of Mine has opened this week at 16 Church Road.

It is run by Sue Allison, a long-standing local resident who noticed there was a gap in the area for a sweet offering providing a mixture of pick and mix and an old-school-style ice cream parlour.

The shop is crammed full of sweet jars offering 50 pick-and-mix flavours including classics like sherbet lemons, chocolate limes, white mice and flying saucers, to newer sweets like rainbow belts and dino sours.

Plus there’s 15 flavours of ice cream from Marshfields, with sorbets, dairy and plant-based cooling treats. Continue reading →

Posted in Business, Crystal Palace and Upper Norwood | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

Croydon’s Tory MP confronted: ‘Why should we trust you?’

Posted on May 15, 2024 by insidecroydon

It is not just Croydon Labour who are in ‘special measures’ with their national party officials, as alarm bells are ringing at Conservative HQ over the election prospects of ‘Congo’ Chris Philp.
By WALTER CRONXITE, political editor

Croydon Conservatives have been placed in a form of “special measures” by their national party in an emergency move to try to help “Congo” Chris Philp cling on to his parliamentary seat.

Only trouble with that is that, with every public utterance that the MP for Croydon South makes, he opens himself to evermore public ridicule.

Philp, an MP since 2015 and the policing minister in Rishi Sunak’s woeful government, was doing the media rounds this morning and found himself subjected to condescension and derision, not from his political opponents but by news presenters at Sky News and the BBC. Continue reading →

Posted in Amy Foster, Ben Taylor, Chris Philp MP, Croydon South, London Assembly, London-wide issues, Mayor of London, Park Hill and Whitgift, Redhill, Reigate and Banstead Council, Surrey, Sutton Council, Tandridge District Council, Waddon, Woodside | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 10 Comments