Mayor Perry accepted hundreds of pounds of gifts in first year

Posted on August 25, 2023 by insidecroydon

CROYDON IN CRISIS: Recently published declarations of interest from the borough’s elected Mayor show someone who enjoys a free lunch and just doesn’t know when to say ‘No’. EXCLUSIVE by STEVEN DOWNES

Medallion man: Jason Perry likes a free lunch

There’s hardly an official opening or a charity visit that goes by at which Croydon’s elected Mayor, Jason Perry, won’t accept a gift, a free meal or a bottle of gin, it seems…

Freebie tickets to Selhurst Park to see Crystal Palace play, a meal for four (for four!) at Croydon’s poshest restaurant, lavish entertainment courtesy of one of the country’s most notorious developer lobbyists, and a neck tie from a former Labour councillor are among the various gifts that Mayor Perry has declared in the time since his election, according to official documents released by the council this month.

Croydon’s first elected Mayor, who gets paid £84,000 per year for the job, has accepted gifts worth hundreds of pounds during his first months in office.

While there’s understandable shock and anger over the latest Westminster row about how MPs greedily accept invitations to prestige events or generous donations (though why anyone should be surprised at all is a mystery), here in deepest south London, Croydon’s part-time Mayor is doing his best to show that, when it comes to sticking his snout in the trough, he’s as bad as the next politician. Continue reading →

Posted in Birch (Selsdon), Business, Croydon Council, Crystal Palace FC, Mayor Jason Perry, Planning, Restaurants | 13 Comments

Simmonds’ Tribunal ruling prompts national alert to councils

Posted on August 25, 2023 by insidecroydon

Croydon Council is being used as an object lesson to local authorities across the country. But not in a good way. Again.

In the dock: Croydon Council is an object lesson to everyone

An Employment Tribunal case successfully taken against Croydon Council by a former senior employee for unlawfully reducing her pay has prompted a national warning to all other local authorities.

The civic trade magazine The Municipal Journal is reporting today that the Joint Negotiating Committee for chief officers – the national organisation which settles pay claims for council execs – has “urged local authorities to check their policies and contracts to avoid falling foul of the same ruling”.

A judge found that Croydon acted unlawfully when it denied full pay to its director for localities, Hazel Simmonds, while she was suspended.

“The council argued she was entitled to ‘normal’ pay, meaning it could be reduced on the basis she was off sick,” the MJ reports. Continue reading →

Posted in Croydon Council, Hazel Simmonds, Katherine Kerswell | Tagged , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Perry’s parking proposal to impose smartphone apps on drivers

Posted on August 25, 2023 by insidecroydon

A consultation is expected next month that will halve the free period allowed on most on-street bays

Croydon motorists will regard ULEZ expansion as a mere picnic once they grasp what Mayor Jason Perry has in store for them over new, money-grabbing parking arrangements around the borough.

Museum piece: council parking meters like this could soon all be removed

The council is looking at proposals which could see the removal of all parking meters, to be replaced by a system where people are only able to use council-run car parks or parking bays if they have their personal details logged with a Town Hall version of Big Brother, and they check in and out with a mobile phone on every occasion that they park their car.

This Orwellian dystopia is already being trialed in South Croydon, and Mayor Perry is promising a public “consultation” next month on borough-wide proposals.

But some residents have got wind of the scheme, and they don’t like it one little bit.

“Whose dreadful idea was this?” one concerned reader said. “What of those who do not have mobile phones? It’s not fair on those who do not have smartphones and do not understand technology.

“Even those who do have smartphones don’t want to use them to be tracked everywhere they go.” Continue reading →

Posted in Community associations, Coulsdon, Croydon Council, Mayor Jason Perry, Parking, Steve Iles | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 10 Comments

Good Lord? Starmer’s gofer Evans is lined up for a peerage

Posted on August 24, 2023 by insidecroydon

Our political editor, WALTER CRONXITE, delves through some silly season speculation to discover that one of Alison Butler’s exes could soon be heading for the red benches

Nice drop of red: David Evans

David Evans, the former Croydon business owner who was an aide to Tony Blair and is now the Labour Party’s General Secretary, is being lined for a peerage along with left-leaning celebs Gary Lineker and Feargal Sharkey if Keir Starmer becomes Prime Minister at the next General Election.

That’s according to a report at the weekend, which speculate that after the splurge of Tory enoblements following a succession of controversial resignation honours lists from failed Conservative Prime Ministers, any Labour PM will need at least 98 new peers to balance things up in the House of Lords.

Evans was appointed as the Labour Party’s most senior executive in May 2020, soon after Starmer became leader. Since Evans has been in charge, he has overseen a drastic fall in party membership, discontent in Labour’s relationship with some trades unions, and a purge of many members on the left. Continue reading →

Posted in Alison Butler, David Evans, Tony Newman | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

Supporters campaign to save under-threat Selsdon Centre

Posted on August 24, 2023 by insidecroydon

The trustees of an old people’s charity in Selsdon that is under threat of closure after Mayor Jason Perry axed their annual council grant have launched a petition appealing for public support.

No help: how someone ‘altered’ the council logo on the Centre’s written appeal

As Inside Croydon revealed last week, the Selsdon Centre for the Retired has been hit by a double-whammy by the council: as well as the complete withdrawal of their annual grant, their landlords have also given them a sharp increase in their rent. Their landlord is the Conservative-controlled Croydon Council.

“Without a significant cash injection over the next few months, the centre will have to close its doors and we will have to institute the voluntary liquidation of the charity in the spring of next year,” Nick Bonneywell, the chair of trustees wrote to supporters earlier this month. Continue reading →

Posted in Andrew Stranack, Charity, Fatima Zaman, Joseph Lee, Mayor Jason Perry, Robert Ward, Selsdon and Addington Village, Selsdon Centre for the Retired, Selsdon Vale and Forestdale | Tagged , , , , , | 16 Comments

A town centre amble that goes from the sublime to ridiculous

Posted on August 24, 2023 by insidecroydon

KEN TOWL took a stroll down Surrey Street and Church Street and encountered two different takes on what passes for ‘culture’ in Croydon

Phipson’s view: some things in Croydon town centre have not changed…

The Croydon Clocktower has an exhibition of the works of Evacustes Phipson.

“Evacustes who?” you may ask (or perhaps, “Which Phipson?”).

Croydon from the Palette of Evacustes Phipson displays the work (unfortunately, in the form of prints, rather than the original watercolours) of a little-known artist from the late Victorian and Edwardian eras.

Phipson was a well-travelled man who nevertheless spent much of his later life in Croydon. And when he was here, he painted, prolifically.

Evacustes (the name was an affectation; he was born Edward Arthur Phipson) was a leftist radical who displayed scant interest in the patronage or the palaces of the rich and powerful. His legacy is a richness of portrayals of the life of ordinary working people and the buildings where they lived, worked and shopped. Continue reading →

Posted in Activities, Art, Borough of Culture 2023, Croydon BID, Croydon Council, Croydon Natural History and Scientific Society, Ken Towl, Surrey Street | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

‘We’ll be back!’ as organisers abandon 2023 festival plans

Posted on August 23, 2023 by insidecroydon

There is to be no Crystal Palace Festival this year, the organisers said in a shock announcement last night in which they expressed the hope that they can secure the necessary funding for a return in 2024.

Rattling the buckets: after 11 years, the Crystal Palace Festival is considering its future

“It’s time to take a break and take stock,” said Alexander Credé, the Festivals’ co-chair.

The 2022 Crystal Palace Festival was staged last September, but there had been radio silence about any plans for this year until last night, when an email to Festival supporters broke the news of the decision.

First staged in 2011, then as the Crystal Palace Overground Festival, the charity-led volunteer organisers had managed to stage their free, multi-arts Festival every year, even “virtually” during covid lockdown in 2020, only having taken a one-year break in 2016.

But it doesn’t take much reading between the lines of the statement issued last night to realise that finding funding for the Crystal Palace Festival has become a massive challenge.

“The funding landscape around us has changed so much,” Credé said. Continue reading →

Posted in Art, Business, Charity, Community associations, Crystal Palace and Upper Norwood, Music, Poetry, Theatre | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

‘Major disruption’ expected as NHS consultants go on strike

Posted on August 23, 2023 by insidecroydon

“Major disruption is anticipated” at NHS hospitals through to the weekend, as senior medics walk out prior to the August bank holiday weekend as part of planned industrial action.

Empty corridors: staff holidays as well as consultants’ strike will mean only emergency care can be provided, the NHS says

Consultants will be taking strike action from 7am on tomorrow until 7am on Saturday,  August 26.

During the strike period consultants will only provide staffing levels to cover emergency care.  “This is different from strike action taken by other clinical groups because no other doctors can cover for consultants,” NHS London said in a statement issued today.

“Any planned care delivered by junior doctors or other healthcare professionals will need to be rescheduled. We expect a large number of appointments to be cancelled during the consultants’ strike,” NHS officials said. Continue reading →

Posted in Croydon NHS Trust, Health, Mayday Hospital, Purley Hospital, St Helier Hospital | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Suspicion over £20k offer from council to vacate green space

Posted on August 23, 2023 by insidecroydon

Wildflower meadow: what used to be playing fields has been transformed into a much-cherished and much-used green space by the Friends of Love Lane Green

CROYDON IN CRISIS: Community group suspects council is accepting money from developers to help them build on a piece of protected open space

A community group that through years of hard work has transformed a piece of Woodside ward wasteground into a park, children’s playground and productive veg plot fears that Croydon Council has been working with a developer to help them build on the protected green space.

Love Lane Green has planning protection after being designated as Metropolitan Open Land, but that has not stopped the council from offering the local Friends group what some see as a £20,000 “bribe” to vacate part of the site to allow it to be built on. Continue reading →

Posted in Community associations, Croydon Council, Croydon parks, Environment, Planning, South Norwood, Wildlife, Woodside | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 5 Comments

Police helicopter flies in after late night assault in Wandle Park

Posted on August 23, 2023 by insidecroydon

Wandle Park was the scene of more drug-related crime last night, with a Metropolitan Police helicopter surveying the immediate area in Waddon and South Croydon for around an hour just before midnight.

Searchlight: the Met helicopter was called into action around Wandle Park last night

The police search was instigated after a man, aged in his early 20s, was found in Theobalds Road with a head injury, according to Scotland Yard.

“Officers were called at 23:20hrs by London Ambulance Service to reports of a man injured in a fight at Cornwall Road, Croydon,” the Met said in a statement issued to Inside Croydon. Continue reading →

Posted in Crime, Croydon parks, Knife crime, South Croydon, Waddon, Wandle Park | 3 Comments

Harvest Festival at Sutton Community Farm, Sep 23

Posted on August 23, 2023 by insidecroydon

Continue reading →

Posted in Activities, Environment, Gardening, Sutton Council | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

‘Beware calls from Croydon Labour’ warns Croydon Labour

Posted on August 22, 2023 by insidecroydon

Croydon Labour, which has failed to expel anyone responsible for the bankrupting of the borough, has now started to warn its members to do what most residents have been doing for years: ignore calls from Croydon Labour.

Hacked: something dodgy has been going on with Croydon Labour

Anthony Ellis, the official paid by the Labour Party to “organise” campaigning in Croydon, sent his latest panic-strickened memo to anyone and everyone on his distribution list last week.

Ellis warned of dodgy goings-on with their social media. Horror of horrors: Croydon Labour had been hacked!

It was 11.16pm last Monday, August 14, when Ellis sent his little note. Continue reading →

Posted in Crime, Croydon Council, Steve Reed MP | Tagged , , , , , , | 3 Comments

£1.3m in Culture grants, but not a penny for Croydon Writers

Posted on August 22, 2023 by insidecroydon

CROYDON COMMENTARY: As a herd of fibre-glass giraffes are distributed around the borough – paid for at least in part by a £50,000 grant from the Borough of Culture – ETHEL CORDUFF outlines how one of the borough’s oldest arts organisations has been snubbed

Snubbed: world-famous author Cicely Mary Barker, Croydon Writers and the written word have been ignored by the Borough of Culture

We were promised a year-long series of events, activities, projects and creative commissions taking place while Croydon is London’s Borough of Culture.

I would have considered the written word to be a top priority on the list of events planned. But not a mention. Instead, fashion shows, food festivals and “art trails” involving fibre-glass giraffes.

Croydon Writers was founded as the Croydon Writers’ Circle in 1945. It must be one of the oldest cultural organisations in Croydon.

Cicely Mary Barker, the world-famous author of the Flower Fairies books, and John Gordon, the former Editor of the Sunday Express, were some of the earliest honorary members of the Croydon Writers’ Circle, and many well-known authors have been members. We celebrated our 70th Anniversary in the Fairfield Halls in June 2015, when we collaborated with Croydon Council at that year’s Heritage Festival. Continue reading →

Posted in Borough of Culture 2023, Cicely Mary Barker, Croydon Writers, Poetry | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 4 Comments

Tandridge among 14 landlords rebuked by Gove over housing

Posted on August 22, 2023 by insidecroydon

Social housing is being badly managed by councils and housing associations across the country, and all the Tory government is doing is sending a few ‘stern’ letters to officials.
By our housing correspondent, BARRATT HOLMES

Homes sweet homes: but local councils, and Michael Gove, are failing to build new council homes

Tandridge District Council in Surrey and another of Croydon’s neighbours, Lambeth, are among 14 social landlords to have been served with a severe warning from housing secretary Michael Gove.

In letters sent last week to chief executives, Gove criticised their various failings and said he will be “taking a personal interest” in how the landlords – Tandridge, Lambeth and five other councils and seven housing associations – fulfill their responsibilities to residents.

The housing associations include Sovereign, Hyde, Metropolitan Thames Valley, PA Housing, Inquilab, Peabody for findings against Catalyst, and Notting Hill Genesis. All of them had been written to for previous findings of severe maladministration,

Ealing, Westminster, Tandridge, Nottingham, Milton Keynes and Lambeth councils all received a letter highlighting details of severe maladministration findings by the Housing Ombudsman. Camden was pulled up for breaching the English regulator’s Home Standard. Continue reading →

Posted in Housing, Lambeth Council, London-wide issues, Outside Croydon, Southwark Council, Tandridge District Council | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Joli Blon Cajun Band, Blues at the Oval Tavern, Aug 27

Posted on August 22, 2023 by insidecroydon

Continue reading →

Posted in Addiscombe West, Music, Pubs | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

No time to waste in submitting your student loans application

Posted on August 21, 2023 by insidecroydon

As the dust settles on the excitement of last week’s A levels results day, the Student Loans Company is reminding prospective students, including those applying for university places through Clearing, to make sure that they apply for student finance.

Applications can be completed online, and SLC reckons it takes around 30 minutes to complete an application, which can be done by clicking on this link.

For those who haven’t yet applied for student finance: Continue reading →

Posted in Education | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Didn’t I do well?! Kerswell gives herself a pat on the back

Posted on August 21, 2023 by insidecroydon

CROYDON IN CRISIS: It is three years to the week since the emergency committee meeting, attended by Jason Perry, that decided in secret to give £437,000 to Jo Negrini to leave her job as council CEO.
Today, Negreedy’s replacement, Katherine Kerswell, appears to have put a 1,000-word job application out into the local authority marketplace. By our Town Hall reporter, KEN LEE

Pompous, patronising, arrogant: Croydon CEO Katherine Kerswell has annoyed many long-time, loyal council staff

Katherine Kerswell, Croydon Council’s £192,474 per year chief executive, is on annual leave. She’s away until Monday, September 4. At least, that’s the out-of-office message that anyone who has emailed her in the last few days has received.

So Kerswell’s not been answering residents’ emails or attending to their concerns. But she has, in her official capacity, been writing 1,136-word articles for the trade press, telling all and sundry what a great job she’s been doing in her near-three years at cash-strapped Croydon.

This week marks three years since the hurried departure from Fisher’s Folly of Jo “Negreedy” Negrini, with her Gucci briefcase stuffed full of taxpayers’ cash, after she was persuaded to leave her job with a “golden handshake” of £437,000 just before the full horrors of the council’s financial collapse were fully exposed.

Kerswell was parachuted in as a replacement a few weeks later, at the behest of the Government and with the backing of her chums at the Local Government Association – whose members comprise most of the readership of the Local Government Chronicle, the website and magazine which has today published the self-congratulatory article about her time in Croydon by Kerswell. Continue reading →

Posted in Council Tax, Croydon Council, Hazel Simmonds, Improvement Board, Jane West, Jo Negrini, Katherine Kerswell, Mayor Jason Perry, Section 114 notice, Tony McArdle | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 21 Comments

Punk Rock, Courtyard Theatre, Chipstead, Sep 19 to 23

Posted on August 21, 2023 by insidecroydon

Continue reading →

Posted in Chipstead, Theatre | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

The chimney sweep to Queen Victoria and ancestor to a star

Posted on August 20, 2023 by insidecroydon

SUNDAY SUPPLEMENT: No need to go all Dick Van Dyke, when Croydon had its very own chimney sweep to the Queen, no less, as DAVID MORGAN has discovered in his latest delve into the Croydon Minster archive

“Good luck will rub off when I shakes hands wiv you.”

Sweeping all before him: actor Bill Nighy, whose ancestor was chimney sweep to the Archbishop of Canterbury

Some of the chimney sweep’s good luck has certainly rubbed off for Bill Nighy, the internationally acclaimed actor who has starred in Love Actually and Living, and many others in a stellar career.

But Nighy could never claim to have been the chimney sweep by Royal Appointment, as his great great grandfather once was.

A search of the registers of Victorian times at Croydon Minster shows William Nighy living just around the corner from the old church. He advertised himself as a chimney sweep and fire defender of 140 Old Town.

He could be found listed in the General Directory for Croydon in 1866. I wonder whether, as a fire defender, he went to the church on that fateful night in January 1867 when the fire raged through the building?

In an advertisement placed in a local newspaper in 1875, he described himself as chimney sweep to Her Majesty and to his Grace, the Archbishop of Canterbury. Continue reading →

Posted in Business, Croydon Minster, David Morgan, History, Theatre | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Friends of Streatham Common Fun Dog Show, Sep 10

Posted on August 20, 2023 by insidecroydon

Continue reading →

Posted in Activities, Community associations | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

ECRA and Friends of Farthing Downs Quiz Night, Sep 23

Posted on August 20, 2023 by insidecroydon

Continue reading →

Posted in Activities, Community associations, East Coulsdon Residents' Association, Friends of Farthing Downs | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

NHS Trust pays settlement over 11-year-old’s sepsis death

Posted on August 19, 2023 by insidecroydon

An 11-year-old from Addiscombe died while in the care of Croydon University Hospital in 2020 after a delay in giving her drugs and 10 other issues with her care, according to a report from Croydon Health Services NHS Trust.

Annalise Luffingham was admitted to hospital on February 11, 2020, and died the next day. She had been suffering from a headache and eye pain for a week when her parents took her in to A&E at Mayday.

She had also been experiencing dizziness, vomiting, confusion and a high temperature.

It took almost seven hours after she was admitted before Annie was given antibiotics.

The trust’s report found that if she had been screened correctly for sepsis she would have started receiving intravenous antibiotics within the hour.

Just over an hour after she was given the drugs, Annie suffered a cardiac arrest. Continue reading →

Posted in Addiscombe East, Addiscombe West, Croydon NHS Trust, Health, Mayday Hospital | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

Kenley Common’s ranger finding ways to save hedgehogs

Posted on August 19, 2023 by insidecroydon

Volunteering days across Coulsdon Common and Farthing Downs, and a special summer holiday forest adventure for children are among the activities coming up

Under threat: find out what you can do to help the hedgehogs

The City Commons ranger at Kenley Common has been working on a project this summer to help local hedgehogs – with a hedgehog home workshop for residents around Hayes Lane coming up.

This much-loved mammal is in decline across the country. According to the ranger, “After several sightings last year, we know that there is at least one hedgehog living on Kenley and Coulsdon Common near Hayes Lane, Fenemore Road and Egan Close.” Continue reading →

Posted in City Commons, Croydon parks, Environment, Gardening, Wildlife | Tagged , , , , | 1 Comment

Crystal Palace Park Trust Garden Party, free festival, Sep 17

Posted on August 19, 2023 by insidecroydon

Continue reading →

Posted in Croydon parks, Crystal Palace and Upper Norwood, Crystal Palace Park | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

75th anniversary Farthing Downs Archaeology Day, Sep 2

Posted on August 19, 2023 by insidecroydon

Continue reading →

Posted in Friends of Farthing Downs, History | Tagged , | Leave a comment