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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
CROYDON IN CRISIS: Mayor decided to re-boot Negrini’s Place Review Panel, but after almost a year’s delay, the identities of the ‘experts’ assembled remain closely guarded secrets. By WALTER CRONXITE
Missing some essential detail: will the council’s design panel help improve the borough’s built environment?
“Just what are they trying to hide?” a Katharine Street source said today after the council refused to release the names of the members of its re-launched “Design Review Panel”.
Croydon Council issued a press statement this week to announce that they had finally made 31 appointments to what is supposed to be an expert body overseeing planning in the borough.
It has taken the council 10 months, since the closure in October 2022 of applications from participants eager to join Croydon’s assembly of experts, to get round finally to re-booting this piece of “Peak Negrini”. The original Place Review Panel was first launched in 2016, the brainchild of discredited former chief exec Jo “Negreedy” Negrini. Continue reading
Ready for action: the areas local rugby clubs are hard at work ready for the new season
RUGBY ROUND-UP: The publication of the club fixture lists has added some extra edge to some pre-season training, reports BRIAN MORE-ORLESS
The rugby clubs in and around Croydon could be in for some hectic times in their clubhouses and bars over the coming months, after the blazers at Twickenham released their fixtures this week which in one division will see 20 local derbies to be played across the coming season.
That means that for each of the local clubs in the top county league for Surrey, eight of their scheduled 22 league matches this season will have “derby” status, with more than just the usual division points on the line. Continue reading
Criminal damage to public property in Greater London could cost taxpayers tens of millions.
Red mist: the vandalised ULEZ camera in Selsdon yesterday
The Metropolitan Police is investigating more than 300 cases of vandalism and theft of CCTV cameras, which have been installed as part of the expansion of the Ultra Low Emission Zone to outer London, including Croydon, Bromley and Sutton.
ULEZ, which currently covers an area encircled by the South and North Circulars, is due to be extended to most of the rest of Greater London on August 29.
But attacks on the ULEZ infrastructure is forcing the police and Transport for London to take special measures to counter and catch the shadowy characters responsible for thousands of pounds of criminal damage. Continue reading
The programme for the 2023 Open House London has been released this week.
Open for tours: Stanley Halls in South Norwood is one of the few Croydon public buildings to participate in Open House
And this year, with Croydon being London’s Borough of Culture, there’s just nine events or buildings, public and private, in the borough listed as being open for tours and visits from the curious. That’s thought to be fewer than any previous year.
The organisers of the Borough of Culture tried to encourage building owners to sign up to take part in Open House festival, although they didn’t try very hard: they just whacked a few brief details and a link on their not-very-good website.
Open House Festival is a two-week celebration of London’s homes, architecture and neighbourhoods. “You can get inside some of London’s best-known buildings, as well as some of its best-kept secrets,” say the organisers. In Croydon, it is Open House that is a virtual secret.
CROYDON IN CRISIS: Mayor Perry’s cuts are beginning to bite in his Tory heartlands, with the long-established Selsdon Centre for the Retired facing the prospect of closure next year. EXCLUSIVE by STEVEN DOWNES
Hardship in Conservative wards: the Selsdon Centre for the Retired is one of many charities hit by the cuts
A respected and admired charity that supports older people in one of the more affluent parts of the borough could be forced to fold after being hit with a double-whammy by Croydon’s Conservative-controlled council: the complete withdrawal of their annual grant from the Town Hall, and a sharp increase in rent payable to the 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 of the Selsdon Centre for the Retired, has written in a letter to supporters. Continue reading
The NHS has chosen today – A-level results day – to begin a drive to help school leavers explore the vast range of health careers on offer.
Hitting the grades: Khadija Raza is to study dentistry
As A-Level, T-Level and BTEC results are announced across Croydon, pupils are being encouraged to consider one of the more than 350 roles in the NHS.
One potential future health worker is Khadija Raza, who achieved an A in chemistry at the £15,000 per year Croydon Metropolitan College on South End. She is off to study dentistry at the University of Bristol.
Raza was one of 12 pupils at CMC to sit A levels this year – all of whom have got their places at university, with two of them choosing to study dentistry.
The NHS wants all school leavers are to search “NHS Health Careers” today so they can browse the routes and roles available to them.
Places are also available until October 17 through UCAS Clearing, presenting an opportunity for school leavers rethinking their next steps.
According to the NHS, 16,740 have already accepted places on nursing and midwifery courses. Continue reading
‘We are staring into an abyss here, and it’s time we faced up to it’. Those were the words of a Conservative councillor in Croydon – in 2013.
Here, ANDREW FISHER, pictured right, says that faced with austerity on a brutal scale, it is time for local councillors from all political parties to force central government to fund them all fairly
The crisis of Croydon Council’s finances has only deepened in recent months. Jason Perry is Croydon’s “Executive Mayor” in name only.
Mounting problems: Michael Gove
The council has effectively been taken under direct control by Whitehall, with Government-appointed commissioners running the show – Croydon’s improvement panel now “directs” rather than “guides”, according to Leveling Up Secretary Michael Gove.
If Mayor Perry had any dignity, he would refuse his £82,000 council salary. He has been relegated to a ceremonial position. Croydon effectively now has two ceremonial mayors.
Conservative Mayor Perry was elected as Croydon’s first directly elected mayor in May 2022 pledging to “fix the finances”. It was a promise he knew he could not keep. Continue reading
CROYDON COMMENTARY: Not everyone shares the concern for the future of a protected public park expressed on these pages last week, as BEN GADSBY, a Thornton Heath resident, pictured right, explains
As a resident of Thornton Heath, I am a keen reader of Inside Croydon – one of the best ways of keeping up to date with everything that’s going on across, around and affecting our area.
Off track: the works to dig up a chunk of Grange Park
Last week’s Croydon Commentary from Sally Ann Voak struck a particular chord.
I texted a friend who lives closer to Old Coulsdon than me: “Is this an article opposing a path?” The answer: yes.
This path in Grange Park will undoubtedly make life worse for the residents of Old Coulsdon. It will simply encourage more people to use the park, quite possibly including people with buggies or wheelchairs. Continue reading
The Fairfield Halls, Croydon’s cultural centre, is seeking its fourth artistic director in little more than three years, after it was announced today that Jonathan Higgins is leaving to take a position at another venue in Newcastle.
Wae-ayyy: Jonathan Higgins is leaving the Fairfield Halls to take a new CEO post in Newcastle
Higgins moved to Croydon in April 2022, promising to put the community at the heart of the prestigious south London venue which had endured a three-year shutdown for a controversial refurbishment, only to be hit by the covid lockdown from 2020 through to 2021.
Higgins’ time in charge may not have been transformational, but he has done much to turnaround the ailing fortunes of the Fairfield Halls. Continue reading
Parents and carers working at Croydon’s Mayday Hospital face an anxious few weeks, as many are being forced to seek new day care provision for their pre-school children after it was announced that the on-site nursery is to close on September 22.
Time out: a popular nursery in Thornton Heath is to close next month
In an email to clients, Co-operative Childcare group, which runs the nursery, said it had been a “difficult decision” and that it was closing its Croydon nursery branch because it had been “loss-making for some time”.
The decision comes with an increasing demand from hard-working parents for places at good nursery schools, at the same time that Croydon Council is “consulting” (ie. going through the motions before doing what they’ve already decided they are going to do) over possible closures and mergers of the borough’s five nurseries. Continue reading
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