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Kerswell’s council keeps payments to top earners secret
Our Town Hall reporter, KEN LEE, on how Croydon’s backlog of unsanctioned accounts is being used as an excuse to disguise the latest round of top-level recruitment
The Tax Payers Alliance, one of those deliberately opaque, far-right lobby groups from Tufton Street who exercise excessive influence over our law-makers without ever openly declaring who funds them, can now claim to be a more transparent organisation than Croydon Council.
Because last week, when the TPA published The Town Hall Rich List, its annual grope through the payroll details of the nation’s local authorities, there was absolutely nothing in there from Croydon, where Katherine Kerswell has been chief executive for two and a half years.
What was to be discovered in the TPA’s data splurge, however, were the six-figure wages being paid to three individuals who were either named in Croydon’s Penn Report investigation into possible wrong-doing or implicated in the actions that led to the council’s financial collapse in 2020.
Two of them now work in senior positions at Sutton Council, while a third – who was suspended from her post in Croydon – was appointed to their latest finance role at a local authority where the chief exec was Kerswell’s own husband. The references from their previous employers must have been immaculate. Click here for more on this eyebrow-raising story of Town Hall revolving doors… Continue reading
Posted in Council Tax, Croydon Council, Guy van Dichele, Jo Negrini, Katherine Kerswell, Lisa Taylor, Richard Simpson, The Penn Report
Tagged #PennReport, Barry Quirk, Conservative, Council Tax, Croydon, Croydon Council, Guy van Dichele, Jo Negrini, Katherine Kerswell, Labour, Lisa Taylor, London, Penn Report, Richard Simpson, Tax Payers Alliance, The Penn Report, Tory, TPA, Tufton Street
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Three former exec directors are back on councils’ gravy train
Having avoided any disciplinary difficulties over the bankrupting of the borough, some of those with key roles in Croydon’s financial collapse are doing rather well for themselves, reports KEN LEE
£173,553: Richard Simpson has worked at Sutton Council since 2019
Richard Simpson, once in charge of Croydon Council’s finances, as well as his former assistant, Lisa Taylor, and Guy van Dichele, another ex-Croydon exec, have all landed themselves top jobs with other London local authorities, despite their parts in this borough’s financial collapse.
Simpson, Taylor and van Dichele all featured, with varying degrees of prominence, in the Penn Report, the investigation commissioned by current chief exec Katherine Kerswell into possible wrong-doing at Croydon Council in the run-up to its first bankruptcy in November 2020. Although he’d left Croydon Council in 2019, Simpson was among the dozens of those interviewed by Local Government Association consultant Richard Penn.
Simpson worked at Croydon Council for nearly 14 years until he announced his departure in late 2018, perhaps anticipating the disasters that would unfold.
Posted in Croydon Council, Guy van Dichele, Katherine Kerswell, Lisa Taylor, Richard Simpson, Section 114 notice, The Penn Report
Tagged #PennReport, Barry Quirk, Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy, CIPFA, Croydon, Croydon Council, Guy van Dichele, Helen Bailey, Jo Negrini, Katherine Kerswell, LGA, Lisa Taylor, Local Government Association, London Borough of Croydon, Penn Report, Richard Penn, Richard Simpson, Sutton Council, The Penn Report
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Bromley turns Town Hall asset into an ‘ecosystem of amenities’
While regeneration of Croydon’s town centre remains stalled – whatever became of part-time Perry’s ‘plan’ for the Allders building? – a long-loved public building in a neighbouring borough has been repurposed.
By our hotels correspondent, JOANNA PLUMLEY
Transformed: Bromley Old Town Hall now has a touch of Soho House about it
The next time Croydon’s Tory Mayor, Jason Perry, claims that the council has no assets to sell to avoid crunchingly painful cuts to services or inflation-busting 15per cent increases in Council Tax, show him the overly grand Town Hall on Katharine Street and then put him on a bus heading for Bromley.
As a fully subscribed member of the car lobby, our pro-pollution Mayor will really hate having to travel by bus, but he will also hate what he discovers when he gets off in Bromley, too.
The neo-Georgian Grade II-listed Bromley Old Town Hall had been standing empty for a decade until it underwent a £20million overhaul to turn it into Brama, a 23-room boutique hotel which is due to open this summer, plus “a whole ecosystem of amenities” in a kind of on-trend members’ club with meeting rooms, podcast studios and a “traditional” British restaurant.
No one’s said to what use they have put the Old Town Hall’s underground nuclear bunker, but suffice to say that after the multi-million-pound overhaul, it is unlikely that were he alive today David Bowie, who got married in the building in 1970, would recognise much of it. Continue reading
Aldi in £500 Coronation giveaway for community group parties
Supermarket chain Aldi is offering to help communities in Croydon celebrate the Coronation in style with a huge voucher giveaway.
Scotch egg?: Aldi’s latest promotion is worth £500 to 10 community groups
Aldi is giving away £500 in vouchers to spend in their stores to 10 lucky winners to purchase food, drinks, and decorations for any street parties they are planning to host.
All entrants need to do is tag their local community Facebook group or a friendly neighbour on the Aldi Facebook page to be in with a chance of winning.
Entries are open until midnight on Thursday (April 27). Continue reading
Posted in Activities, Business, Community associations
Tagged Aldi, Coronation, Coronation parties, KIng Charles III Coronation
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Coronation Big Lunch, Coulsdon Memorial Park, May 7
Posted in Activities, Community associations, Coulsdon
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Podcast with BBC MasterChef contestant Vanessa D’Souza
Posted in Activities, South Croydon
Tagged BBC, Gregg Wallace, John Torode, MasterChef, Vanessa D'Souza
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Croydon painter Sant, a portrait artist by Royal Appointment
SUNDAY SUPPLEMENT: One hundred and fifty years ago, Queen Victoria chose a Croydon-born artist to be her ‘Principal Painter in Ordinary to Her Majesty’, but as DAVID MORGAN discovered, she never liked his work
James Sant: a self-portrait from 1884, when the artist was 64
As Croydon celebrates being the London Borough of Culture, it is good to remember the lives of previous generations of Croydon locals who have contributed significantly to the arts over the ages.
Croydon’s James Sant made a huge impact on the 19th Century art scene, including being appointed portrait painter to Queen Victoria with the grandiose title of Principal Painter in Ordinary to Her Majesty – a kind of painting equivalent of the Poet Laureate. The only problem was, Queen Victoria never seemed to like the portraits Sant painted of her.
Born on this day, April 23, in 1820, Sant is said to have developed an early love of drawing. His brother, George, also grew up to become a painter.
While James Sant concentrated on the lucrative Victorian market for portraiture, his brother produced landscapes.
Living with his parents on Duppas Hill, as an eight-year-old, young James was obsessed with copying a sketch by the artist Landseer. This convinced his family that he had real talent. Continue reading
Chessington engineers plan to strike on May bank holidays
Chessington World of Adventure is facing severe disruption over the spring holiday season as engineers plan to stage four weekend strikes in a dispute over pay.
They’re having a giraffe: safety workers at Chessington will down tools over four weekends in May
The highly trained engineers are responsible for the smooth running of the park, including ensuring that its safety systems on its high adrenaline rides are fully operational.
Calling for a pay rise in line with the real rate of inflation – RPI is currently at 13.5per cent – the workers are planning to strike in four blocks in May, including the May Day weekend, the Coronation weekend and the late spring bank holiday. Continue reading
Posted in Activities, Business, Outside Croydon, Surrey
Tagged Chessington, Chessington World of Adventures, Sharon Graham, Unite, Unite the Union
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Wildlife under fire in more cruel shootings at Beddington Park
There are extra community safety officer and police patrols in Beddington Park, following the shooting of at least two wildfowl in the last week by a spiteful vandal with an air rifle. Residents report finding other wildlife, including foxes, as being shot with air pellets.
Shot and shocked: the Canada goose, with pellet hole in its beak, as found this week
It is the latest outbreak of animal cruelty in the Sutton park, following a spate of similar attacks on wildlife in previous years.
According to a report from the BBC, a mallard was found dead with a gunshot wound to the neck in Beddington Park on Wednesday, April 19, while a Canada goose was discovered with a shot beak.
The goose survived the attack but is being monitored by locals.
Animal rights activist Saffron Gloyne told the BBC, “The mallard was shot in the neck, and the wound bled out – it would have been so painful.” Continue reading
Posted in Crime, Sutton Council, Wildlife
Tagged Air rifle, Beddington, Beddington Park, Catapult, Sutton Council
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£200 ‘Golden Ticket’ offer for lucky customers at new M&S
Early bird customers who flock to the new Marks and Spencer store on the Purley Way when it opens next Thursday could win themselves a Golden Ticket worth £200 of goods from the store.
Golden ticket: the first 200 customers through the doors will win a prize – from a packet of Percy Pig up to £200
The 38,000 sqft new store features a clothing and home department and a large M&S Foodhall with a new fresh-market feel. Highlights include fresh displays brimming with produce grown by M&S Select Farms, an M&S Bakery serving freshly baked breads and cakes and a dedicated Wine Shop featuring an award winning selection of popular favourites.
Percy Pig will be on-hand to welcome shoppers to the new store as the team hands out Golden Tickets to the first 200 customers through the door. Every golden ticket-holder is guaranteed a win – whether it’s a free bag of Percy Pigs or freshly baked cookies from the bakery, with one lucky customer winning a £200 voucher. Continue reading
Posted in Business, Purley Way
Tagged Marks and Spencer, MS, Purley Way, Purley Way Retail Park
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Coulsdon Town Safer Neighbourhood Team surgery: Apr 24
Posted in Coulsdon, Crime
Tagged Coulsdon, Coulsdon Town, Coulsdon Town Safer Neighbourhood Team, Metropolitan Police
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Genius at work: Ayckbourn committee comedy hits the Marx
BELLA BARTOCK’s visit to the CODA production in Selsdon of Ten Times Table brings back many happy memories
Rallying to the cause: Graham Callison, as Marxist Eric, and Deborah Liu (Philippa) in Ayckbourn’s Ten Times Table
I don’t know about the Massacre of the Pendon Twelve. By the time we got to an hour before curtain-up of CODA’s latest production, I was contemplating the Massacre of the Selsdon One.
Let me explain.
We’d decided, my old school chum, Claudia de Boozy and I, to leave the Roller behind for the night. Young Kenny, who’s not as young as he once was, has been muttering under his breath about ULEZ for the past few weeks. I haven’t paid attention to him. I never do.
I told Kenny that I am sure that Mr Rolls and Mr Royce will have ensured that our lovely, red leather-upholstered Silver Shadow was entirely “compliant” (whatever that’s supposed to mean), together with 90per cent of all the other vehicles on our roads. But on this one occasion, to put him at ease (and to allow him to watch the United match on the new ultra HD television we have just had delivered from Richer Sounds), I would take the No64.
More fool me. Continue reading
Posted in Art, CODA, Theatre
Tagged Alan Ayckbourn, Ayckbourn, CODA, Croydon Operatic and Dramatic Association, Michael Hall, Selsdon, Selsdon Hall, Ten Times Table
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Centrale’s owners set to sell-up to Westfield in cut-price deal
Our vacated shopping centre correspondent, MT WALLETTE, on the latest multi-million-pound boardroom manoeuvres over Croydon’s developer-blighted North End
For sale: Centrale could be off-loaded to Westfield
It has taken more than a decade, but Westfield’s hostile takeover of the Centrale shopping mall in Croydon town centre looks as if it is finally going to happen.
But the sale of Centrale by owners Hammerson to their erstwhile Croydon “partners”, now known as Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield, “would terminate decade-long plans” for the town centre’s redevelopment, according to one trade publication.
It is 10 years since Boris Johnson, when Mayor of London, together with his Tory mate, Gavin Barwell, inflicted the shotgun marriage of “Hammersfield” on Croydon, through a forced joint venture between Hammerson and Westfield, the Whitgift Centre landowners’ preferred developers.
Inevitably, like rats in a sack, the property speculators have ended up eating one another. Continue reading
Chinese police station on High Street leaves MP Philp spooked
Two Croydon MPs clashed in the House of Commons yesterday, as the Tory Government faced criticism from security services and its own backbenches over its failure to act against infiltration by the Chinese state.
By WALTER CRONXITE, political editor
Disaster: Tory MP Chris Philp in the Commons yesterday
Croydon MPs Sarah Jones and Chris Philp clashed in the House of Commons yesterday, as an Urgent Question over the security threat posed by secret “Chinese police stations” that are dotted around the country – including one on Croydon High Street – brought a suitably flaky and typically unsatisfactory response from the Tory Government’s spokesperson.
The UQ saw Philp standing in for Tom Tugendhat, the absent security minister. Philp was, once again, found to be woefully out of its depth. Or, as John Crace, the Grauniad’s parliamentary sketch writer, noted today, “a disaster”.
Crace wrote of Philp: “His desperation makes the skin crawl.” Continue reading
Posted in Business, Chris Philp MP, Crime, Croydon Central, Croydon South, Sarah Jones MP
Tagged All Eat, Boris Johnson, Chris Philp MP, Conservative, Croydon, Croydon Central, Croydon High Street, Croydon South, Iain Duncan Smith, John Crace, Labour, MI5, Ruiyou Lin, Sarah Jones MP, Theresa May, Tory
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Vicar’s plea: Out of shocking destruction – let’s come together
One week on from the wanton destruction of at least 20 ancient gravestones in the churchyard at Croydon Minster, Canon Andrew Bishop, the Vicar of Croydon, has appeared in an emotionally-charged video posted on social media. Continue reading
Special offer: Get £10 off your pre-marathon pasta meal
Croydon’s marathon runners can do their pre-race carbo-loading for free this weekend, thanks to a deal being offered by Deliveroo and Pasta Evangelists.
Go the extra mile: Pasta Evangelists have teamed up with Deliveroo to offer a £10 discount
From midnight on Friday, Deliveroo and the pasta restaurant are giving away 4,000 vouchers each worth £10 towards your big pasta meal ahead of Sunday’s London Marathon.
Runners making their final preparations for the big day after months of training can claim a free portion of pasta on Saturday, April 22, from Deliveroo, who will deliver it from one of Pasta Evangelists’ London restaurants, with 27 restaurants participating in the offer, including a Croydon branch. Continue reading
Posted in Athletics, Business, Restaurants
Tagged Deliveroo, London Marathon, Pasta Evangelists
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Council bureaucrat gives red light to Love Lane Green’s future
A whole lotta Love Lane: community gardeners turned a dumping ground into a valuable local asset – but have been rebuffed by Croydon Council
CROYDON COMMENTARY: A children’s play area, reclaimed from wasteland by volunteers over the last eight years, has had its important status erased with the stroke of a pen by a senior council official.
EMMA HOPE-FITCH and the other Friends of Love Lane Green received the devastating news this week
I knew it was not going to be great news the instant I got the text message from Simon Bashford, “community relations manager for Croydon Council”, informing me of the email I was about to receive.
It was the decision for the nomination of Love Lane Green to be included on Croydon’s list of Assets of Community Value.
Simon has been courteous and helpful, but he has also said things in conversation that have led me to request that he email me, as I would not wish to misrepresent his opinion with regards to what an ACV is for and how it is an important part of the Localism Act of 2011. Continue reading
Posted in Community associations, Croydon Council, Croydon parks, Environment, Gardening, Property, South Norwood, Wildlife, Woodside
Tagged Croydon, Croydon Council, Emma Hope-Fitch, Friends of Love Lane, Friends of Love Lane Green, Gavin Handford, London Borough of Croydon, Love Lane Green, South Norwood, Woodside
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Make your phone safe when Emergency Alarm sounds alert
RoSPA, the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents, is urging road users to leave their mobile phone alone if they are in control of a moving vehicle at 3pm this Sunday, April 23.
Don’t even think about it: motorists using their phones while driving cause hundreds of collisions every year
The Government is testing its Emergency Alerts System on Sunday afternoon, when mobile phones across the country are expected to sound a siren, and RoSPA is one of a number of organisations who have issued advice ahead of the event to ensure that the safety test is not… well, unsafe.
Refuge, the charity for those who suffer domestic abuse, are recommending that anyone who has a second mobile phone so that they might use it for calls or messages that their abuser doesn’t see or hear should turn the device off for an hour either side of 3pm on Sunday, to ensure its presence goes undetected. The advice is backed by the Government. Continue reading
Chestnut Gardens residents make some new furry friends
To mark Alzheimer’s Awareness Month, staff and residents at Barchester Healthcare’s Chestnut Gardens home in Purley were treated to a visit from some beautiful therapy pets.
Barking: Ruth with pooches Maisie and Baxter at Chestnut Gardens earlier this week
The pair of cockapoos caused a great deal of excitement with the residents at the Foxley Lane home.
“All of the residents enjoyed the visit, they petted and fed the animals, who seemed to appreciate meeting their new friends,” said Louise Wood, a member of Chestnut Gardens staff.
“Animals have a wonderful calming effect and the residents love to stroke them, talk to them and play with them.”
And according to the dogs’ owner, “It was lovely to see the residents getting so much pleasure from the visit, I think it is fair to say Maisie and Baxter have a new fan club!” Continue reading
Posted in Care Homes, Purley
Tagged Alzheimer's disease, Barchester Healthcare, Chestnut Gardens, Foxley Lane
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Croydon loses out in the long run with just 21 marathon grants
This year’s London Marathon on Sunday will be celebrating the event having distributed more than £100million to good causes over the last 42 years. Yet Croydon has the worst record of all London boroughs in applying for grants, as STEVEN DOWNES reports
Marathon fund-raiser: Croydon has been left trailing when it comes to accessing charity grants
Just days before the staging of the 43rd London Marathon, back on its regular Blackheath to Westminster course and back to its regular spring-time date, the organisers have flourished the fact that they have managed to award an astonishing £100million to various good causes in and around the capital.
And Inside Croydon has discovered that the borough which has received the fewest number of grants from the London Marathon’s charitable foundation is… Croydon.
In the 42 years since that first London Marathon, just 21 sports and recreational projects in Croydon have successfully submitted bids for funding. Two of those 21 projects were handed their grants only in the latest round of awards, announced last week.
Croydon’s failure to tap into the London Marathon’s rich vein of sports funding reflects the local authority’s failure to organise a professional bid team in Fisher’s Folly to assist the borough’s sports clubs and community associations to access such readily available cash. Continue reading
Posted in Athletics, Charity, Community associations, Croydon Council, Health, London-wide issues, Sport
Tagged Chris Brasher, Croydon, Croydon Council, Croydon Harriers, Croydon Voluntary Action, John Disley, London Marathon, London Marathon Charitable Trust, London Marathon Foundation, Nick Bitel
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Shoppers and pensioners hit hard by food inflation at 19.2%
There’s no sign of the cost-of-living crisis abating any time soon, with one business expert warning: ‘Supermarkets pursuing endless price increases are heading down a path of mutually-assured destruction’
‘Profiteering scourge’: Sharon Graham’s Unite has found corporate profits up 89% in three years
Food price inflation was up to 19.2per cent in March, from 18.2per cent in February, according to the latest figures released today by the Office for National Statistics.
That means that any food that you bought for £1 in March 2022 will have cost you £1.20 this year.
More generally, the ONS reported a slight slowing of general inflation rates in March – though for households in Croydon, these figures precede the likely seismic shock of the 15per cent Council Tax hike which the Conservative Mayor, Jason Perry, helped by the Tory Government, is hitting the borough’s residents with in April.
One of the country’s trades union leaders has pinned the blame for continuing soaring prices on “the scourge of corporate profiteering”, while a business figure working in the retail sector has warned that “Supermarkets pursuing endless price increases are heading down a path of mutually-assured destruction”. Continue reading
