Green shoots: five grants of £100 are available to Croydon growers
Allotment societies, gardening clubs and community groups in Croydon have got until Monday, December 1, to submit their applications for a grant of £100 to help fund their 2026 food-growing projects.
Croydon Community Energy is providing the money for community growing – £100 each to five applicants.
“You don’t need to be a formal organisation to apply,” the grant organisers say. Continue reading
Police used Google Translate to speak with captives when they carried out a raid following information from a 15-year-old who was in a group being held against their will
Guilty: Hewa Margai has been sentenced to eight and a half years
A man has been jailed after a police investigation into modern-day slavery at a car wash in Mitcham.
Eight people, including a 15-year-old, were trafficked from Romania and held against their will in appalling conditions for weeks.
Hewa Margai, 45, of Carshalton Road, Mitcham, was found guilty at Kingston Crown Court of eight counts of holding a person in slavery or servitude under Section 1 of Modern Slavery Act. He was sentenced at the same court yesterday to eight and a half years in prison.
Between November and December 2020, eight Romanian nationals were brought to Britain under false promises of accommodation, fair pay, food and legitimate employment. Instead, the victims were deprived of basic human rights, forced to work in Margai’s Mitcham car wash, housed in a small room on-site, and routinely subjected to physical, mental and psychological abuse.
During the covid lockdown, the captives’ situation deteriorated, as they were confined to the car wash premises, with no access to their travel documents. Continue reading
ANDREW FISHER pores over the fine detail in the Budget, including more income tax, lower energy bills and frozen rail fares, and highlights some of the important areas that were not addressed by Chancellor Rachel Reeves
Just over a year ago, seven MPs had the Labour whip suspended after they voted to scrap the two-child benefit limit. This week, in Chancellor Rachel Reeves’ Budget, Labour scrapped the two-child benefit cap.
Well trailed: there wasn’t much in Chancellor Rachel Reeves’ despatch box that we didn’t already know about
Local MP Natasha Irons posted that “3,600 children in Croydon East will be lifted out of poverty”. Her colleague, Sarah Jones, in neighbouring Croydon West, posted that 4,680 children would benefit in her constituency.
According to the Labour Party this morning, the policy change will benefit a total of 12,500 children across the whole of Croydon.
In her much-trailed Budget speech, Reeves announced the end of the policy introduced by the last Conservative government, saying that it “punishes children for the circumstances of their birth”.
With the number of children across the country living in poverty at 4.5million – up from 3.6million in 2010 – there is an urgent need to address this. The two-child benefit cap was one of the primary drivers of increasing child poverty in the last 15 years. Continue reading
Key change: Joanna Scanlan as ‘Beth’, her latest starring role on screen in Sally Wainwright’s BBC drama Riot Women. Scanlan has lived in Sanderstead for eight years, and is now the influential patron of the David Lean Cinema
Sanderstead’s BAFTA award-winning actor Joanna Scanlan, fresh from her BBC drama success Riot Women, visited Inside Croydon’s virtual studio Under The Flyover this week to talk all things Croydon arts, including her significant part as patron of the David Lean Cinema.
With a credit list that includes After Love, as well as The Larkins, The Girl With a Pearl Earring and Getting On, Scanlan must be close to reaching “national treasure” status. She certainly deserves Croydon treasure status, since she moved to South Croydon eight years ago and more recently took on a figurehead role with the Clocktower’s cherished arthouse cinema, which has received a series of visits from movie stars and directors. Continue reading
Walkabout: MP Sarah Jones (pink coat) touring the town centre this morning with the Met Police and representatives from Croydon BID. Did they drop in on Primark?
CROYDON IN CRISIS: One of the borough’s Labour MPs is accused of ‘performatively sending emails’ to a fashion chain’s CEO, when there are bigger issues in the borough, such as Westfield’s continuing delays over redevelopment
Croydon West MP Sarah Jones stirred up a social media row on Budget day when posting a photograph of the Primark store in the town centre, accusing it of being “run-down” and “unclean”.
Primark is in the Centrale shopping centre, which is managed by Westfield – or Unibail Rodamco Westfield, as the Paris-based multi-billion shopping mall operators are now known. Continue reading
Big Brother is watching you in the car parks at Croydon’s NHS hospitals, and you could land in big bother if you don’t pay using their new computerised system.
The NHS Trust responsible for Mayday and Purley hospitals is introducing a new payment system in its car parks, using Automatic Number Plate Recognition, which requires anyone visiting the hospitals to pay their parking charges by using QR codes or payment cards.
Big Brother is watching: Mayday and Purley hospitals have a new CCTV-based parking regime
ANPR, the Croydon Health Services NHS Trust says, will “make parking simpler, safer, and more efficient for staff and visitors”.
But some patients and hospital visitors could discover that they are unable to park their car without using a smartphone, or risk incurring a fine.
Under ANPR, vehicles number plates will be scanned and recorded as they enter and leave hospital car parks at Mayday and Purley War Memorial Hospital.
The Trust says that its new system will reduce “misuse of bays” and “enhance security and safety” while “simplifying” parking charge payments. Continue reading
EXCLUSIVE: Regular users of the gym, DIY centre or kids’ play areas at the ‘leisure park’ off the Purley Way no longer have the benefit of three hours’ free car parking. By our motoring correspondent, JEREMY CLACKSON
Shoppers and gym members visiting the Colonnades centre off the Purley Way got a nasty shock this week when they discovered that the free parking period had been reduced by half, from three hours to just 90minutes.
Busy site: a manager for operators 9Yards claimed that the changes to parking times have been made to deter ‘fly parking’
“It will make our visits to the so-called ‘leisure park’ a lot less leisurely,” said one local, who is worried that they might get hit with a hefty parking fine if they don’t rush future visits.
“Yet another way of mugging us, the little people,” said another. “All they are interested in is making money out of us in unfair ways.”
The changes were made without any notice to the public, with the parking charge signs being changed on Monday night. “It would be easy to miss them if you weren’t looking out for them,” said one of the Colonnades’ customers after a visit yesterday. Continue reading
Thousands of Croydon households face the prospect of rising fuel bills this winter. But on Fuel Poverty Awareness Day, here are some tips and links to help and support
Today is Fuel Poverty Awareness Day, drawing attention to the millions of households across the country who will struggle to keep up with their energy bills or properly heat their homes this winter.
Balancing the budget: there are several ways to reduce energy bills
With energy bills still high following the 2021 gas price crisis and set to increase further in January, energy debt and uncomfortably cold homes are now all too familiar for many Croydon residents.
Fuel poverty estimates for Croydon vary depending on source, but even the lowest figures suggest more than 10% of households will struggle with their energy bills this winter. Some estimates put that figure as high as 25%. Continue reading
Surrey Police have issued an appeal for witnesses following a stabbing near Warlingham Green last night.
A 22-year-old man from Croydon is in custody following the incident, “on suspicion of causing grievous bodily harm, possession of a knife/bladed article in a public place, and possession of a controlled Class B drug”, the police said.
The police were called out at 9.40pm, “to reports of an altercation between a group of people on Limpsfield Road”, according to an official statement issued this morning. Continue reading
CROYDON COMMENTARY: Since he was arrested, twice, on terrorism charges simply for expressing an opinion, campaigner DAVID WHITE, pictured right, has been out on bail. Today he and thousands of others get their days in court
“You are being arrested under Section 13 of the Terrorism Act 2000.”
These words, or similar, have been uttered by the police in at least 2,350 arrests in this country since the start of the summer. Continue reading
Nude Norwood: most of the literary society talks come with illustrations – sometimes showing rather more than anyone might wish to see
KEN TOWL delved into the little-known world of local literary societies, the ‘Lits’, where talk is cheap and at least the fruitcakes promise ‘no nuts’
Way in: the signage at St Mildred’s was clear enough
I have discovered a hidden world, a world that exists in the shadows, a world in which people, mostly retired people, visit buildings, mostly churches, between the months of October and March, to hear about such topics as “Paranormal Mysteries and Cover-Ups” and “A Conspiracy Theory of the World”.
Local cemeteries and high streets are popular topics, too.
For this is the world of “The Lit”, the Literary Society, where a guest speaker and a slide show entertain an audience for an hour or more on a wet autumn or winter evening.
Tea and cakes are often part of this suburban ritual which dates to the early 20th Century, and doesn’t appear much changed in the intervening hundred years or so.
It is a world with its own arcane rules. Continue reading
On the buses: this map was issued today by Govia Thameslink Railway and shows how passengers travelling south of Croydon this Sunday face long delays to their journeys
Network Rail has issued an urgent notice to passengers hoping to travel south of Croydon, to Gatwick Airport and other destinations on the Brighton mainline this Sunday, November 30.
And there’s a warning of similar, if not greater, rail disruption to come on services to and from East Croydon and Purley on three weekends in January.
The bus replacement services this Sunday are expected to “extend journey times considerably”, according to the rail operators, Govia Thameslink. Continue reading
The Salvation Army is calling on the Croydon community to share love and hope by donating new toys to its Christmas Present Appeal to help give children a Christmas they deserve.
Spread the joy: the Salvation Army is accepting donations of new toys at its Booth Road centre until Dec 19
Every year, Salvation Army churches ask people to donate new toys and gifts for children whose families are already making impossible choices between paying for food or heating or bills.
Last year, Croydon Salvation Army distributed more than 480 gifts. The charity fears more people will need support this year. Continue reading
New opening hours: Mayor Jason Perry promised that the café in Wandle Park would re-open in 2023. His council was initially demanding at least £10,000 pa rent for the venue
‘Vertical drinking’ to be banned in park’s re-opened venue, which is located in a newly extended no-alcohol zone, as council grants licence to its new tenants. By our Town Hall reporter, SANDRA STEAD
Croydon Council has managed to grant a licence to sell alcohol to a café in a public park which is situated in Mayor Jason Perry’s recently extended Public Space Protection Order zones – where even holding an open can of lager in public is deemed to be an offence punishable by a hefty, on-the-spot fine.
The council-owned Wandle Park Café is due to re-open next month under new management – almost three years later than had been promised by Croydon’s failed Mayor. Continue reading
You got a friend: some of today’s Friends of Littleheath Woods after a recent work party. It is 30 years since Croydon’s first ‘friends’ group was established
Thirty years ago this month, a group of residents got together with the support of a conservation charity to form the first of Croydon’s “friends groups” – the Friends of Littleheath Woods.
TCV = The Conservation Volunteers – is a national charity that works, as the name suggests, with community volunteers to look after outdoor spaces. It has had a presence in Croydon since the 1980s.
In late 1993 Pat Crooke, a Selsdon resident, attended one of the TCV workdays to help clean up a pond in Littleheath Woods. Crooke was so moved by what she saw that she wrote a report about the poor state of the woodland and submitted it to the Selsdon Residents’ Association. Continue reading
Nigel Farage’s business-cum-party is trying to distance itself from controversial Coulsdon resident, as they struggle to establish any credibility in Croydon, where they have no mayoral candidate and are on to their third branch chair since June
Coulsdon clown: Peter Morgan
An official from Reform UK’s Croydon branch says his group will investigate claims from party members over the conduct of motoring lobbyist Peter Morgan, as reported by Inside Croydon.
This website’s exclusive reports over the past week have detailed Morgan’s chequered political past, which has seen him expelled from the Conservatives and even UKIP.
iC also reported how Morgan has harassed Reform members in Croydon for their personal data and deluged them with emails on a range of policy initiatives, especially transport. Continue reading
THE CROYDON CHRONICLES: There is history all around the Minster, not only in the archive, as shown this week as DAVID MORGAN provides the story behind one of the church’s plaques, which dates from more than 120 years ago, and remembers a young man who died after serving in the Second Boer War
Back in the early part of the 20th Century, Croydon Parish Church, now Croydon Minster, held a regular Sunday afternoon service for men. During the one held on October 2, 1904, the vicar, Rev RL Burrows had a poignant task to perform.
A large congregation gathered to remember a young man who had been a regular attendee at the church and for whom a memorial was to be unveiled. The 20-year-old James Laver had died from typhoid fever in South Africa.
Lasting memorial: the plaque for Pte James Laver, which is still in place in the Minster
The Laver family home was at 33 Canterbury Road. His father, Henry, worked in the rates office at the Town Hall and was a popular local figure.
Rev Burrows spoke eloquently about patriotism, selflessness and devotion. After giving the address, he came down from the pulpit to unveil the bronze plaque which until then had been cloaked with a Union flag. With family, friends and representatives from the 12th Royal Lancers all looking on, Burrows gave thanks for the life of James Laver and dedicated his memorial. That plaque remains on the north wall of the church, near the Lady Chapel, to this day.
Young Laver had joined the 12th Lancers five years earlier. Almost straight away, he sailed with his regiment for South Africa, arriving in Cape Town midway through November 1899. Continue reading
