Jingle Bells! 3 pairs of Christmas concert tickets to be won!!

Posted on November 18, 2021 by insidecroydon

What a great way to get into the swing of things for the festive season – WIN a pair of tickets to the Len Phillips Swing Orchestra’s Swingin’ Christmas concert at the Fairfield Halls on December 21 in our exclusive competition for iC patrons.

Inside Croydon, in conjunction with band leader Joe Pettitt and the orchestra, is delighted to offer three pairs of tickets for what promises to be a great evening enjoying some of the best-loved Christmas tunes, from Jingle Bells to Silent Night.

Topping the bill are international singing stars Gary Williams and Louise Cookman.

Williams has performed worldwide, and starred in the West End’s Rat Pack. He’s been described as “The UK’s leading standard bearer for the supercool era” by the Evening Standard.

Cookman has sung with the world-famous Pasadena Roof Orchestra, with the BBC Big Band and has performed at Ronnie Scott’s, Cadogan Hall and the Royal Festival Hall.

Continue reading →

Posted in Fairfield Halls, Inside Croydon, Music | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Bus passengers face a wet winter of discontent with no shelters

Posted on November 18, 2021 by insidecroydon

Six months since Inside Croydon first revealed the secret removal of the borough’s bus shelters, and a dodgy-looking £6.8million deal with a small company that had only been established a few months earlier, the council has admitted that not a single one of the promised new shelters has been installed.

Broken promise: the so-called bus shelter ‘upgrade’ was meant to have started by now

Established bus shelter providers and street advertising specialists JCDecaux’s contract with Croydon Council ended at the end of March this year. They promptly started to remove nearly all of the bus shelters from around the borough.

A confidential council briefing document obtained by Inside Croydon showed that a multi-million-pound deal had been struck with a company called Valo Smart City UK Ltd, a firm operating from Suite 219a in some Regus serviced offices on Lansdowne Road.

Valo Smart City was only registered in August 2020, and has no business record of providing bus shelters or selling advertising. It has never even filed a set of accounts.

In true Croydon Council manner, the replacement shelters were not ready to replace the Decaux ones as they were being disassembled through the spring. The council promised that they would be installed “from autumn 2021”.

That has failed to happen. Continue reading →

Posted in Croydon Council, Opama Khan, Planning, Transport | Tagged , , , | 13 Comments

Call for objections to scheme that threatens No1 Croydon

Posted on November 18, 2021 by insidecroydon

Councillors in Addiscombe are asking the public to lodge objections to a planning application for a tall tower block – another one – close to East Croydon Station.

Croydon icon: Councillors are concerned that views of the Seifert-designed building will be blocked

Developers Fifth State want to demolish the unprepossessing CityLink House office building and replace it with a 28-storey block of 498 “co-living units” – micro flats.

The Addiscombe West councillors have raised several objections to the scheme, including how it would adversely impact an architectural symbol of Croydon – the Richard Seifert-designed NLA Tower, also known as the No1 Croydon or the “50p bit building”.

No1 Croydon, the councillors say, “is Croydon’s most iconic building, and over the last 50 years has become one of Croydon’s most recognisable landmarks, visible from all quarters of Croydon.

“This proposed 28-storey building, at 92 metres, threatens all this, especially as it will loom over the 81metre NLA Tower. For those who use East Croydon Station, the sight of No1 Croydon coming into view announces [your] arrival in the town centre.

“The proposed building will loom over Seifert’s NLA Tower, smothering its looks and ruining one of Croydon’s key townscapes.

Continue reading →

Posted in 101 George Street/Ten Degrees, Addiscombe West, East Croydon, Jerry Fitzpatrick, Menta Tower, No1 Croydon, Patricia Hay-Justice, Property, Ruskin Square, Sean Fitzsimons | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 4 Comments

Bird sketches out bewitching account of The Great North Wood

Posted on November 18, 2021 by insidecroydon

We live in a part of London that is ‘a forest remembered in place names’. JOHN GRINDROD has found a book which illustrates the point wonderfully well

Great book: Tim Bird’s The Great North Wood

Sometimes before you’ve even opened a book, you know you’re going to love it.

Tim Bird’s comic book The Great North Wood has a cover illustrated in his trademark freehand style, showing a row of regular 1960s houses peeping through a silhouetted line of trees.

Having grown up on the edge of New Addington, I immediately knew this was the book for me. It tells the story of south London’s once dense and sprawling ancient woodland, from prehistory right up to the present day, through a series of evocative illustrations and glimpses of moments and places lost in time. It was published in 2018 but I only read it this year, and I’m so glad I did. I’ve been recommending it to everyone since.

Continue reading →

Posted in Art, Environment, Wildlife | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Let there be lights! Coulsdon traders defy Grinch Creatura

Posted on November 17, 2021 by insidecroydon

A small group of Coulsdon business people, backed by the dynamic help of the chair of a local residents’ association, have defied their Tory councillors by having a whip-round and organising Christmas lights for the town in barely 48 hours.

Busted: Mario ‘The Grinch’ Creatura has been caught out by Coulsdon businesses

Conservative councillor Mario “The Grinch” Creatura had lectured residents and traders at the weekend over how they had done too little, too late, to save the popular annual Coulsdon Yulefest, with its stalls, carol-singing and lights. According to Creatura’s patronising 2,000-word homily, it was all too bad, and in these covid-cautious times and despite his best efforts, he could not even manage to deliver some twinkling Crimble lights to brighten the place up a bit.

But within a couple of days of Creatura’s doom-laden message, Sally and Steve Jones, a couple who run separate beauty and taxi businesses, had managed to get cash pledges from other firms in Coulsdon Town, enough to pay for lights which they also managed to source without any assistance from their grumpy, it-can’t-be-done councillors. Continue reading →

Posted in Business, Community associations, Coulsdon, Coulsdon Town, East Coulsdon Residents' Association, Mario Creatura | Tagged , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Buyers beware: High Court judge puts planners in the dock

Posted on November 17, 2021 by insidecroydon

A High Court judge has ruled against Croydon’s planning department, quashing the decision of a senior council official to grant permission for a block of flats in Sanderstead.
Here, former council planner STEVE WHITESIDE explains how the court ruling could impact similar developments throughout the borough

54 Arkwright Road: a High Court judge has ruled the council acted unlawfully over this Aventier development

We all know how exceedingly busy Croydon’s planners have been over the past few years, helping developers to squeeze far too many flats or houses into far too many inappropriate places.

We know, too, that many of these new properties remain unsold.

Is it that the new flats – often offered on the over-heated London housing market at £350,000 and upwards for even small-ish, one-bed “luxury apartments” – are too expensive?

Is it, perhaps, because many of the developments are of such poor overall quality?

Or is it simply because they don’t have planning permission?

A test case involving a development in Sanderstead could yet draw a line under some of the dodgier decisions being made by Croydon’s planners. Continue reading →

Posted in Aventier, Business, Croydon Council, Heather Cheesbrough, Housing, Nicola Townsend, Planning, Property, Purley, Purley Oaks and Riddlesdown, Sanderstead, Selsdon & Ballards, Selsdon and Addington Village | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | 19 Comments

Addiscombe’s The Alma gets a £360,000 Croydon facelift

Posted on November 17, 2021 by insidecroydon

Opening hours: The Alma Tavern is due to be back in business by the end of January

Work began this week on a £360,000 refurbishment project to bring The Alma Tavern on Lower Addiscombe Road back into business for the New Year.

The Alma has been closed since the first covid lockdown in March 2020, but Heineken UK-owned Star Pubs and Bars plan to reopen the Addiscombe boozer as “a top-quality family-friendly neighbourhood local”.

The Alma will have a new licensee, too, and once the refurb is complete, it will create between eight and 10 jobs. Continue reading →

Posted in Addiscombe East, East Croydon, Pubs | Tagged , , , , | 5 Comments

Represent Book Festival, Centrale Shopping Centre, Dec 4

Posted on November 17, 2021 by insidecroydon

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Posted in Activities, Art, Centrale, Education, Poetry | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Artisan Craft Market, Addiscombe Allotments, Nov 20

Posted on November 17, 2021 by insidecroydon

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Posted in Activities, Addiscombe East, Addiscombe West | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Council recruitment drive offers £1.1m in wages across 8 jobs

Posted on November 16, 2021 by insidecroydon

CROYDON IN CRISIS: One year since the council declared itself bankrupt, CEO Katherine Kerswell is offering a slew of six-figure salaried executive positions for recruits to be ‘part of a new chapter’ and to ‘go on a journey’.
By Town Hall reporter, KEN LEE

New chapter: CEO Katherine Kerswell

Croydon’s cash-strapped council, after handing out P45s to around 500 frontline workers over the course of two years while making budgets cuts totalling £83million, has just placed ads for eight new appointments that together offer salaries that total more than £1million per year.

The timing may be unavoidable, the optics of arrogance and entitlement among the council’s most senior staff are appalling.

Under chief executive Katherine Kerswell (herself on a cushty £192,474), the council has supposedly undergone a reorganisation this year which seems to amount to exchanging a word in the job titles of the authority’s best-paid employees. Continue reading →

Posted in Alison Knight, Children's Services, Croydon Council, David Padfield, Debbie Jones, Elaine Jackson, Katherine Kerswell, Richard Ennis, Section 114 notice | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 8 Comments

London’s Living Wage for poorest paid set to rise to £11.05ph

Posted on November 16, 2021 by insidecroydon

At least 100,000 of the poorest-paid Londoners are about the get a pay rise, after the Living Wage Foundation announced that the London Living Wage should rise to £11.05 per hour.

On the money: The accredited living wage employer logo

The good news needs to be tempered slightly by the context of how modest the increase is likely to be. The Living Wage Foundation recommendation represents a 20p per hour increase – worth about an extra £7 in a weekly pay packet.

Outside London, the Living Wage is to increase to £9.90 per hour, up from £9.50.

Unlike the Government minimum wage (or “National Living Wage” for over-23s – £8.91 rising to £9.50 in April) the real Living Wage is the only wage rate independently calculated based on rising living costs – including fuel, energy, rent and food. Continue reading →

Posted in Croydon Council, London-wide issues, Marina Ahmad | Tagged , , , , | 3 Comments

Trump-like far-right create covid dangers on Croydon march

Posted on November 16, 2021 by insidecroydon

Boxpark was the starting point on Saturday for a march organised by QAnon-style conspiracy theorists who bullied members of the public queuing to get their booster jab, attacked a council covid testing stall and intimidated staff in the Whitgift Centre. MARC LISTER reports

Central Croydon was overrun on Saturday by members of what appears to be a covid conspiracy cult intent on spreading chaos and disinformation through the community.

On the march: far-right anti-vaxers gather at East Croydon on Saturday

Traffic was blocked, a covid testing stall was vandalised and ordinary members of the public queuing for their vaccines were intimidated and threatened.

In America, the QAnon far-right political movement has grown, encouraged by President Trump, with backing from his supporters, such as Steve Bannon, to the point where in January thousands stormed the Capitol in Washington, stirred up by fake news and shock jocks, in an effort to get the result of the 2020 Presidential election over-turned. Five people died during or following the insurrection. Many were injured, including 138 police officers.

Saturday’s little “Don’t Tek Di Vaccine” demo gave Croydon a small and unpalatable taste of a similar use of mass hysteria to try to overturn established institutions, in this case the NHS and hard-working medics and research scientists. Continue reading →

Posted in Boxpark, Health, Whitgift Centre | Tagged , , , , , , , | 4 Comments

Businesses furious over Tory’s Christmas lights blame game

Posted on November 15, 2021 by insidecroydon

Our south of the borough correspondent, PEARL LEE,  on the latest controversy caused by Coulsdon’s most witless councillor

Councillor Mario Creatura, the failed Conservative parliamentary candidate, has caused fury among local businesses and residents in the ward he is supposed to represent by appearing to blame them for the absence this year of Coulsdon’s Yulefest and Christmas lights – even though he knew as long ago as June that he would not have any ward budget available to support the annual festival.

Grotty grotto: Mario Creatura

The Tory councillor for Coulsdon Town, once the Westminster aide to MP Gavin Barwell and a Downing Street special adviser, posted a 2,000-word diatribe on the local Croydon Conservatives’ website at the weekend, ostensibly explaining why Yulefest has had to be cancelled in 2021, as it was in 2020 (in one word: covid).

But as Creatura, inevitably, used his post to try to score political points against the Labour administration at the cash-strapped council, he came unstuck himself.

Social media pages have been lit up over the weekend by angry traders and residents, who accuse Creatura of trying to pass the buck to them for the Yulefest cancellation, blaming them for failing to raise enough cash to pay for the Christmas lights, and critical of his attempts to avoid answering questions over his own part in the funding shortfall.

“This infuriated me,” one Coulsdon Town resident told Inside Croydon. Continue reading →

Posted in Business, Coulsdon, Coulsdon Town, Mario Creatura | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Building in suburban back gardens is not the only answer

Posted on November 15, 2021 by insidecroydon

CROYDON COMMENTARY: As residents in Old Coulsdon organise themselves to oppose more ‘back-garden’ developments in their village, LEWIS WHITE (right), offers some alternatives to unnecessary intensification

It is not unknown for local residents’ associations to be heavily influenced by people whose idea of lifestyle, planning and architectural design Nirvana is a nice little Terry and June-style bungalow in a quiet cul de sac, with neighbours who keep themselves to themselves.

One hopes that the Old Coulsdon Residents’ Association, OCRA, is not stuck in a 1950s “vision straitjacket”, because – as reported here by Inside Croydon – they do have a good point about intensification. They just need to work out for themselves what is a reasonable planning policy.

The bogeyman of “back garden developments” is used to frighten other residents, even if the ends of the back gardens are large and a long way from existing homes

I have seen in our area, and in nearby Tandridge and Reigate and Banstead, numerous well-designed “backland” developments, but also some really bad ones. Continue reading →

Posted in Business, Coulsdon, Housing, Old Coulsdon, Old Coulsdon Residents' Association, Planning | Tagged , , , , , | 4 Comments

Underwood selected as Green candidate for office he opposed

Posted on November 15, 2021 by insidecroydon

The local Green Party have selected their candidate to stand for election as the first directly-elected Croydon Mayor, and have managed to choose someone who opposed switching to a Town Hall system run by a directly-elected mayor.

Greens choice: Peter Underwood

Peter Underwood is without doubt the highest-profile figure in the Green Party in this part of London, and has been his party’s candidate in multiple parliamentary, Town Hall and London Assembly elections over the past decade.

The Greens have never before come close to winning any elected office in Croydon, although Sian Berry, their candidate for London Mayor earlier this year, did manage to repeat the Greens’ 2016 performance and finish in third place in the capital-wide ballot, behind Labour’s winner, Sadiq Khan, and the Tories. Continue reading →

Posted in 2022 Croydon Mayor election, Croydon Greens, Peter Underwood | Tagged , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Mayor Khan agrees to repair Crystal Palace swimming pools

Posted on November 14, 2021 by insidecroydon

Crystal Palace’s swimming and diving pools are set to get a multi-million facelift and repair package to enable them to re-open, after the Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, agreed to get the works done, a decision which City Hall today described as securing the National Sports Centre’s “future for decades to come”.

Reprieved: Sadiq Khan has agreed to fund the repair of the pools at Crystal Palace NSC, which have been closed since March 2020

Crystal Palace NSC was built in the 1960s and for decades was the home of British athletics and offered one of the nation’s few Olympic-sized 50-metre swimming pools.

The diving pool, with its associated gym, weight-training and trampoline facilities within the Grade II-listed sports hall building has remained a centre of international excellence into the 21st century,  with Olympic gold medallist Tom Daley among those who have trained there or benefited from its diving school. Continue reading →

Posted in Crystal Palace and Upper Norwood, Crystal Palace Park, Ellie Reeves MP, London-wide issues, Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, Sport, Swimming | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

Down and out in Glasgow and Paris: climate talks end in failure

Posted on November 14, 2021 by insidecroydon

London’s Mayor joins critics of COP26’s final pact: ‘This agreement simply doesn’t meet the scale of the challenge’

It was late yesterday afternoon, with the COP26 UN climate talks in Glasgow already 24 hours into overtime, when Frans Timmermans, the European Commission’s vice president, took the floor at the SEC Centre.

He was worried that, after working through the night to try to find some common ground, the sleep-deprived representatives of the 197 parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change were about to stumble “in the last couple of hundred metres before the finish line”.

He pleaded with his fellow delegates “to just think about one person in your life… that will still be around in 2030, and think about how that person will live if we do not stick to the 1.5C here today”.

The plea fell on deaf ears.

In a crucial late intervention on an agreement over the use of coal – the worst contributor to greenhouse gases – India got the phrase “phasing out” watered down to “phasing down”. Continue reading →

Posted in Environment, London-wide issues, Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan | Tagged , , , , | 5 Comments

The Hub youth centre, South Norwood, Mondays in term time

Posted on November 14, 2021 by insidecroydon

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Posted in Activities, South Norwood | Tagged | Leave a comment

Two years late and council safety ‘strategy’ is barely changed

Posted on November 13, 2021 by insidecroydon

After a week when the borough’s streets were smeared in blood once again, after stabbings on Church Street in the town centre and on Central Parade in New Addington, Croydon’s dysfunctional council is finally getting around to publishing an updated community safety strategy – two years late.

Violence reduction: as crime rises, more doubts have been raised over the council’s plans for dealing with it

Inside Croydon reported last year how the strategy – which local authorities are required to have by law – was due to have been in place by the end of 2020.

To meet that deadline, it will have needed the draft strategy to have gone out for consultation before the end of 2019. The cabinet member in charge of community safety at that time was Hamida Ali. Councillor Ali is now the council leader.

The previous strategy document had been in place from 2017. In October last year, Ali told a council meeting that the work to replace the strategy had been delayed because of covid. Which, of course, was nonsense. But with nothing to replace the old strategy, it was agreed to extend it to the end of 2021. Producing a revised version now is only just sneaking in ahead of their own deadline. Continue reading →

Posted in Crime, Croydon Council, Hamida Ali, Knife crime, Sarah Hayward | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | 4 Comments

Book a session with the Windrush Reach advice surgeries

Posted on November 13, 2021 by insidecroydon

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Posted in Charity, Community associations, Croydon BME Forum | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Woman ends silence to report rapist father to Croydon police

Posted on November 12, 2021 by insidecroydon

Case closed: abuse victim Sarah Mo has thanked Croydon Police for their investigation

After carrying a victim’s burden for decades, a woman who was sexually abused by her father when she was a child has waived her right to anonymity to show others “justice is always possible”.

Sarah Mo says she was first abused by her father when she was six years old, and the abuse became “more humiliating” when she went through puberty.

She presented at Croydon Police Station in July 2019 to report that her father had abused her for a number of years, starting when was six. Continue reading →

Posted in Crime, Policing | Tagged , , | 2 Comments

Norwood residents ask MP Reed to act over estate demolition

Posted on November 12, 2021 by insidecroydon

After a year-long, rear-guard action from residents of a council-built estate on the Croydon-Lambeth borough boundary, Truslove House and the mature trees in the grounds around it have in the past week been bulldozed completely.

Destruction: Truslove House being demolished last week

Lambeth Council has been accused of an act of “environmental vandalism”.

And now locals angry at the destruction of their community for the benefit of private developers want to drag Steve Reed OBE, the Progress MP for Croydon North, into the dispute with Lambeth Council.

Before becoming a Croydon MP, Reed was the leader of Lambeth Council, under whom many of the policies of estate destruction were instigated. Reed is now Labour’s shadow minister for local government. Lambeth is a Labour-run council.

Protesters camped in and around Truslove House a year ago, despite covid and the wet winter weather, in efforts to thwart the council’s demolition gangs. But ultimately the council had its way. Continue reading →

Posted in Croydon North, Crystal Palace and Upper Norwood, Housing, Lambeth Council, London-wide issues, Mayor of London, Planning, Sadiq Khan, Steve Reed MP | Tagged , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Caribbean bar is still recruiting ahead of delayed reopening

Posted on November 12, 2021 by insidecroydon

After a near-two-year closure, Croydon High Street’s Turtle Bay Caribbean-themed cocktail bar and restaurant is set to reopen,  just in time for Christmas…

Donnie Julien: in charge of a Caribbean-themed restaurant near you

The Croydon branch is the last of the 40-or-so Turtle Bay chain to reopen after the enforced covid lockdown in March 2020.

It is now taking bookings for lunch, dinner and its prolonged Happy Hours from Friday, November 26 onwards.

The company says that the restaurant at 16 High Street is “currently undergoing a major transformation”.

They say, “The team are busy creating a fresh, new-look restaurant ready to bring Caribbean good times back to the Croydon high street. The restaurant’s trademark beach-shack inspired interior will be given a whole new look and feel with updated colourways, brand new eclectic artwork and natural materials all adding to the laid back, social experience.”

Continue reading →

Posted in Business, Restaurants, Turtle Bay | Tagged , | Leave a comment

The Hub, New Addington, open Mondays in term time

Posted on November 12, 2021 by insidecroydon

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Posted in Activities, New Addington, New Addington North | Tagged | 5 Comments

Croydon In Crisis: Council can no longer cope with basic tasks

Posted on November 11, 2021 by insidecroydon

Shut-down: how soon before the council can no longer afford to switch on the lights at Fisher’s Folly?

It was on November 11, 2020, that Croydon issued a Section114 Notice, effectively admitting they were bankrupt.

Twelve months on, and now the council struggles to fulfil even the most basic of administrative services.
EXCLUSIVE
By STEVEN DOWNES

  • Resident endures six-week delay to receive her father’s death certificate
  • Parents forced to wait nearly six months to register their child’s birth
  • House-holders served with court summonses when council fails to answer phones to take Council Tax payments
  • £1.6billion pension fund committee has not had any meetings minuted for more than a year

Without a death certificate for her father from the council, Croydon resident Louise Jones is unable to carry out all the direly depressing legal things required when a loved one has died, such as probate and organising their relative’s estate.

For many, such administrative processes are often part of the process of “closure”, allowing them to deal with their grief.

And it’s not as if Louise Jones hasn’t got enough to deal with, as the mother of three children with SEND, special educational needs. She is also being treated for breast cancer. But since the death of her father six weeks ago, Jones has had to chase the registry office at Croydon Council just to be able to get the official paperwork in order. Continue reading →

Posted in Council Tax, Croydon Council, Katherine Kerswell, Libraries, Report in the Public Interest, Section 114 notice | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 8 Comments