Big Local looking to fund deserving Broad Green groups

Posted on May 3, 2021 by insidecroydon

Got an idea for a small project that will improve the lives of people in Broad Green? There’s an organisation in your neighbourhood that wants to distribute thousands of pounds of grant money to the right causes.

In the past five years, Big Local Broad Green has awarded small grants to more than 70 local projects who have provided much-valued support, assistance and improvements to our local community. And now they are looking for other groups and causes that deserve similar support. Continue reading →

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Official accused of bullying Regina Road tenants over meeting

Posted on May 2, 2021 by insidecroydon

CROYDON IN CRISIS: Did the council leader lie to a parliamentary committee when she promised to release the investigation findings into the ‘appalling’ state of council flats in South Norwood ‘as soon as we have them’?
EXCLUSIVE by STEVEN DOWNES

Residents in Regina Road have had requests for a meeting ignored

More than six weeks since Hamida Ali was approached by journalists from ITV News about the “worst flats in Britain”, and the Labour council’s leader is still refusing to meet with residents who have had to endure the “appalling” leaks, damp and mould in the South Norwood council blocks.

Ali has failed to accept repeated invitations for a face-to-face meeting from a group representing the residents.

Instead, in a move which has been described as “gas-lighting” by the council and an attempt to bully residents, many of them vulnerable, a council executive director has had letters hand-delivered to flats in the blocks on Regina Road, presenting them with what some see as little more than an ultimatum.

The letter, seen by Inside Croydon, was delivered on Thursday and is signed by Sarah Hayward, as “interim executive director, Place”.

Before she got her job in Croydon, Hayward had been a Labour politician, the leader of Camden Council, a position she resigned after she was forced to undertake anger management classes and was subject to an investigation by a Queen’s Counsel into serious allegations of bullying.

Continue reading →

Posted in Croydon Council, Hamida Ali, Housing, Katherine Kerswell, Sarah Hayward, South Norwood | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 5 Comments

Climate crisis protest brings Selsdon Road traffic to a halt

Posted on May 1, 2021 by insidecroydon

XR protester Grace Onions staged a sit-down protest in the Selsdon Road this morning

Traffic was stopped for an hour this morning on Selsdon Road when a local woman staged a sit-down protest in the street wearing a sign that read, “I’m terrified for those born after 2000 because of the climate crisis”.

Identified by Inside Croydon as local environmental campaigner Grace Onions, her protest was part of Extinction Rebellion’s “waves of rebellion for 2021”: protests held each month, increasing in pressure towards the staging of the UN’s climate conference, COP26, in Glasgow in November. Continue reading →

Posted in Climate Crisis Commission, Environment, Extinction Rebellion | Tagged , , , | 10 Comments

Addiscombe, the academies and the artistry of the Fieldings

Posted on May 1, 2021 by insidecroydon

Windsor Castle from the River Thames (part of the British Museum collection) shows how Theodore Fielding was one of the leading British artists of the early 19th Century

MARVELS OF THE MINSTER: The family connections of some of England’s foremost artists of the early 19th Century have been traced to the churchyard by DAVID MORGAN

John Singleton Copley is the famous American-born artist who is buried in Croydon Minster. Many over the years have visited the church in order to see the memorial of his final resting place. But there is another accomplished 19th Century artist who lies forgotten in the churchyard.

Theodore Henry Adolphus Fielding died in July 1851 and was interred in the churchyard of what was then known as Croydon Parish Church. Some time later, in common with so many, his gravestone was removed.  If that stone was laid down to create a pathway, any inscription was long ago worn away.

But his records remain, and from them it has been possible to discover much more about Fielding and his gifted family. Continue reading →

Posted in Addiscombe East, Art, Church and religions, Croydon Minster, David Morgan | Tagged , , , , , | 1 Comment

Boxer Edwards determined to take his chance for world title

Posted on April 30, 2021 by insidecroydon

South Croydon boxer Sunny Edwards will step into the ring in east London tonight seeking to end the career of one of the hard old game’s toughest champions.

Tough old game: Sunny Edwards will need the fight of his life to win the flyweight world title

Edwards, 25, faces the experienced South African Moruti Mthalane for the IBF flyweight world title.

Edwards is unbeaten in 15 pro fights, but is reckoned to be the underdog against 38-year-old Mthalane, who has claimed 26 of his 39 wins by knock-out. The South African has not lost a contest in 13 years.

Edwards comes from a family of fighters, he and his brother, Charlie, having acquired a degree of local fame when their father, Larry, built a ring in the garden of their Beddington home so that the boys could spar and, literally, learn the ropes. Charlie Edwards, who was narrowly denied the chance to box for Britain at the 2012 London Olympics, won a professional flyweight world title himself two years ago. Continue reading →

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Developers’ Purley Way report is ‘bunkum’ says councillor

Posted on April 30, 2021 by insidecroydon

Just because Paul Scott has been kicked off the planning committee doesn’t mean that inappropriate development schemes have suddenly stopped being presented to the council.

This Stonegate Homes ugly block would tower over all the existing buildings along the Purley Way

And a 12-storey block next to the Wing Yip Chinese superstore on the Purley Way has raised serious questions once again about the veracity and reliability of some of the reports submitted to support planning applications, with the findings of developers’ consultants on traffic and parking being ridiculed as “bunkum” by Robert Canning, one of the Labour councillors for Waddon ward.

Canning calls the developers’ traffic report “inaccurate and misleading”.

The period for objections to be submitted to the scheme from Stonegate Homes for 550 to 550A Purley Way closes tonight.

With lockdown only recently eased, few local residents on the Waddon Estate nearby are likely to be aware of the massive block proposed, with the council’s planning department having done the bare minimum of public engagement, by tying a single application notice to a lamppost alongside the busy A23.

Details of the proposals can be seen and objections registered online by clicking here. Continue reading →

Posted in Planning, Purley Way, Robert Canning, TfL, Transport, Waddon | Tagged , , , , , | 2 Comments

Lockdown shop closures will extend town centre’s blight

Posted on April 30, 2021 by insidecroydon

Our retailing correspondent MT WALLETTE reports that covid’s impact on the High Street leave little hope of Westfield’s long-promised redevelopment on North End any time soon

Croydon town centre, already devastated by the development blight caused by Westfield, has been hit hard again by covid-19 lockdown

One-tenth of shops in London are now vacant, according to the latest figures for the retail industry. And averages across the whole country for vacancies are even worse, with the British Retail Consortium saying that 1-in-7 shops are empty.

“After a third national lockdown, it is no surprise that the vacancy rate has continued to soar,” BRC chief Helen Dickinson said today.

The continuing and worsening downturn for retailing is seeing the operators of large shopping centres, such as Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield, look to shift the focus of their businesses, towards the ever-booming residential sector.

Westfield this week unveiled revised plans for a £1.3billion scheme at White City, including 1,760 new homes, an increase of 75 per cent on their previously approved proposals.

Continue reading →

Posted in "Hammersfield", Business, Centrale, Whitgift Centre, Whitgift Foundation | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Social media black-out is ‘start of a fightback’ says Townsend

Posted on April 30, 2021 by insidecroydon

Crystal Palace’s Andros Townsend says that the social media boycott by English football which begins this afternoon is just the start of a fightback against online abuse and discrimination.

Taking a stand: Andros Townsend

Townsend, Palace and the majority of clubs in the country will be staying off Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and other social media platforms from 3pm today until midnight on Monday. The move has widespread support, including from non-league clubs such as Croydon FC and fanzines and fan websites, such as The Eagles Beak.

Backed by the football authorities, the players and clubs want action from the multi-billion multi-national tech firms to stop their platforms being used to stoke up racist and other forms of abuse. Continue reading →

Posted in Croydon FC, Crystal Palace FC, Football, Sport, Wilfried Zaha | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Fines, arrests and car seizures as police lockdown on ‘cruise’

Posted on April 30, 2021 by insidecroydon

Police were out in force for the second week running at Valley Park, fining and arresting ‘nuisance’ drivers during ‘Operation Cross Hair’

For a second successive week, the Metropolitan Police were out in force last night at Valley Park, off the Purley Way, in a crackdown on the high-speed motor “Croydon cruise”.

The police said that they stopped hundreds of people and that they are “robustly dealing with nuisance drivers in the area”.

Describing their actions as “no nonsense”, the police have warned cruise drivers thatthey intend to take “… this action as many times as we need to to send the message”.

The Met have even given their action a codename: “Operation Cross Hair”. Continue reading →

Posted in Andy Brittain, Crime, Ikea, Policing, Purley Way, Valley Park | Tagged , , , , | 3 Comments

MP Reed in possible data breach over South Norwood flats

Posted on April 29, 2021 by insidecroydon

CROYDON IN CRISIS: Starmer’s front-bench spokesman on local government is accused of trying to exploit the Regina Road council flats scandal to boost the election chances of his Westminster assistant.
EXCLUSIVE by STEVEN DOWNES

Loizos ‘Louis’ Carserides (right) has been getting lots of campaign help from his boss, Steve Reed OBE (left)

Steve Reed OBE, the Progress MP for Croydon North, has been accused of a possible breach of data protection law by passing a vulnerable constituent’s personal details on to a work colleague for them to use as part of an election campaign.

Loizos “Louis” Carserides is the Labour candidate in next week’s South Norwood council by-election. He also just happens to be a member of Reed’s parliamentary staff. Continue reading →

Posted in Clive Fraser, Community associations, Croydon Council, Croydon North, Housing, Louis Carserides, Patsy Cummings, South Norwood, South Norwood Tourist Board, Steve Reed MP | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

‘Grim milestone’ as Croydon passes 1,000 covid deaths

Posted on April 29, 2021 by insidecroydon

Croydon has passed what the council leader called today “a grim milestone”, when the borough’s death toll from coronavirus this week reached 1,000.

“This moment represents a devastating loss of life – each one a family member or friend taken from their loved ones far too soon,” Hamida Ali, the council leader, said.

“Croydon has also experienced an indescribable loss as a community – one that we will never forget and which will impact us all for many years to come. Continue reading →

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Detective faces hearing over ‘racially offensive’ game names

Posted on April 29, 2021 by insidecroydon

The Metropolitan Police will hold a disciplinary hearing next week into the conduct of a Croydon-based detective, who it is claimed used “racially offensive nicknames” when playing computer games.

Detective Sergeant Neil Buckmaster will “answer allegations that his conduct amounts to a breach of Standards of Professional Behaviour”, according to an announcement on the Met’s website last night.

“It is alleged that DS Buckmaster whilst playing computer console games had given racially offensive nicknames to some of his avatar players.”

The statement also says, “It is further alleged that this conduct, if proven, amounts individually or collectively to gross misconduct and is so serious as to justify dismissal.” Continue reading →

Posted in Crime, London-wide issues, Policing | Tagged , | 2 Comments

Volunteers back Attenborough’s call to halt deep-sea mining

Posted on April 29, 2021 by insidecroydon

Greenpeace activists on their protest against sea mining last weekend

Greenpeace Croydon took part in a national protest last weekend calling on the government to ensure our oceans are off-limits to deep-sea mining.

The volunteers’ photographs of their banners, displayed at sites around the town centre, together with hundreds from across the country, will be sent to the government to make it clear that people do not support plans to rip up the ocean floor for profit. Continue reading →

Posted in Environment, Peter Underwood, Wildlife | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Spot the difference: Tories go for BNP vote in New Addington

Posted on April 29, 2021 by insidecroydon

Fly the flag: Conservative councillor Scott Roche gives the Tories’ game away

With one week to go until polling day in the borough’s five council by-elections, and Croydon Tories have played their joker.

Councillor Scott Roche was out on the streets of New Addington North, one of the wards where a council by-election is being held on May 6, and revealed the Tories’ not-so-secret weapon as they try to win the seat from Labour.

They are wrapping their candidate, Lara Fish, in the flag. Specifically, the flag of St George.

The leaflet that Roche showed off in his virtue-signalling campaign selfie is oddly different from the campaign leaflets which the councilor’s party has produced for the last week of campaigning in the other four wards with by-elections.

But then New Addington North is the only ward by-election which has a candidate from the British National Party (“local people first”, whatever that’s supposed to mean) on the ballot paper. Continue reading →

Posted in Fieldway, Kenley, New Addington, New Addington North, Park Hill and Whitgift, Scott Roche, Simon Hall, South Norwood, Woodside | Tagged , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Croydon-based firm MyT offers easy accounting software

Posted on April 29, 2021 by insidecroydon

A D V E R T I S E M E N T

Continue reading →

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Headteacher Smith’s passport to Pimlico began in Croydon

Posted on April 28, 2021 by insidecroydon

Our education correspondent, GENE BRODIE, reports on how recent confrontations between ‘woke’ staff and pupils at an inner London academy may have had their beginnings in south London

Croydon’s Quest Academy: controversial Daniel Smith worked here and was soon issuing threatening letters to parents at another school

Daniel Smith, the controversial head of Pimlico Academy who has attracted national headlines for his hard-line policies that prompted pupil protests and a staff vote of no-confidence, cut his teeth on his robust, no-nonsense approach early in his career when a senior teacher in Croydon.

Smith was an assistant principal at Quest Academy, in South Croydon. It was the Oxford graduate high-flyer’s second teaching job, and he began working there soon after the school was granted academy status. Continue reading →

Posted in Education, Quest Academy, Schools, Selsdon and Addington Village | Tagged , , , , , | 1 Comment

Standard performances help choir emerge from lockdown

Posted on April 28, 2021 by insidecroydon

A handful of choir members get out and about on one of their walks earlier this week

The rule of six can be a limiting factor, and performances in the open air are the only kind allowed at present, but a couple of Croydon’s best-established choirs are doing their best to resume performances as coronavirus restrictions are being lifted.

After the Croydon Male Voice Choir’s acclaimed, impromptu outdoor performance at The Oval Tavern, it has been packing them in at another local, The Royal Standard in central Croydon – conveniently situated beside the Croydon Flyover in Sheldon Street. Continue reading →

Posted in Croydon Male Voice Choir, Croydon Philharmonic Choir, Music, Pubs | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

‘Keep your distance’ as covid infection rates creep up again

Posted on April 28, 2021 by insidecroydon

Coronavirus infection rates in Croydon are on the rise again – and started to increase within a week of the government’s lockdown measures being eased.

Despite the roll-out of the vaccination programme against the deadly virus – 90 per cent of the over-60s in Croydon have now had their first covid-19 jab – and after more than three months of most of the public living cloistered existences to avoid spreading coronavirus, official figures over the past week have seen spikes in the number of infections in the borough being reported of almost 10 times the figures before the end of lockdown. Continue reading →

Posted in Health, Rachel Flowers | Tagged , , , , | 2 Comments

Candidates Khan and Bailey set for citizens’ ‘accountability’

Posted on April 28, 2021 by insidecroydon

More than 3,000 community leaders and members from Citizens UK’s alliances across London will tonight champion the problems affecting their communities, and put the candidates for London Mayor on the spot at an event they are calling an “Accountability Assembly”.

With the pandemic exacerbating social issues that were already felt by many, London Citizens are asking for action on a people’s manifesto from Mayor Sadiq Khan and the Conservatives’ candidate, Shaun Bailey. They include: Continue reading →

Posted in 2021 London elections, Housing, London-wide issues, Mayor of London, Policing, Sadiq Khan, Shaun Bailey | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Amazon delivers £2,000 donation to NHS hospital charity

Posted on April 28, 2021 by insidecroydon

The Amazon delivery station team in Croydon has donated £2,000 to a charity that provides support to patients, staff and visitors at St George’s Hospital.

Molly Simpson, from St George’s Hospital Charity, who has received £2,000 from the efforts of George Dennehy from Amazon Croydon

The charity, based at the major NHS hospital in Tooting, received the donation as part of Amazon’s programme to support communities around its UK operating locations.

The donation will be used to support the St George’s Hospital Charity’s Thank You Appeal – an initiative set up to give back to staff who have worked tirelessly throughout the coronavirus pandemic. Continue reading →

Posted in Business, Charity | Tagged , , , , | 1 Comment

Come Film With Us: producers looking for reality TV stars

Posted on April 27, 2021 by insidecroydon

Continue reading →

Posted in Activities, Come Dine With Me | Tagged | Leave a comment

Scott in power cut as he is ‘purged’ from planning committee

Posted on April 27, 2021 by insidecroydon

CROYDON IN CRISIS: The best mate of discredited council leader Tony Newman spent seven years dominating and domineering the planning committee – and never once did he declare an interest over colleague architects or Brick by Brick. EXCLUSIVE by STEVEN DOWNES

Paul Scott: was the best recruiting sergeant for the democratically elected mayor campaign

Labour councillor Paul Scott has been sacked from the council’s planning committee.

Scott’s removal from all positions of influence in planning will be met “with a sigh of relief” according to one organisation of residents’ associations, while the council’s Conservative opposition greeted the news by saying that Scott’s toxic legacy “will be felt in Croydon for generations”.

Scott, the best mate of Tony Newman, the discredited former leader of the council, is missing from the list of planning committee members for the coming civic year in papers that are to go for approval at next week’s Town Hall annual meeting.

It will be the first time in a decade that Scott, an architect by profession, has not been a member of the powerful and important committee. Last October, in the council cabinet reshuffle that followed Newman’s resignation, Scott also lost his generously paid position as the cabinet member for planning. Continue reading →

Posted in Brick by Brick, Chris Philp MP, Croydon Council, Hamida Ali, Housing, Jo Negrini, London-wide issues, Paul Scott, Planning, Toni Letts, Tony Newman | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 14 Comments

Police investigating cause of blaze at Thornton Heath flats

Posted on April 27, 2021 by insidecroydon

Around 40 residents of a block of flats in Thornton Heath had to be evacuated last night when fire raged up the outside of the building.

The fire quickly caught hold on the outside of the housing association block

Six fire engines and around 40 firefighters were called to Crystal Court, on Woodville Road, shortly after 6pm yesterday, and had the blaze under control after little more than an hour.

No one was seriously hurt. Croydon Council staff and local ward councillors were soon in attendance, with residents placed in a hotel overnight.

The cause of the fire is under investigation by the London Fire Brigade and the Metropolitan Police.

Crystal Court, which is owned by a housing association, backs on to the Thornton Heath Leisure Centre, which also needed to be evacuated as a precaution.

According to the London Fire Brigade, part of two flats on the first and third floors of the building were damaged by the fire. Continue reading →

Posted in Callton Young, Karen Jewitt, London Fire Brigade, Thornton Heath | Tagged , , , , | 4 Comments

Delay in despatching ballot papers could reduce vote numbers

Posted on April 26, 2021 by insidecroydon

EXCLUSIVE: The distribution of postal ballots for council by-elections is running behind schedule, reports STEVEN DOWNES

Croydon Council’s struggles to administer even the most straightforward of matters could reduce the number of residents taking part in the borough’s five ward by-elections.

It appears that Katherine Kerswell, the council’s interim chief executive, in her role as the borough’s returning officer, until today had not sent out a single postal vote to Croydon residents who would prefer to avoid having to take their own pencils to the by-election polling stations in New Addington North, Woodside, South Norwood, Park Hill and Whitgift ward or Kenley on May 6.

For the first time in Croydon history, the council ward election count is to be held outside the borough, at Olympia, alongside the London election count. The vote count for Croydon and Sutton for the London Mayor and London Assembly, to ensure it is conducted in a covid-safe manner, will not take place until Saturday, May 8.

And Croydon’s five by-election counts will be staged at the same venue and on the same day. Continue reading →

Posted in 2021 London elections, Croydon Council, Katherine Kerswell, Kenley, London Assembly, London-wide issues, Mayor of London, New Addington North, Park Hill and Whitgift, South Norwood, Woodside | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Trams’ most peculiar season comes to fitting end in Peckham

Posted on April 26, 2021 by insidecroydon

Peckham manner: Croydon skipper Martin Smith rises for the header at The Menace ground

NON-LEAGUE NEWS: For Croydon clubs, their interrupted and curtailed covid season ended with a whimper rather than a bang at the weekend.
ANDREW SINCLAIR reports. Match photos: PAUL DAVIS

Croydon FC had the opportunity on Saturday to end a disjointed season, one that had begun without a home ground and without a spot in the FA Cup. But a disappointing season came to a disappointing end with the 3-0 defeat to Peckham Town in the pair’s rearranged London Senior Trophy fixture.

While a second successive league campaign had been ended early because of coronavirus, the London FA’s decision to play the Trophy to a conclusion offered the Trams potentially four competitive fixtures before the summer break and a rare chance of some rare silverware. Continue reading →

Posted in Balham FC, Croydon FC, Football, Sport | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment