Maybe Tomorrow? Digital collective finds new way of working

Posted on April 20, 2020 by insidecroydon

It’s fair to suggest that no one considered a global pandemic when they came up with one of the wizard business ideas of the past decade: renting out and servicing shared workspace.

Looking forward to TMRW: the shared workspace business in Davis House is having to find new ways to work together

Covid-19 quickly put an end to the trendy venues and their hot-desking, superfast broadband and overpriced cups of frothy coffee, which appear to be so popular with independent tech types.

And it has also put extra strain on the businesses behind them, like so many small and medium-sized enterprises who have been hit by the coronavirus lockdown.

But one, TMRW on Croydon High Street, has sought to use the community spirit of its members to find a way to operate productively when forced to work from home.

The TMRW Collective is a digital and creative agency built specifically for a time of economic survival. The people behind it say it is “the perfect example of co-working and community in action”. Continue reading →

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Funeral directors ask the public to show a bit of respect

Posted on April 20, 2020 by insidecroydon

One of the borough’s biggest and longest-established firms of undertakers has put out an appeal for people to show a bit of old-fashioned respect.

The Purley branch of Rowland Brothers

Rowland Brothers, who have six branches of their funeral directors’ business around the borough, made their plea to the public asking them to demonstrate a mode of conduct which was commonplace in working-class neighbourhoods at least until the end of the last century.

Since the pandemic lockdown began, instead of organising a funeral service as usual, some undertakers have been forced to go straight to crematoriums, with mourners at the service restricted to five or 10, depending on the cemetery. Continue reading →

Posted in Business | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

Covid-19 a ‘ticking time bomb’ in borough’s 140 care homes

Posted on April 19, 2020 by insidecroydon

Croydon is among the London boroughs worst hit by coronavirus according to the latest government figures this weekend.

And yet the pandemic death toll in this part of south London could be far worse once the fatalities are counted up from around the borough’s 140 care homes.

A senior Labour councillor has described the situation in the borough’s care homes as “a ticking time bomb” that has been allowed to get out of control due to a lack of government testing and proper provision of PPE – personal protective equipment – for care workers. Continue reading →

Posted in Adult Social Care, Care Homes, Croydon CCG, Croydon Council, Health, Jane Avis, Sean Fitzsimons | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Two years on and Palace have not signed planning agreement

Posted on April 19, 2020 by insidecroydon

Two years since Croydon Council gave a green light to Crystal Palace for a £100million new main stand at Selhurst Park, the club has still to sign off on the Section 106 agreement laid out in the planning permission.

How Palace’s architects have drawn the future new stand at Selhurst Park

The S106 agreement would require the club to pay for a range of transport and infrastructure improvements near the stadium, costing Palace a little more than £270,000.

According to a report on The Athletic sports website, “Crystal Palace have made significant progress on the proposed redevelopment”, though as recently as two months ago Steve Parish, the club chairman, told fans that he had yet to secure an agreement with Sainsbury’s for the purchase of their car park, another essential element of the redevelopment.

The club is also required to rehome six families of council tenants in new homes, as their plans would see their houses on Wooderson Close demolished. Continue reading →

Posted in Croydon Council, Crystal Palace FC, Football, Planning, Selhurst, Sport, Steve Parish | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Only 16% of council’s Fairfield flats project will be affordable

Posted on April 18, 2020 by insidecroydon

Celebrity squares: These are the little box-like hutches that Brick by Brick’s architects want to inflict on what their Fairfield site. Only a very few will be ‘affordable’

Our housing correspondent BARRATT HOLMES on the latest signs of desperation to fix Brick by Brick’s failing finances

The planning application being considered by the charade that will pass for a planning committee meeting next Thursday is for a scheme which Colm Lacey and Jo Negrini hope could salvage the finances of Brick by Brick – and the council.

But it is being pushed through with undue haste and with no real hope of offering any solution to Croydon’s housing crisis.

Only 69 of the 421 homes Brick by Brick wants to build around Croydon College will be affordable.

Continue reading →

Posted in Brick by Brick, College Green, Colm Lacey, Croydon Council, Fairfield Halls, Fairfield Homes, Housing, Jo Negrini, Planning, Property | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

£120m Brick by Brick scheme to get ‘virtual’ planning meeting

Posted on April 18, 2020 by insidecroydon

Political editor WALTER CRONXITE on how Croydon Council is using the pandemic lockdown to lock out the public from the planning process

Paul Scott: a virtual nightmare, coming to a screen near you soon

Council leader Tony Newman has ignored calls from residents’ groups, his own Labour councillors and a local MP and will press ahead with Croydon’s first “virtual” planning committee on Thursday.

The meeting agenda includes a couple of pre-application presentations that could have waited until normal service is resumed, and will consider just one application for planning permission.

It is from the council’s own loss-making house-builders, Brick by Brick.

It is for 421 flats next to Croydon College, with a potential market value once completed of at least £120million.

The council’s planning committee, under de facto chair Paul Scott, has never turned down a single scheme submitted by Brick by Brick in the past five years.

The decision to go ahead with “virtual” planning meetings, which will exclude the public and their elected representatives, has been fiercely criticised, even by Labour councillors, and described as “outrageous”. Continue reading →

Posted in Brick by Brick, Croydon Council, East Croydon, Heather Cheesbrough, Housing, Jacqueline Harris-Baker, Muhammad Ali, Paul Scott, Planning, Toni Letts, Tony Newman | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

£90m West Croydon deal promises 55% affordable homes

Posted on April 18, 2020 by insidecroydon

More architects’ drawings… St Michael’s Square, as envisioned by London Square Partners

The developers behind a massive residential scheme in an old entertainment venue on Streatham High Road and the redevelopment into luxury flats of the Star and Garter home on Richmond Hill have spent £90million to move in on West Croydon.

The second major property deal in and around Croydon town centre to be announced this week, London Square Partners – a firm set up nine years ago by former colleagues from Barratt’s – will work on what they are calling “St Michael’s Courtyard”, with more than half of the 232 new homes to be “affordable”. Continue reading →

Posted in Business, CPO, Croydon Central, Housing, Property, St Michael's Courtyard, West Croydon, Whitgift Centre | Tagged , , , , , | 4 Comments

Plain-clothed police to patrol hospitals to protect NHS workers

Posted on April 17, 2020 by insidecroydon

One of the signs going up near local hospitals

The Metropolitan Police is sending officers on foot patrols around hospitals and hospital car parks in Croydon, Sutton and Bromley.

As well as officers in uniform, the police will be using plain-clothed officers in this operation.

The move was announced this afternoon by the Borough Commander, Superintendent Andy Brittain, saying that the deploying of officers is “to protect NHS staff and visitors from crime”.

It is understood that Croydon’s Mayday and Sutton’s St Helier hospitals will have regular police patrols during the coronavirus emergency, when so many NHS staff are working extra-long shifts to deal with the effects of the pandemic. Continue reading →

Posted in Crime, Health, Mayday Hospital, Policing, St Helier Hospital | Tagged , , , , , | 2 Comments

#saveindependentnews: How government health ads are unfair

Posted on April 17, 2020 by insidecroydon

By Steven Downes, Editor, Inside Croydon

Today, the government launched a public health campaign that will not reach you.

It won’t reach you because the government has not included independently-owned community news publishers like Inside Croydon in its campaign.

The “All in, All together” campaign is a welcome response from the government to provide essential information at this time. It is also a demonstration of the government’s support for the press.

However, unless you pick up a copy of a national newspaper, some of which are owned by billionaires and tax-avoiders, it is unlikely that you will have heard about it.

Inside Croydon is a member of the Independent Community News Network (ICNN), which is the official trade body for independent community news publishers. Together, we reach more than 5million people online each month, and more than half a million in print. This makes us part of the fourth largest news publishing organisation in the UK.

Organisations like ours have become frontline key workers in this industry who are keeping our communities afloat with genuine, accurate and important information during this pandemic. Continue reading →

Posted in Inside Croydon, Local media | Tagged , , , , | 2 Comments

65 homes on brownfield site: professionals show how to do it

Posted on April 17, 2020 by insidecroydon

The development novices at Brick by Brick, who managed to sell just eight housing units in 2019, and their slow-working contractors might want to have a chat with the construction professionals who have just completed 65 new homes overlooking the Croydon Flyover at The Waldrons.

The Waldrons: an object lesson in how to deliver new homes on brownfield sites in good time

Despite a challenging, sloping site, the £13million scheme took just 12 months to build and fit-out – less than half the time it has taken BxB’s contractors on a number of other, smaller sites around the borough.

Three-bed flats in The Waldrons are on the market for £495,000, with one-bed apartments going for £300,000, though 30 per cent of the new homes in the development are “affordable”.

The building has been developed by UK Land Assets, who were frustrated for nearly a year by delays caused by the council over planning permission – something which is granted with alacrity and at great speed whenever it involves Brick by Brick’s often questionable schemes.

Indeed, when the developers brought forward their scheme to Croydon Council, sources suggest that they were encouraged by Paul Scott, the de facto chair of the planning committee, to build their tower even higher.

The 10-storey Waldrons, on the corner of Davenant Road, towers above the Flyover on a corner close to Duppas Hill Park. In an object lesson to Croydon’s planners, it has utilised a brownfield site. Continue reading →

Posted in Duppas Hill Park, Housing, Planning, Property, Waddon | Tagged , , , , | 3 Comments

Town Team puts Crystal Palace Triangle on the (digital) map

Posted on April 17, 2020 by insidecroydon

The new Crystal Palace Town Team has launched an interactive map of the Crystal Palace Triangle and surrounding areas, allowing the community to find which businesses have marked themselves as “open” during the pandemic lockdown.

Now there’s a way of discovering which ones will be open for business

The CP Town Team is made up of local businesses, community organisations, councillors from three boroughs and residents, and was set up to promote and improve the social, economic and environmental well-being of the area around Crystal Palace and Upper Norwood.

The group was already working towards a directory, but the COVID-19 crisis has pushed the idea into being an essential, rather than a “nice-to-have”.

Initially, it covers home delivery options, distanced deliveries and takeaways. Potential customers go to covid19-mylocal.uk and they can search for a service, check the map or just browse the listings. The geo-mapping site was created by local resident and web developer Natasa Blagojevic. Continue reading →

Posted in Angela Wilkins, Business, Community associations, Crystal Palace and Upper Norwood, Crystal Palace Park, Crystal Palace Town Team, Nina Degrads, Pat Ryan, Stephen Mann | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Eyewitness: I saw man climbing the crane. I was scared for him

Posted on April 17, 2020 by insidecroydon

An eyewitness has told Inside Croydon of the terrifying incident when they saw a man climbing a construction crane hundreds of feet above the ground on a building site in the centre of Croydon.

The man eventually climbed down from the crane on the Henry building site

The man eventually came down from the crane of his own accord and was arrested, as the police mobilised a helicopter and emergency service vehicles spent hours attending the site on Tuesday.

The man, who has not been named by police, had gained access to the site on what was once the council’s HQ offices, Taberner House, and Queen’s Gardens, where construction contractors Henry are building four tower blocks comprising more than 500 flats for developers Hub.

Police reports suggest the man was first seen climbing up the crane at 7.30pm. Continue reading →

Posted in Business, Fairfield, Policing, Property, Taberner House | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

Violet Lane doctor Krishan Arora has died from coronavirus

Posted on April 17, 2020 by insidecroydon

A long-serving and much-admired Croydon GP has died from coronavirus.

Dr Krishan Arora: covid victim

Dr Krishan Arora was 57 and had worked at the Violet Lane Medical Practice in Waddon for 27 years.

Croydon Clinical Commissioning Group confirmed that Dr Arora “tested positive for covid-19”, adding that “He was not at work in the time before he died.”

The CCG said, “Dr Krish followed national guidance and self-isolated at home when he developed symptoms.”

Dr Arora is thought to be the first NHS doctor in Croydon to succumb to the virus; there have been more than 1,000 cases of covid-19 reported in the borough.

Continue reading →

Posted in Croydon CCG, Health, Waddon | Tagged , , , , , | 1 Comment

Sustrans is pedalling a new site with bike info for key workers

Posted on April 16, 2020 by insidecroydon

Inspired by a London key worker, charity Sustrans has created a new website – Cycles4KeyWorkers – to make cycling easier for key workers during covid-19

A bike shop mechanic provides a health check to an NHS doctor’s bicycle

Key workers across London can now find stores that offer deals on cycles and equipment as well as bike repair and maintenance services available in their area, with an online map.

The map provides details about on offer cycles and equipment; free or discounted repair and maintenance services; free and discounted bike sharing schemes; and the bike stores that remain open. It also features links to tips on how to cycle and walk to work for new riders and other useful information.

Continue reading →

Posted in Boris Bikes, Commuting, Cycling, Transport | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

All aboard! Thameslink repaints trains in support of NHS

Posted on April 16, 2020 by insidecroydon

Govia Thameslink has today announced that they have re-painted three of their trains to reflect the public support for the NHS and key-workers.

All aboard!: one of the three repainted GTR trains

Of course, in this time of covid-19 emergency, transport workers are key workers, too – the rising death toll from coronavirus among bus drivers and TfL staff a dark reminder of that.

Govia Thameslink, who operate the Thameslink franchise between Brighton and points north through East Croydon, as well as Southern trains and the usually very empty Gatwick Express line, claim that 200,000  key workers rely on their services each week. Continue reading →

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Croydon now has three employees paid £200,000+ per year

Posted on April 16, 2020 by insidecroydon

Our political correspondent, WALTER CRONXITE, reports on the latest startling figures coming out of the council

Top salary: Guy van Dichele gets £215,000

Croydon Council had three members of staff who took home more than £200,000 in the last financial year for which figures are available.

That’s according to figures obtained under the Freedom of Information Act by the Taxpayers’ Alliance, in their annual Town Hall Rich List, published yesterday.

The figures relate to the 2018-2019 financial year and surprisingly show that Jo Negrini, the chief executive of the council, did not have the biggest salary at the Town Hall. That dubious accolade belongs to Guy Van Dichele, the council’s “executive director health, wellbeing and adults”, on a cool £215,444.

Negrini tops the wage charts, though, once her very generous, gold-plated, inflation-proof pension of £28,494 is added to her “basic” salary of £188,700, for a total of £217,194. Continue reading →

Posted in Children's Services, Colm Lacey, Council Tax, Croydon Council, Eleni Ioannides, Guy van Dichele, Heather Cheesbrough, Jacqueline Harris-Baker, Jo Negrini, Richard Simpson, Robert Henderson, Shifa Mustafa | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 4 Comments

Brick by Brick faces ‘disaster’ as it misses sales targets by 83%

Posted on April 16, 2020 by insidecroydon

For more than two years, Inside Croydon has been carefully tracking the difference between Brick by Brick’s budgeted targets and their actual delivery: what they say, and what they do.
Our housing correspondent, BARRATT HOLMES, reports on the multi-million-pound chasm between the two that has seen the council’s loss-making company risk people’s lives by breaking the covid-19 lockdown

BxB CEO Colm Lacey: he didn’t know how many homes his company had sold. But we do…

There is mounting anger among the borough’s residents and some elected councillors, including Labour councillors, over Brick by Brick, the council-owned, loss-making builder, continuing to press ahead with construction on its building sites while also submitting planning applications and holding “virtual” consultations in the middle of the corona-19 pandemic.

Inside Croydon has received reports of angry exchanges between a cabinet member on the Labour-controlled council and a veteran councillor who dared question the wisdom, and probity, of carrying out lip-service consultations on unpopular and contentious building schemes while residents are forced to observe the coronavirus lockdown.

And this week – barely a fortnight after construction was halted in order to comply with the demands of the covid-19 quarantine – building works recommenced on at least one Brick by Brick site (the long-delayed Montpelier Road development, in Purley Oaks), with the construction workers there observed as taking few, if any, precautions to avoid the transmission of the deadly virus.

Other builders, such as Barratts, for example, shut down their sites by March 27 – nearly a week ahead of BxB – and have furloughed their staff, with no immediate plans to return to building works until the crisis is over.

Brick by Brick’s desperation to press on, ignoring the health warnings and risks, can be explained in a single word: money.

Because according to Brick by Brick’s own figures and their most recent business plans, by the end of 2019 the company had managed to sell just EIGHT units. According to BxB, they have 42 other units under deposit.

The Brick by Brick 2019-2020 business plan called for them to have sold 290. Continue reading →

Posted in Alison Butler, Brick by Brick, Colm Lacey, Croydon Council, Jo Negrini, Paul Scott, Tony Newman | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | 10 Comments

Ruskin Square signs government tenant in £300m deal

Posted on April 15, 2020 by insidecroydon

Schroders have announced a multi-million-pound deal with Whitehall to build and rent out a second large office block at Ruskin Square, their £500million development next to East Croydon Station.

Could this be the Home Office’s new base in Croydon, at 2 Ruskin Square?

And in doing so, they may well have pulled the rug out from under Croydon Council and any hopes they may have had of reviving Westfield’s interest in the town centre.

Ruskin Square is slowly – very slowly – taking shape after a patient approach over two decades from investors Schroders and developers Stanhope.

The “vision” for the former Croydon Gateway site is a mixed-use development comprising five office blocks and four residential blocks. Thus far, the developers have managed to deliver one residential block and a single office block. Continue reading →

Posted in Business, Croydon Council, Planning, Property, Ruskin Square | Tagged , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Covid mutual aid volunteers dial up a telephone helpline

Posted on April 15, 2020 by insidecroydon

The covid-19 mutual aid groups across the borough have started a telephone helpline, operating 12 hours a day, especially to offer aid, advice and avital connection to those Croydon residents without access to the internet during the coronavirus lockdown.

In the past month, more than 70 neighbourhood groups of volunteers have been formed, from Kenley in the south of the borough to Norbury in the north, under the Croydon Covid-19 Local Mutual Aid, or CCMA, banner.

There are around 3,500 members of the Croydon Covidd-19 Facebook group.

The helpline number, now live, is

020 3322 8379

Continue reading →

Posted in Croydon Council, CVA, Health | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Purley cancer help centre shifts services online for pandemic

Posted on April 15, 2020 by insidecroydon

Flying the flag for SECHC: chair Jennifer Mollett

The country might be on lockdown, but the volunteers and specialists at the South East Cancer Help Centre in Purley are continuing to provide a wide range of counselling and activities – but they are doing it all online.

With the SECHC in Purley closed and its regular activities at the Wellness Centre at Croydon University also curtailed due to covid-19, the charity is offering a range of online and interactive services to its members.

“We are living in unprecedented times with everyone feeling the impact of covid-19,” said SECHC chairman Jennifer Mollett. Continue reading →

Posted in Charity, Purley, South East Cancer Help Centre | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

State of the Heart: street artist raises £3,300 with ‘Rainbow Boy’

Posted on April 14, 2020 by insidecroydon

Street art around Croydon is being used to raise money for the NHS

A Croydon street artist has been busy over the past week, brightening up the borough’s streets and raising thousands of pounds to pay for vital Personal Protection Equipment – PPE – for the NHS and a local hospice.

As Inside Croydon reported over the weekend, a Banksy-like stencilled artwork of a small boy watering a rainbow has been appearing all across the borough – and, it seems from reports from our loyal reader, from further afield, too. Continue reading →

Posted in Art | Tagged , , , , , | 5 Comments

Booze, baths and 5G: Doctors at WHO fend off covid myths

Posted on April 14, 2020 by insidecroydon

The brain fart emitted from presenter Eamonn Holmes on national television yesterday, in which the veteran broadcaster appeared to “not rule out” a connection between 5G telephone technology and the spread of coronavirus has, as you might expect, caused what the media likes to refer to as a “media storm”.

Contagious: Eamonn Holmes is suffering a serious case of BS

Yet such is the vast welter of nonsense and outright bullshit generated by some less-than-well-informed sections of society during the pandemic crisis that WHO – the World Health Organization – has been forced to issue some “myth busters” about the virus.

And some of the “myths”, it is fair to say, are just short of hilarious.

The 5G one is a matter of growing importance, since the arson conducted against some of the mobile phone towers, in this country and across Europe, is seriously affecting communications networks in the areas they are supposed to serve, and which in the midst of the emergency, are now more vital than ever. Continue reading →

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Hodgson calls for better government support for the NHS

Posted on April 13, 2020 by insidecroydon

Veteran football manager praises Crystal Palace players and club for their generous work in the community during coronavirus emergency

Crystal Palace manager Roy Hodgson has called for the NHS to be given more, and better, resources from government, rather than having to rely on donations and the generosity of the public during the coronavirus emergency.

Fantastic: Roy Hodgson is full of praise for the NHS

Hodgson, the former England boss, issued a long message to Palace fans yesterday, one month since his players had their last Premier League game since the covid-19 lockdown was declared, “and in that time, life as we knew it has been turned on its head”, Hodgson noted.

In his message, Hodgson joined the growing number of voices, such as Gary Neville and Gary Lineker, who have praised the charitable efforts of their fellow footballers at this time, in contrast to Tory-supporting hedge funds, billionaires and tax dodgers who appear to have been granted a free pass – and often millions of tax-payers’ money – to be bailed out or to profit from the crisis.

Describing the NHS as “magnificent”, Hodgson said, “One simply cannot praise the staff too highly, in my opinion. I’ve always been a huge supporter of the NHS, they do and have always done a fantastic job. We’re so lucky in this country to have a system like it, I’ve always felt that we do have a fantastic service and now it’s being demonstrated to everyone so clearly, that the resources we put in are well spent. Continue reading →

Posted in Crystal Palace FC, Football, Roy Hodgson, Sport | Tagged , | 1 Comment

Howzat! Geary’s Minster wedding saw Surrey bats raised high

Posted on April 13, 2020 by insidecroydon

Across the country, cricketers of all standards would normally have been going through their paces, getting their eye in, in their last net before the start of the season. For Surrey CCC, it was to have marked a very special anniversary. Here, DAVID MORGAN recounts the story of a Croydon-born player who was a regular in the county side through the 1920s

Everybody loves a wedding and over the years there have been thousands of marriage ceremonies performed at Croydon Minster. It was a wedding held at what was then known as the Croydon Parish Church in October 1927 that provides this piece of Croydon history.

October might not be the most popular month for weddings, but this wedding’s groom had been working throughout the summer. Continue reading →

Posted in Cricket, Croydon Minster, David Morgan, History, Sport, Surrey CCC | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Council has no idea how many houses BxB has built or sold

Posted on April 12, 2020 by insidecroydon

Croydon Council does not know how many homes Brick by Brick has completed or sold.

That’s according to an official council response to a Freedom of Information request – delivered, in true council style, much later than is required by the law.

The response, in many aspects, goes to underline quite how incompetent the council’s housing “strategy” and how badly managed the Brick by Brick experiment has become.

Brick by Brick, in case you did not know, is wholly owned by… Croydon Council. Continue reading →

Posted in Alison Butler, Brick by Brick, Colm Lacey, Croydon Council, Paul Scott, Tony Newman | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments