Link-up to Los Angeles to mark David Lean’s 25th anniversary

Posted on February 27, 2020 by insidecroydon

The David Lean Cinema, Croydon’s much-loved arts cinema, opened in the Clocktower on March 3, 1995, and a special screening next Tuesday will help celebrate the 25th anniversary.

Heavenly Creatures, starring Kate Winslet, was the first film to be screened at the David Lean Cinema

Heavenly Creatures, a psychological thriller from Peter Jackson, was the cinema’s first screening, which featured Kate Winslet in her first starring role. Director Jackson, of course, went on to make the Lord of the Rings trilogy.

It was a remarkable day in the town’s cultural history, with “Cock and Bull Stories” – an exhibition examining Picasso’s representation of animals – also opening in the Clocktower, which Time Out soon named “The jewel in Croydon’s crown.” Continue reading →

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Croydon Youth Theatre choir, South Norwood, every Thu

Posted on February 27, 2020 by insidecroydon

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Norbury Green residents’ AGM, Semley Road, Mar 24

Posted on February 27, 2020 by insidecroydon

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Science of 2-D shapes, Honeywood Museum, Mar 1-Apr 19

Posted on February 27, 2020 by insidecroydon

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Residents call for volunteers for Norbury Hall Park clean-up

Posted on February 26, 2020 by insidecroydon

The first big volunteer clean-up of the year in Norbury Hall Park is this Saturday

The Friends of Norbury Hall Park are appealing for volunteers to join their clean-up this Saturday, February 29.

The “Squirrel Park” is very popular with its community, but with a reduced amount of maintenance, it has become tired, run-down and subject to increased littering. Continue reading →

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Video: See how Croydon led the world in developing air travel

Posted on February 26, 2020 by insidecroydon

This week marks the centenary of the first air traffic control system, which was developed at Croydon Airport.

Volunteers from the Historic Croydon Airport Trust offers guided tours around the remaining buildings – and the world’s first air traffic control tower – on the first Sunday of every month, including this weekend, on March 1, when the public have an opportunity to see for themselves some of the pictures, artefacts and buildings which played such a crucial role in pioneering air travel. Continue reading →

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Croydon’s head of planning set to retire. Will things improve?

Posted on February 26, 2020 by insidecroydon

CROYDON COMMENTARY: Pete Smith has been responsible for some ‘appallingly bad decisions’ while the head of the council planning department. Yet he has been free of risk of censure by the town planners’ professional body simply by not being an active member.
With Smith about to retire, STEVE WHITESIDE asks whether a directly elected mayor might address the biases found in Croydon’s planning department

Pete Smith, the council’s head of planning (left) on a night out with Cllr Paul Scott

In an early letter to residents, DEMOC – the campaign for a Democratically Elected Mayor of Croydon – told us that “…an elected mayor will… be far more likely to listen to residents… Under the current system, the council is certainly not listening to local communities about planning decisions and they are approving developments that do not have the consent of local people.”

Then, at a launch of its campaign in early February, Chris Philp MP is reported to have told the meeting, that the council “… are abusing the powers that the planning committee has to grant planning applications indiscriminately in the borough, most of all in the south of the borough. Time and time again people have been there to plead with the planning committee to listen, but they never do.” Continue reading →

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Kenley, Coulsdon, Purley and South Croydon put on flood alert

Posted on February 26, 2020 by insidecroydon

The Environment Agency has issued a flood alert for south-east London, including Coulsdon, Kenley, Purley and South Croydon.

It is six years since the major flooding in Kenley and Purley, when emergency services had to work around the clock to protect vital infrastructure, and the pedestrian subway at Purley Cross was transformed into an underground lake to take up some of the floodwaters. The mopping up process took months.

This year has endured the wettest February on record, and now groundwater levels are peaking, with temporary streams such as the Caterham Bourne and Coulsdon Bourne are in flow once more. Continue reading →

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The Occupation of the American Mind, Ruskin House, Feb 28

Posted on February 26, 2020 by insidecroydon

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Street Dance classes, CYTO South Norwood, from Mar 5

Posted on February 26, 2020 by insidecroydon

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Glimmer of Hope exhibition, Honeywood Museum, Mar 1-Apr 19

Posted on February 26, 2020 by insidecroydon

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Council to debate Westfield after Newman’s pointless meeting

Posted on February 25, 2020 by insidecroydon

KEN LEE, our Town Hall reporter, on an attempt to block any discussion of the crisis for the town centre at next week’s full council meeting

Tony Newman came back from his meeting with Westfield at City Hall yesterday empty-handed and none the wiser about the developers’ plans for redeveloping Croydon. With the Westfield-Hammerson £1.4billion scheme increasingly looking like a dead duck, Newman may now be forced to reveal to the Croydon public exactly what his and the council’s “Plan B” is for the blighted town centre, if any such plan actually exists.

Tony Newman: forced into Westfield debate next week

Confronted by the crisis of Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield pulling Croydon from its “pipeline” of pending developments, Newman, the leader of Croydon Council, last week puffed out his chest to boast that he would be demanding to see Westfield’s revised plans for Croydon.

“I will be strongly encouraging them at the earliest possibility to share their plans publicly,” Newman grandstanded.

“I am going into that meeting in a very positive mindset. It would be extremely disappointing if we didn’t see the plans put forward.”

Presumably, then, today Newman is extremely disappointed. Continue reading →

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Croydon Airport celebrates centenary of pioneer control tower

Posted on February 25, 2020 by insidecroydon

Coming in to land: a photograph from 1925, professionally colourised, part of the Historic Croydon Airport Trust’s collection

February 25, 1920: The world’s first air traffic control tower was commissioned by the government 100 years ago today, in a move that helped usher in the age of mass air travel.

The tower was built at Croydon Airport, then London’s main airport, and established many of the principles of air traffic control which are still followed today. Continue reading →

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Hammerson’s £781m loss points to end of the shopping mall

Posted on February 25, 2020 by insidecroydon

MT WALLETTE, our unbuilt shopping malls correspondent, on the latest doom-laden annual report from one of the Croydon ‘partners’

Anyone clinging to the faint hope that the publication this morning of Hammerson’s annual report would offer encouragement about the prospects of a new super mall in Croydon town centre were quickly disabused when the company’s chief exec issued a statement which included the doom-laden verdict, “The magnitude of the challenge facing UK retail is significant.” But then, David Atkins’ company’s losses for the last 12 months were £500million more than in 2018.

Hammerson is one-half of the Croydon Partners, the owner of the Centrale shopping centre in Croydon and who, since 2012 along with Westfield, have been promising to regenerate the town centre.

Any prospect of that happening any time soon appeared finished earlier this month with Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield announcing that Croydon had been removed from its “pipeline” developments. Continue reading →

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South Norwood hair salon bins image-shaming glossy mags

Posted on February 25, 2020 by insidecroydon

The Nix hair and beauty salon on Portland Road in South Norwood has led the way, by banning gossip magazines from their salon.

A gossip-free zone: Nix in South Norwood

Nicky Thompson, the salon’s owner, said she saw the campaign in Style magazine and felt her business should promote a more positive image for women.

“The hairdressing industry needs to make a stand against the body-shaming and body dysmorphia generated by gossip magazines,” Thompson said. “We have got rid of all the copies that were in the salon and will no longer be stocking them.” Continue reading →

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Builders go with the (over)flow in rush to finish £30m school

Posted on February 24, 2020 by insidecroydon

Residents in South Croydon have had their road closed off and streams of muddy water flowing down their street, as the construction of Coombe Wood School has created another flood of complaints. GENE BRODIE, our education correspondent, reports

The site entrance to the building works. Residents have had to contend with this for six months

“I suppose this is the sort of climate change thing you can expect when your local council takes away Green Belt protection from playing fields to allow them to be concreted over,” one angry resident said, as a stream of dirty, muddy water washed past their front door on Melville Avenue over the weekend.

Each new storm brings another cascade of overflow water down the resident street in South Croydon from the site where Wates are rushing to complete the permanent buildings for a 1,680-pupil selective school which is due to open in September.

Currently, it is an eyesore draped in its purple protective coverings.

Residents voiced their latest concerns about the troubled project last autumn, over the amount of rainwater flowing from the site entrance. Continue reading →

Posted in Coombe Wood School, Croydon Council, Paul Scott, Planning, Schools, South Croydon | Tagged , , , , | 3 Comments

It’s time to vote for someone who ‘gets’ the climate emergency

Posted on February 24, 2020 by insidecroydon

CROYDON COMMENTARY: Worried about flooding locally, and climate change globally?
PETER UNDERWOOD, pictured right, a Green Party candidate, says that these issues should be a central in the London Assembly elections

Families and businesses are yet again being left to deal with the aftermath of another set of destructive storms and record-breaking floods. Meanwhile, our so-called political leaders are nowhere to be seen. If we want real action, then we need to elect people who understand the problem.

In the face of this national emergency, our Prime Minister has gone into hiding and just occasionally sent out one of his ministers to talk about how much money they have spent on flood defences.

It has been the wettest February in Britain for 30 years

What these ministers don’t point out is that only 1 per cent of government spending on infrastructure has gone on flood defences, while they spend far more on building roads and they have nothing to say on the causes of the storms and flooding. Continue reading →

Posted in 2021 London elections, Caroline Russell, Croydon Greens, Environment, Extinction Rebellion, London Assembly, London-wide issues, Mayor of London, Peter Underwood, Sadiq Khan, Sian Berry, Waste incinerator | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

They survived world wars and riots. They can survive Westfield

Posted on February 24, 2020 by insidecroydon

Leading Croydon businesses, who have been trading for more than 150 years, are angry at the ‘complete dereliction of duty, mismanagement and incompetence in every single aspect’ over the non-development of the town centre. And they offer some prospect of hope, as NEIL BENNETT reports

The symbol of Croydon 2011: yet Croydon businesses affected by the arson and looting have continued to trade

Two family businesses, founded in the 1860s when Queen Victoria reigned over us, have survived all of Croydon’s post-war convulsions and offer some clues about how solid businesses ride the ups and downs.

House of Reeves, the furniture store which defied the rioters in 2011, is selling plenty of sofas and three-piece suites, and Hewitts of Croydon, which has supplied generations of boys and girls with school uniforms, is still the go-to shop for today’s parents.

But the owners of these two hardy Croydon survivors are sceptical about whether the town will ever arrive at the new retail Westfield promised land and they are scornful of the “powers that be” who have presided over what they see as years of inaction.

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Davis will fight on – ‘You don’t need to be elected to do that’

Posted on February 23, 2020 by insidecroydon

Rowenna Davis, the candidate who missed out by 25 votes to stand for Labour in Croydon and Sutton in May’s London Assembly elections, says she will continue with her campaigning activism “to make a difference to people in… our capital”.

“You don’t need an elected position to do that,” she said, “so I’ll continue to do so.”

Rowenna Davis, second left, helping at the weekly soup kitchen organised by Surrey Street trader Jose Joseph (left)

The much-delayed selection process saw Patsy Cummings, a Labour councillor for South Norwood ward, narrowly win, from a poll of more than a thousand Labour members in the two boroughs.

For Davis, it is back to work in her teaching job on Monday after half-term. But from a social media post, it is clear that Davis intends to continue her campaigning on such issues as improving air quality and to eliminate school holiday hunger, something she has noticed to be a disturbingly growing feature in her classrooms.

“Some of you may have seen glimpses of this very special campaign on social media,” she wrote. Continue reading →

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Charmian Hughes’ She, Bookseller Crow, Feb 28

Posted on February 23, 2020 by insidecroydon

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Guards’ St George’s Day Concert, Fairfield Halls, Apr 24

Posted on February 23, 2020 by insidecroydon

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Hammerson’s annual report could be bad news for Croydon

Posted on February 22, 2020 by insidecroydon

Originally, works were supposed to have started in 2016 on Westfield and Hammerson’s imagined scheme in Croydon. Now one respected commentator says it will never happen

BARRATT HOLMES, our over-development correspondent, has been skimming through the trade press and found a damning verdict on the prospects for Croydon town centre

One of the best-read commentators on the commercial property market says that he cannot ever see another major shopping mall being built in Britain, in what amounts to another doom-laden verdict on the prospects for the £1.4billion Westfield and Hammerson scheme that was dumped on Croydon by Gavin Barwell eight years ago.

Peter Bill is the former editor of Property Week. Bill has already described the Croydon Westfield project as a “dead duckling”, following the now French-owned company dropping the scheme from its development pipeline earlier this month. But Bill has been reading the Croydon scheme its last rites since 2018 when he described it then as “this blighted project”. Continue reading →

Posted in "Hammersfield", Business, Centrale, Croydon Council, Jo Negrini, John Burton, Planning, Whitgift Centre | Tagged , , , , , , , | 12 Comments

Eddie Hyde talk, Old Coulsdon Camera Club, Feb 25

Posted on February 22, 2020 by insidecroydon

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Croydon Mela 2020, Wandle Park, Jul 19

Posted on February 22, 2020 by insidecroydon

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Senior Croydon Labour official tells Newman: Time for change

Posted on February 21, 2020 by insidecroydon

WALTER CRONXITE reports that members of the council leader’s own party are now regarding him as “Toxic Tony” and a liability at the ballot box

Tony Newman: under fire from within Croydon Labour

Tony Newman, the leader of the council, was already a target for the ire of thousands of residents around the borough who want him replaced by a directly-elected mayor. But now he is coming under mounting pressure from within Croydon Labour, the local party which he used to control with an iron-grip… and hundreds of thousands of pounds of public money doled out through council allowances.

Inside Croydon has seen an email sent from one of the most senior officials in one of Croydon’s three Constituency Labour Parties – CLPs – which issues a dire warning to Newman. While not quite in the same league as the “In the name of God, go!” speech, the widely circulated email from Joanne Milligan is pretty clear in its message that it is time that Newman went.

Criticising Newman for a series of usually baseless personal attacks against those involved in the campaign to have a directly-elected mayor in Croydon, Milligan, the vice-chair of Croydon South CLP wrote: “Change is needed. And change will happen.

“Those concerned about the future of Croydon and the relevance and well-being of the Labour Party in Croydon would do well to consider how to embrace and shape that change.”

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