Croydon CLP backs elected mayor over ‘dysfunctional’ council

Posted on August 1, 2019 by insidecroydon

Political editor WALTER CRONXITE reports on what Mrs Merton might have called ‘a heated debate’

The simmering internal conflict within the Labour Party in Croydon seems unlikely to cool off during the Town Hall’s summer recess, after members in Croydon South voted overwhelmingly in support of “the concept of a directly elected leader” for the council.

Tony Newman: even Labour members have seen through his abuse of patronage

This is likely to be interpreted as an attack on Tony “Soprano” Newman, the leader of the Labour-run council, who owes his £56,657 per year position in a borough of 300,000 people to the votes of fewer than 40 other councillors in a secret meeting held in May last year.

Croydon South Constituency Labour Party, at its latest meeting, voted 36-12 in favour of a motion, with a handful of worthy abstentions, as the local party aligned themselves with residents’ associations in the south of the borough who have been meeting to put together a legal petition that would oblige the council to hold a referendum on having a directly elected leader of the council.

Notable among the abstentions, at least by not voting against the proposition, was council cabinet member Stuart King.

Continue reading →

Posted in Andrew Pelling, Croydon South, Hamida Ali, Jane Avis, Paul Scott, Robert Canning, Stuart King, Tony Newman, Waddon | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

MP Philp asks Whitehall to investigate cheap land sales to BxB

Posted on July 31, 2019 by insidecroydon

About five years ago, Robert Jenrick was being considered by local Conservatives as their possible candidate for Croydon South, until an even safer safe Tory seat came up in Newark.

BxB’s Ravensdale and Rushden site this month – the site was sold by Croydon Council for £250. The houses are being offered for private sale at £600,000 each

So it is perhaps with added interest that Jenrick, now the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, will have discovered in his in-tray in his new Marsham Street offices a letter asking him to investigate the under-value sales by Croydon’s Labour-run council of a swathe of land and property in the borough.

As Inside Croydon first reported in March, Croydon Council sold more than two dozen plots of land to its in-house house-builder, Brick by Brick. Six parcels of land were sold for £1 each. Many of the sites were sold already with the considerable added value of planning permission – which had been granted by the council.

The heavy discounting of these sales of public property to Brick by Brick are estimated to have saved the struggling development company at least £10million on its initial development costs. Continue reading →

Posted in Alison Butler, Brick by Brick, Chris Philp MP, Colm Lacey, Croydon Council, Croydon South, Housing, Jo Negrini, Tony Newman | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Carraway’s cruel but true memoir of life in the margins

Posted on July 31, 2019 by insidecroydon

‘We are the walking wounded of the class war’ writes Cash Carraway, a south London single mum working for less than the minimum wage, negotiating the accommodation underworld of Gumtree, OpenRent ‘and the depravity of handwritten adverts in newsagents’ windows’ which offer a place to stay in return for sexual services. JAD ADAMS reviews her book Skint Estate

Skint Estate is saved from being a self-pitying moan by Cash Carraway’s wit, her acute turn of phrase and her absolute lack of fear.

Lots of writers are called “fearless” because they take a shot at the government or patriarchy from a swivel chair in an office. Carraway is on the literary barricades and she genuinely has no fear – or shame or humility or any of the other emotions that keep people polite and in check. What she does have is a lot of anger.

She is angry about politicians sneering at the poor while owning the properties whose rents keep them in destitution; she is angry about “poverty porn” TV programmes that relish making an entertainment of the “economic gang rape that makes the poor and vulnerable the scapegoat for society’s decline”.

And she is very, very angry about the well-paid newspaper columnists whose intemperate outbursts against the underclass are mirrored here by Carraway’s invective. “We should be banned from all supermarkets except Aldi and Lidl and force-fed a diet of UHT milk and corned beef”, she writes, ‘grub for fallen women… Why didn’t I just shut up and know my place?” Continue reading →

Posted in Art, Charity, Croydon Nightwatch, Jad Adams | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

Croydon FC v Rochester Utd, Croydon Arena, Aug 3

Posted on July 31, 2019 by insidecroydon

Continue reading →

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

South Norwood police meeting leaves public feeling anxious

Posted on July 30, 2019 by insidecroydon

The latest ransacking of the Croydon FC clubhouse came just days after the police in South Norwood, together with the local MP and Croydon Council’s cabinet member for community safety, staged a meeting intended at rebuilding confidence in the local area around the Arena and South Norwood Country Park.

Hamida Ali: police meeting

This followed not only the break-ins at the clubhouse earlier this year, but six attacks on women, including sexual assaults, in broad daylight in the Country Park.

In all, nearly 50 local people came to the two-hour event, which had been organised by the Met, Sarah Jones MP and Hamida Ali, the Woodside ward councillor who is responsible for community safety across the borough. All age groups and sections of the neighbourhood’s diverse community were represented. The headteacher of Oasis Ryelands was also present.

It was a sometimes emotional, heart-rending and tear-jerking occasion, as the community shared various very sad experiences of being victims of crime in the local area.

Continue reading →

Posted in Crime, Hamida Ali, Knife crime, Sarah Jones MP, South Norwood, Woodside | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Take a walk on the Weald side, but remember to bring a map

Posted on July 30, 2019 by insidecroydon

Having followed the waymarkers, just, all the way from East Croydon to Warlingham, KEN TOWL got back on the bus bright and early to pick up the Vanguard Way from where he left off, with some a-llama-ing findings along the route

The Vanguard Way is named after a walking group who assumed the name “the Vanguards” after having to return to London in the guard’s van on a journey back from Axminster in April 1965.

Apparently, they consoled themselves with a bottle of Drambuie. I contacted the man behind their website, Colin Saunders to ask if any of these Sixties hellraisers were still around. It turns out that three of them are, and still mobile. He conceded that the waymarkers can “go astray or get overgrown”, but explained that the group relied on volunteers along the route to maintain them. Continue reading →

Posted in Ken Towl, Outside Croydon, Walks | Tagged , , , , | 2 Comments

ARCC friends coffee morning, CVA London Road, Jul 31

Posted on July 30, 2019 by insidecroydon

Continue reading →

Posted in Asian Resource Centre of Croydon | Tagged | Leave a comment

Dogs check-up and chip session, Wandle Park, Aug 1

Posted on July 30, 2019 by insidecroydon

Continue reading →

Posted in Activities, Croydon parks, Friends of Wandle Park, Wandle Park | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Trams appeal to Stormzy for help after third break-in at club

Posted on July 29, 2019 by insidecroydon

For the third time in less than six months, Croydon Football Club are having to dust themselves down and pick themselves up again after vandals broke into their clubhouse and trashed it, causing thousands of pounds of damage.

This was the scene that greeted club volunteers on Sunday morning when they arrive at the Arena on Sunday

The unexpected costs of repairing and securing the clubhouse “could cripple our season before it has begun”, the club said today.

As news of the latest break-in spread around the local community and football fans, appeals went out to, among others, Glastonbury head-line act Stormzy to help by using his mighty social media presence to publicise the club’s plight, and to Crystal Palace chairman Steve Parish to arrange for a Palace v Trams fund-raising friendly.

But if the out-pouring of support for the club’s plight over the last 24 hours can be matched on Saturday, The Trams could have to welcome a record crowd to Croydon Arena for their first match of the new season.

The break-in occurred in the early hours of Sunday morning at the clubhouse in South Norwood. The club had been victim of two similar acts of mindless vandalism in March, when friends in non-league football and the local community rallied round to help to repair the damage caused.

When the latest break-in was discovered yesterday, Croydon FC tweeted, “Awful news from the club this morning. Volunteers turn up to clear the garden and paint, to find the club smashed to pieces. Community classroom destroyed, new office and board room turned over.” Continue reading →

Posted in Crime, Croydon FC, Crystal Palace FC, Football, South Norwood, Sport, Steve Parish | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Council’s sorry performance after Ombudsman’s dozen rulings

Posted on July 29, 2019 by insidecroydon

One reason that rulings by the Local Government Ombudsman against local authorities, such as Croydon, attract so little attention is that the Ombudsman’s office never insists that the offending councils should publish the findings in full on their own website. Were they to do so, the likely reaction from the public the councils are supposed to serve would be one of complete horror, and anger.

To the end of June this year, Croydon Council had accumulated a dirty dozen rulings from the Ombudsman in 2019, after residents have gone through a lengthy process of internal complaints with the council, sometimes over several years.

Not a single one of the Ombudsman’s often withering criticisms of the council’s handling of cases – on planning, children’s services, education, or adult social services – has ever appeared on Croydon Council’s own website. While the council has often been obliged to issue an apology, few outside those directly involved with the cases will ever have been aware of the circumstances.

The apologies are anodyne and anonymous.

No £100,000 per year council executive ever has to put their name, publicly, to the errors and the apologies. No tally is kept – except here on Inside Croydon – of the repeat failures of our public servants. No council cabinet member, elected councillor, such as Alisa Flemming, ever has to take responsibility for the fault and failures. There’s no real accountability. Continue reading →

Posted in Alisa Flemming, Children's Services, Croydon Council, Education, Robert Henderson, Schools, SEND | Tagged , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Residents claim rare planning victory over Sandrock pub

Posted on July 29, 2019 by insidecroydon

Residents living near the historic Sandrock pub in Upper Shirley Road are celebrating after council planning officials rejected a scheme by developers to build a remarkably ugly four-storey block of flats in the car park of the listed building.

Reprieve: The Sandrock on Upper Shirley Road. Residents want it sold to a pub or restaurant operator

Locals have been battling against the over-development of the site for almost two years, since the pub was sold to developers and then promptly closed. This latest planning application was the developers’ second, and an intensive campaign run by residents led to 157 objections being made during the consultation.

The outcome is that the plans have been rejected for nine separate reasons, so it would seem unlikely that any appeal would have much a chance of success.

Even the developers’ own consultants produced a report which suggested that the project would struggle to be viable. Continue reading →

Posted in Planning, Property, Pubs, Shirley North | Tagged , | 1 Comment

Heroism and valour under the scorching sun in Coulsdon

Posted on July 29, 2019 by insidecroydon

Our veteran arts correspondent, BELLA BARTOCK, braved the slings and arrows of the Agincourt scenes and the hottest night of the year to witness the latest performance from Theatre Workship Coulsdon

Anya Destiney as Henry rustled up the fine dialogue

Some might say that Henry V is a show for our time, a play that pits two mighty nations against one another, where a war of words among their leaders can cost the fortunes of millions. And like Brexit, the production of Henry V at Coulsdon Court has faced difficulties.

It is the Theatre Workshop Coulsdon’s annual jaunt into the open air, and in its first week – the run resumes for this week tomorrow evening – the cast and crew encountered possibly the hottest day ever in southern England, followed by thunderstorms and heavy rain.

Certainly, on the evening I attended, when I found myself among a disappointingly sparse audience, I had to use my lavender-infused kerchief more than once, as I nearly perspired. Continue reading →

Posted in Art, Coulsdon, Theatre, Theatre Workshop Coulsdon | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

Council’s land grab has ‘destroyed our lives’ says trader

Posted on July 28, 2019 by insidecroydon

Sunny days: but there’s been no trading by Bellamy’s on North End for the past fortnight

The council’s handling of the Compulsory Purchase Order for the former Allders building is driving dozens of businesses to the brink of collapse and even putting traders’ homes at risk, according to one who has been locked out of their premises for the past fortnight.

“They’ve destroyed my business. They’ve destroyed my life,” according to Patrick Kirwan.

Until a fortnight ago, Kirwan ran the Bellamy’s ice cream shop facing out from the Croydon Outlet Village, with its tables and chairs arranged on the pedestrianised area of North End. The past week, with Croydon’s schools breaking up for the summer holidays and the July heatwave, should have been one of Bellamy’s boom weeks for business.

Instead, Kirwan was unable to open his shop to sell a single ice cream cornet, as the dispute over the ownership of the property from which he trades drags on, with no alternative location for his business yet arranged.

“We have been completely destroyed by the situation we are now in,” Kirwan told Inside Croydon.

“We have had zero help from Croydon Council. They have literally walked in and swiped our family business from beneath our feet.”

Continue reading →

Posted in "Hammersfield", Allders, Business, CPO, Tony Newman, Whitgift Centre | Tagged , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

£300 parking tax agreed but councillors will keep their freebies

Posted on July 28, 2019 by insidecroydon

“All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others”

Croydon Council is back in Orwellian mode again. Transport correspondent, JEREMY CLACKSON, on the latest stealth tax imposed on the borough’s residents, but from which its councillors are spared

Croydon residents’ parking permits are to be hiked to up to £300 per year following a council committee meeting on Wednesday which ignored requests to phase-in the so-called emissions-based parking fees.

The Labour majority on TMAC, the council’s Transport Management Advisory Committee, which voted through the new parking fees meanwhile decided that there should be no similar charges introduced for councillors to recognise the emissions caused by the cars driven by the borough’s 70 elected representatives. Happily for them, such is the Town Hall’s new-found commitment to saving the planet, councillors will continue to receive parking permits – in some cases, two permits – completely free of charge.

As George Orwell once wrote, “All animals are created equal, but some animals are more equal than others.” Continue reading →

Posted in Croydon Council, Environment, Parking, Peter Underwood, Stuart King, Transport, Waste incinerator | Tagged , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

5% increase in road collisions set-back for Mayor’s Vision Zero

Posted on July 28, 2019 by insidecroydon

There was another increase in the number of people killed or seriously injured on London’s roads in 2018, figures released this week show, prompting a call for the Mayor to implement more measures more urgently for sustainable walking and cycling.

Croydon’s cycling infrastructure is in need of an upgrade throughout the borough

Transport for London and Mayor Sadiq Khan have a Vision Zero policy, with the target that to reduce road danger and have no one killed on London’s roads by 2041, so this week’s figures are a set-back for such ambitions.

In an extraordinary instance of callous complacency, TfL has explained the 5 per cent increase in deaths and injuries on the capital’s roads in 2018, to 4,065, on the increase in the number of people cycling. The Mayor’s Transport Strategy has a target to increase trips in London by walking, cycling and public transport to 80 per cent by 2041. Continue reading →

Posted in Caroline Russell, Cycling, London Assembly, London-wide issues, Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, TfL, Transport | Tagged , , , , , | 2 Comments

Be in the Vanguard for a hike from Croydon to the south coast

Posted on July 27, 2019 by insidecroydon

As you set off along the Vanguard Way, the pathway seems quite clear at first…

In the middle of the hottest of heatwaves, KEN TOWL set off from East Croydon for the sea. He travelled not by train, but on foot along the Vanguard Way

I am looking at a plaque on the side of Berwick Station that marks the place where the “Vanguard Way, long distance path from Croydon to Newhaven” was relaunched by the Ramblers Association in 1998. I am about to get a train back to East Croydon, having set out from there three days earlier.

This piece covers the first day, and the first of the 10 stages of the Vanguard Way, and where and why I got lost, a barbed comment about a golf club, and the discovery of the first of two phenomenally old churches. There will be a subsequent piece covering the rest, and where and why I got lost, where and why I cheated just a little bit, a barbed comment about a golf club and the second of two phenomenally old churches. Continue reading →

Posted in Croydon parks, East Croydon, Environment, Ken Towl, Lloyd Park, Walks | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments

Croydon residents spend 45% of their wage on private rents

Posted on July 27, 2019 by insidecroydon

A London Assembly Member is calling for rent controls to be introduced across the capital

While Croydon’s Labour-run council stages museum exhibitions on the history of the council house, as they meanwhile use public money to build houses for private sale which local residents cannot afford, a London Assembly Member has produced figures which shows that the borough is among the most expensive in the country, where 45 per cent of residents’ monthly wage goes on rent.

Croydon is 60th most expensive place to rent in the country when local average salaries are taken into account, new analysis of the latest figures from the National Valuation Office and the Office of National Statistics has revealed. Continue reading →

Posted in Housing, London-wide issues, Mayor of London, Planning, Sadiq Khan, Tom Copley | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Tea and Tech learning session at Upper Norwood Library, Aug 2

Posted on July 27, 2019 by insidecroydon

Continue reading →

Posted in Activities, Crystal Palace and Upper Norwood, Libraries, Upper Norwood Library Trust | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Mayor refuses to say if Barwell was questioned over Grenfell

Posted on July 26, 2019 by insidecroydon

Gavin Barwell, front left, enjoying corporate hospitality at Lord’s yesterday with Theresa Mayhem (right) and members of the ‘Gaukward squad’ of senior Tories

Unlike most people when newly out of work, gaffe-prone Gavin Barwell didn’t spend his first day of unemployment looking for a new job.

The £150,000 per year Downing Street chief of staff until Boris Johnson’s coronation on Wednesday, Barwell spent Thursday sitting in the sunshine at the Lord’s Test, sipping free drinks, munching complimentary sarnies and sharing a joke or two with the ex-Prime Minister.

What Barwell failed to do while at the cricket was answer enquiries about whether he has, in fact, been questioned under caution by the police for his role, when housing minister, in the failure to implement recommended safety measures ahead of the Grenfell Tower disaster.

Continue reading →

Posted in Caroline Pidgeon, Gavin Barwell, London-wide issues, Mayor of London, Policing, Sadiq Khan, Steve Reed MP | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Croydon Council, which has built no council homes since 2014, is now staging a museum exhibition on council homes

Posted on July 26, 2019 by insidecroydon

Without a hint of irony, nor a shred of shame, Croydon Council this week announced the opening of a month-long exhibition to celebrate “100 years of council homes in the borough”.

Private Eye this week summarised Croydon’s distorted values

“The 1919 Housing Act heralded a huge council house-building programme across the country in the decades since, including around 25,000 built in Croydon,” said a release issued by the Goebbels Institute for Truth and Transparency (previously the Croydon Council press office).

Nowhere in the press release did it mention that under the current Labour administration, there has not been a single new council home built in Croydon in the past five years.

Nor will there be any new council homes built in the borough before 2022, as those in charge of the Town Hall prefer instead to borrow more than £200million to spend on in-house house-builder Brick by Brick building mainly houses and “up-scale apartments” for private sale. Continue reading →

Posted in Alison Butler, Brick by Brick, Croydon Council, History, Housing, Museum of Croydon, Paul Scott, Tony Newman | Tagged , , , , , , | 1 Comment

NSPCC concern over rising number of ‘home alone’ children

Posted on July 26, 2019 by insidecroydon

The National Society for the Protection of Cruelty to Children has urged parents in Croydon to think carefully before leaving their children unsupervised during the school holidays, after seeing a 21 per cent rise in contacts about the issue last summer.

Home alone: the NSPCC is concerned about children being left to fend for themselves during school holidays

As schools in England and Wales break-up for summer, the NSPCC has revealed specialist practitioners on its helpline received 5,737 calls and emails in 2018-2019 from adults concerned about youngsters being left home alone.

Nearly one-third of those calls and emails were between July and September, during the long, summer school holidays.

The NSPCC says that 70 per cent of those contacts were judged so serious they were passed on to police or social services. The helpline made 374 referrals to agencies across London from members of the public concerned about a child that was left home alone. Continue reading →

Posted in Charity, Education | Tagged | Leave a comment

Shirley Flower Festival and concert, St John’s, Sep 13-15

Posted on July 26, 2019 by insidecroydon

Continue reading →

Posted in Church and religions, Music, Shirley North | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Old Coulsdon quiz night fund-raiser, Cameron Hall, Aug 31

Posted on July 26, 2019 by insidecroydon

Continue reading →

Posted in Community associations, Coulsdon, Old Coulsdon, Old Coulsdon Residents' Association | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Community activist is leading fight to save Love Lane gardens

Posted on July 25, 2019 by insidecroydon

Here’s one patch of ground which Croydon council’s leadership ‘100% guarantees’ won’t be built on, the Love Lane community garden in SE25

Hear how a group of neighbours and friends in South Norwood is fighting to save their community gardens from Mayfair-based property developers, as featured in our latest Under The Flyover podcast

The strength of the council’s commitment to protecting Croydon’s green spaces is about to be put to the test, as property developers are making a move to get a community in South Norwood to move out of their lovingly created gardens and play space.

A letter was sent last week to residents living near the Love Lane community gardens, giving them until August 5 to get all of their equipment, garden sheds, fruit trees and flower pots removed from the site because the site owners want to fence off part of it in order that Transport for London can conduct works on the tram lines nearby. Continue reading →

Posted in Croydon parks, Environment, Gardening, Inside Croydon, Paul Scott, South Norwood, Tony Newman, Under The Flyover, Wildlife, Woodside | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Beddington is just one of 14 fires at Viridor plants since 2015

Posted on July 25, 2019 by insidecroydon

Our environment correspondent, PAUL LUSHION, on a worrying sequence of fires at sites run by one of the country’s biggest incinerator operators which has prompted a call for an investigation by the Health and Safety Executive

The fire earlier this month at Beddington Lane was the 13th to break out at Viridor plants since 2015

The fire next to the Viridor incinerator on Beddington Lane earlier this month was the 13th occasion when the company has had to call out the fire brigade to one of its waste and recycling plants in Britain in little more than four years.

And fire No14 at a Viridor plant took place on the very next day after the Beddington fire.

This outbreak of dangerous and costly fires – especially costly for Viridor’s insurers – has seen the company become increasingly dependent on a “fourth emergency service”, their PR consultants, who are regularly being called out to act as their reputational firefighters. Continue reading →

Posted in Croydon Council, Environment, London Fire Brigade, Nick Mattey, Refuse collection, Sutton Council, Waste incinerator | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment