Tram services suspended in Croydon town centre for repairs

Transport for London announced yesterday that the tram service will be suspended between Reeves Corner and East Croydon overnight tonight and through Sunday morning, while cable repair work is carried out on Church Street.

Tram services will be suspended in the town centre tomorrow morning

TfL said, “We will need to carry out essential cable repair works near Church Street tram stop in Croydon town centre.

“Repairing the cable will reduce the chances of further major disruptive engineering works and associated closures of the tramway in the future.

“We need to carry out this work while trams are not running. This is why it must take place overnight and into Sunday morning.” Continue reading

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Works to begin to instal segregated cycle lane at Bedford Park

A new cycle lane and signalling improvements will make it easier for cyclists to access central Croydon.

The work on Bedford Park will begin on Monday.

Once the lane is installed, cyclists will be able to safely cycle against the flow of traffic using a segregated cycleway, helping them travel safely from Sydenham Road to Poplar Walk and on to West Croydon and North End.

This will link to the surface level crossing of Wellesley Road, making it easier to cross this main road on the borough’s cycle network. Continue reading

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Carshalton Lavender Weekend, Oaks Way, Jul 27-28

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Break The Silence women’s group, Norbury, Jul 26

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Newman ducks questions to show he’s all words, not deeds

Climate emergency protestors arrive at the Town Hall by boat, but find nowhere to moor it

TOWN HALL SKETCH: Who are we to believe? The last full council meeting until October descended into accusations from politicians of lying (ahh, the sweet irony), while the public’s petitions were re-written for them by council officials, until debate was ended when the Labour leader decided that he wanted to go down the pub.
It was all so much hot air, according to WALTER CRONXITE

We probably all need to have a word with Andrew Fisher, the policy chief in Jeremy Corbyn’s office, who is understood to be the person to have thought it a good idea before the 2017 General Election to get the Labour leader to embrace the works of Percy Bysshe Shelley, and came up with the wholly admirable slogan of “For the many, not the few”.

As slogans go, it’s certainly a whole heap better than “Strong and stable” (oh, how we laughed!), but it has also meant that less capable and less well-read political figures have since been racking their brains, or more likely scouring Wikipedia, for little bon mots to call their own, to provide them with profundity in a soundbyte.

So it is that, last weekend in speeches given in Wandle Park at Croydon Pride and the Mela, Tony Newman was heard to announce his commitment to “Deeds, not words”. As it was coming from Newman, the leader of Labour-controlled Croydon Council, it was immediately rendered into vacuity in a soundbyte.

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Posted in "Hammersfield", Alisa Flemming, Alison Butler, Brick by Brick, Business, Chris Clark, Croydon Council, Croydon parks, Environment, Housing, Jason Perry, Jo Negrini, Libraries, Paul Scott, Peter Underwood, Planning, Sarah Jones MP, Stuart Collins, Tim Pollard, Tony Newman, Waste incinerator, Whitgift Centre | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Community meetings and forms as council tests public mood

How safe do you feel in Croydon today?

Recent tragic and traumatising events across the borough have led the council to seek the views of the public on the level of tension in Croydon and its suburbs.

This urgent check of the lie of the land comes after the death from a stab to the heart of Kye Manning on the Brighton Road in Purley, the killing of Kelly Mary Fauvrelle and her child Riley, attacks on women in South Norwood Country Park and hate mail sent to a local place of worship.

The authorities have been conducting confidence-building meetings with residents, including an event tonight hosted by councillor Hamida Ali in her Woodside ward. This new meeting follows up on the community-led initiative to reclaim South Norwood Country Park after six assaults on women there. Continue reading

Posted in Crime, Croydon Central, Croydon Council, Hamida Ali, Knife crime, Policing, Sarah Jones MP, Woodside | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Scouts on parade for Deputy Lieutenant’s annual awards

Mayor of Croydon Humayun Kabir makes a presentation to Joseph Starling

A group of young Scouts and Scout leaders received Deputy Lieutenant Award Certificates in a ceremony attended by the Mayor of Croydon, the Deputy Lieutenant of Croydon and friends and family at the Town Hall last night.

In total, 13 young people from the borough received certificates last night, seven of them being active members of Croydon Scouting.

The Deputy Lieutenant, Colonel Ray Wilkinson, is formally the Queen’s representative in the borough, and he presides over an annual set of awards for youth service in the community. Continue reading

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Croydon 10k road race, Lloyd Park, Oct 27

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Council’s CPO move on Allders building faces court challenge

Croydon Council was being taken to court this afternoon by lawyers acting for the lease-holder of Croydon Outlet Village – based in the building better remembered as Allders – in what has become an increasingly acrimonious dispute over the ownership and management of the site.

The former Allders building has had some tough times of late, but the council shutting it down this week rates as the nadir

Bailiffs acting on behalf of the council moved in before dawn yesterday to change the locks and take possession of the building, which a council spokesperson said was being done to allow for survey work to be conducted, as part of the Compulsory Purchase Order which Croydon has conducted ahead of the long-promised Westfield redevelopment.

But between 60 and 100 employees, who work across 40 businesses and concessions in the old department store building, have been locked out of their premises for two working days now, unable to access their stock, their cash in their safes and any personal effects.

Whether Optima Media International, the company which operated the Croydon Outlet Village, or the council win out in their court tussle, it seems unlikely that the building will be open for business again before Friday, causing a potential loss of business for the traders of more than £100,000. Continue reading

Posted in "Hammersfield", Allders, Business, CPO, Croydon Council, Planning, Whitgift Centre | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 11 Comments

Mayor of London pledges Park Hill garden £17,500 cash boost

The walled garden in Park Hill Park has been given a cash boost by the Mayor of London

A project to redesign Park Hill Park’s Victorian walled garden has had £17,500 pledged by the Mayor of London in a round of crowdfunding for community projects.

Through Crowdfund London, Mayor Sadiq Khan has pledged more than £600,000 to support 23 neighbourhood projects around the capital. Continue reading

Posted in Croydon parks, Environment, Gardening, Mayor of London, Park Hill and Whitgift, Sadiq Khan | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

Southwark councillor joins Labour selection battle for City Hall

Political editor WALTER CRONXITE suggests that only three entries for the race to be a candidate in Croydon and Sutton at next year’s London elections is being seen as a sign that few reckon there’s much of a chance of success

Dora Dixon-Fyle is a former Mayor of Southwark. Now she wants to represent Croydon and Sutton

Only three women have put themselves forward for the chance of being the Labour candidate in the Croydon and Sutton super-constituency at next May’s London Assembly elections.

Dora Dixon-Fyle, a councillor for Camberwell Green ward in Southwark, former aide to MP Harriet Harman, and sometime bit-part actor on EastEnders, has joined Patsy Cummings and Rowenna Davis in what the party machine decided should be a woman-only contest.

Croydon and Sutton is therefore the (joint) smallest field of the eight constituency selections which Labour is allowing to be contested (sitting Assembly Members in six other seats have been re-selected). Even neighbouring Bexley and Bromley has attracted more Labour members seeking to be their party’s candidate in the Tory stronghold. Continue reading

Posted in 2021 London elections, London Assembly, Marina Ahmad, Neil Garratt, Patsy Cummings, Rowenna Davis, South Norwood, Sutton Council, Tom Copley | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Mitre Players take a grown-up look at classic Bugsy Malone

The Mitre Players’ Bugsy Malone cast make a bit of a song and a dance of it…

You might need a trip overseas (well, to Newport on the Isle of Wight) if you want to see the latest musical show from the Mitre Players. Our arts correspondent, BELLA BARTOCK, caught it closer to home

As I shuffled into the Trinity school old boys’ club house, I feared the worst.

The village hall-style room had its seating laid out cabaret-style, which can often be most agreeable. But for the seats at the back of the room, there was less leg room than on an overbooked Ryanair flight. Or so I was led to believe. I would never dream of stooping so low as to board an aircraft without the sure and certain knowledge that my required seat had been properly reserved for me.

And while it is mid-July, I was grateful for having the presence of mind to have brought my vintage white fox stoll with me: the air conditioning had been turned up to 11, giving the hall the chill air of winter. Continue reading

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Join Friends of Grangewood Park for a butterfly hunt, Jul 21

Join the Friends of Grangewood Park this Sunday evening, July 21, to try and catch a glimpse of the purple hairstreak butterfly so that it can be confirmed that it’s still thriving in the park.

The purple hairstreak is an elusive butterfly that flies in the canopy of oak trees on summer evenings, with the walk organised with the London Wildlife Trust as part of National Parks Week.

This event is free and open to all. There’s no need to book. Continue reading

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Holiday Club, Christ Church Addiscombe, Jul 22-26

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Community safety meeting, South Norwood, Jul 19

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Council survey on future of green spaces is shutting people out

What has the council done to ensure that everyone who has access to a Croydon park also has access to its online survey about our greeen spaces?

CROYDON COMMENTARY: Is the council’s consultation on green spaces simply an exercise in providing planners with excuses to build on our less-loved parks? KIRSTIE SMITH, for one, is cynical about the exercise, which she says potentially excludes a large number of park-users

Football. Walking the dog. Keep fit. Playing the bongos. Riding the zip wire. Cricket. Rugby. Riding a bike. Going for a stroll. Having a picnic. Kids playing in the play park.

All these activities take place in my local green space. I am sure there are other activities, too, which gives an idea of how versatile, and important, our green spaces are.

Croydon Council is running a consultation on our local green spaces. They want to know which ones are important to us and why. The council says it’s in the early stages of a review, and it has a short survey online where residents are asked to select the local green space they are interested in. You can submit more than one park or green space, but it is one survey per green space, so you could be there for a while if you think more than one is important. Continue reading

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Brick by Brick chief admits failing to meet 50% affordable target

Colm Lacey, the head of the council’s house-builders, says that that there will be no council homes built and that he is missing his ‘affordable’ housing targets. BARRATT HOLMES, housing correspondent, reports

Man of action, or Action Man? BxB’s Colm Lacey admits his company has failed to properly scope its building sites

Colm Lacey, the former council employee who has risen without trace to become the “chief executive” of Brick by Brick, the council’s in-house house-builder, has been spouting off to his new best mates in the building industry.

It was another puff piece in The Architect’s Journal last week for Lacey and Brick by Brick, the loss-making developer which is struggling to sell its over-priced homes.

The 1,000-word article appeared to be little more than an exercise in blowing smoke up Lacey’s arse, as the piece announced to the magazine’s loyal and loaded subscriber base that there’s more easy money coming from Croydon for high-roller architects’ firms in the next round of  Brick by Brick developments.

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Norbury Brook summer clean, Thornton Heath Rec, Jul 20

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Charity Car Wash, Purley Fire Station, Brighton Road, Jul 20

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Newman and Scott to push through a power grab on planning

Political editor WALTER CRONXITE reports on how the de facto chair of the council’s planning committee will tonight be made even more powerful, while being made even less accountable

Paul Scott: more power, but less accountability

Buried in the lengthy agenda for tonight’s meeting of the full council is a set of proposals which will hand even more powers over planning in the borough into the hands of the controversial Labour councillor Paul Scott.

Yet while making the powerful even more powerful, the amendments to the council constitution going before the Town Hall meeting tonight will also make Scott even less accountable.

And in an extraordinary display of local government arrogance, even by the standards of Scott and his best mate, council leader Tony Newman, the changes to the constitution are being recommended even while there is an on-going review of the way the council is governed. Continue reading

Posted in Croydon Council, Jacqueline Harris-Baker, Jo Negrini, Paul Scott, Planning, Tony Newman | Tagged , , , , , , , | 5 Comments

£1.2bn council fund told it can’t invest in green schemes

When he was Chancellor, Gideon Osborne was widely criticised for not introducing more environmentally friendly economic policies, and years after he stepped down his influence remains a drag on the green ambitions of the Town Hall pension committee, as KEN LEE reports

Extinction Rebellion protesters won’t like what they see in Croydon Council’s books. Photo: Bill Mudge

Extinction Rebellion are due to protest at Croydon Town Hall tonight, ahead of the full meeting of the council. The climate emergency activists are unlikely to be impressed by the Labour council’s claims of greening the local authorities’ activities.

As council leader Tony Newman prepares to declare a climate emergency in Croydon, some are daring to suggest that all the Labour politician has done is adopt a funky new hashtag and produced yet more hot air.

After more than five years in office, all Newman has to offer is the promise of a report (another one) on a “Green Deal” for Croydon, some wildflower seeds to be scattered on unmown road verges – though that won’t be until next year – and a very modest £250,000 of annual grants for community park groups.

The only real or substantial progress on tackling climate change from Croydon Council has come in the borough’s pension fund. But now there are signs that any progress there may be short-lived, too. Continue reading

Posted in Andrew Pelling, Croydon Council, Environment, Extinction Rebellion, London-wide issues, Tony Newman, Waddon | Leave a comment

Climate emergency comes to Sutton in ‘fast fashion’ protest

Extinction Rebellion took to the streets of Sutton on Saturday to protest at the massive environmental damage caused by fast fashion. Photo: Bill Mudge

Slowly, the message is getting across.

Outside Sutton’s St Nicholas Centre on Saturday, one woman was in tears. “We’ve ruined our planet,” she said, speaking to Extinction Rebellion activists.

“It’s not fair on our children.”

Extinction Rebellion Sutton was established earlier this year during the mass protests which saw a global movement close bridges in central London and shut down roads in the city centre as a means of highlighting that time is running out for the planet due to the climate emergency caused by mankind. Continue reading

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£657,000 grant helps Family Action stage summer activities

Parents across the borough are being encouraged to sign their children up to Croydon’s biggest school summer holiday activity programme.

Croydon Council and charity Family Action are co-ordinating the free Holiday Food and Fun programme, where dozens of local groups including schools and youth clubs offer sports, activities, healthy eating classes and local trips for children aged five to 16.

Each programme covering both activities and free holiday food lasts four weeks at locations around the borough, and more than 70 providers have already signed up. Continue reading

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Libraries are ready for takeoff with Summer Reading Challenge

Fifty years on from Neil Armstrong taking that “one giant leap from mankind” to step on to the moon, and Croydon’s young readers are being encouraged to take interstellar adventures through the borough’s libraries’ Summer Reading Challenge.

And the council is offering three tablet computers – each with more processing capacity than was available to the astronauts on board lunar mission Apollo XI – available in a prize draw.

The challenge asks four- to 11-year-olds to borrow and read at least six books from their local libraries, starting this weekend and by Saturday September 14.

According to the council, “In the Summer Reading Challenge Space Chase, children will team up with futuristic family ‘the Rockets’ for an exciting space mission as they track down books nabbed by a mischievous band of aliens. Continue reading

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Governance review costs soar as Newman nobbles the panel

A report on the way in which Croydon Council is governed, already three months late, will now not be finished until the end of the year, and is costing four times its original budget.

A review of how the Town Hall is run, which was due in May, won’t be finished until December

The Croydon governance review – a Labour Party manifesto promise as recently as last year – was due to be completed by May and was budgeted to cost no more than £25,000.

But according to papers submitted ahead of Monday’s Town Hall full council meeting, the governance report won’t now be finished until December (and that’s at the earliest), but will now cost at least £100,000.

The less-than-independent panel, chaired by Dame Moira Gibb, a former chief exec of Camden Council, has been expanded to 11, including another two councillors, while external consultants have been called in to give the appearance that some work is actually being done. Continue reading

Posted in Clive Fraser, Croydon Council, Hamida Ali, Joy Prince, Simon Hall, Tony Newman | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments