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Unexpected Treasure history talk, Honeywood Museum, Sep 26
Posted in Education, History, Honeywood Museum, Schools
Tagged Carshalton, Friends of Honeywood Museum, Honeywood Museum
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READER OFFER: Join us for Ken Towl’s Magical Mystery Tour
Where will Ken Towl take us on his Magical Mystery Tour?
Inside Croydon’s non-resident rambler is off on his travels again soon. And this time, he’s giving iC’s loyal readers the chance to tag along for the trip.
Saturday, April 6, will be Inside Croydon’s first public guided walk, with Ken Towl leading the way to places less well-travelled, venturing into sometimes forgotten corners of this bit of south London.
Best of all, taking part in this Inside Croydon guided walk is completely free of charge!
Ken Towl’s walks in and around Croydon have been regular and well-read features on this website, and this is your chance to take part in one of them in the company of fellow iC readers, with Ken offering his expert guidance and information along the way.
We’re keeping our OS Map close to our chest at the moment, but Towl has a secret route marked out that he reckons will cover about four miles, taking at least two hours at a comfortable pace for most people, and which will include a tea and coffee stop along the way, with a pub at the finish for those who would like a spot of lunch. Continue reading
Posted in Inside Croydon, Ken Towl, Pubs, Walks
Tagged Inside Croydon, Inside Croydon Guided Walk, Ken Towl
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LibDems’ EIGHT complaints against Mattey are all rejected
Our Sutton staff reporter, BELLE MONT, on how the council’s ruling group are looking like very bad losers
Ruth Dombey: other councillors say she is ‘out to get’ Mattey
The Liberal Democrats on Sutton Council are going against the tide of national politics, with their leader accused of saying, “Independents don’t get elected in Sutton.”
Ruth Dombey, the leader of Sutton Council, was heard to make that remark at a “become a councillor” meeting staged last year. Her bold assertion was quickly shown to be wrong when three independents were indeed elected to Sutton Council last May.
But the Liberal Democrats who control Sutton Council have taken their defeat in Beddington North ward so badly that Dombey’s councillors and activists have lodged no fewer than eight formal complaints against independent councillor Nick Mattey since the local elections were staged last May.
That works out at one official complaint per month since the LibDems had their majority on the council whittled down to just 12, in part, due to the efforts of independent candidates. Continue reading
Croydon Philharmonic Choir in concert, Addiscombe, Mar 30
Posted in Art, Croydon Philharmonic Choir, Music
Tagged Addiscombe, Croydon Philharmonic Choir
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Friends of Honeywood Book Club, Carshalton, from Apr 7
Posted in Activities, Honeywood Museum
Tagged Carshalton, Friends of Honeywood Museum, Honeywood Museum
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BINMAGEDDON!: Ex-deputy mayor’s Kafkaesque bin misery
Former Croydon Council leader Val Shawcross has called for Veolia to be sacked because of its rubbish service, as KEN LEE reports
“What chance do ordinary residents have of getting the sort of service that they pay for if even a former council leader and, until last year, a deputy mayor of London can be ignored by Croydon’s rubbish contractors?”
Not until Val Shawcross had ‘taken to Twitter’ did she get the bin collection service that she pays for
That was the question posed by a serving Labour councillor after they had seen Valerie Shawcross, for 16 years a London Assembly Member, make a plaintive appeal via social media to get her green waste emptied after it was missed for three collections running.
“If Kafka did a waste service, this would be it,” Shawcross tweeted, after she had become enmeshed in the council’s online reporting system that prevented her from reporting the missed bin collections.
Green waste collections are optional for Croydon households, who have to pay £61.50 for what is promised is an extra, fortnightly collection service.
In her tweets, Shawcross accused Croydon’s rubbish contractors, Veolia, of lying in their reports that claimed the bin had been emptied. Continue reading
Potter named winner of £30,000 Rotary Fields art competition
Alan Potter, a sculptor based in Scotland who specialises in public art, has won Croydon Council’s £30,000 competition to design and install a sculpture in Purley’s Rotary Fields to commemorate the Surrey Iron Railway, which ran through the town at the dawning of the Industrial Revolution 200 years ago.
Potter’s ‘iron horse’ design for the sculpture to be installed in Rotary Fields
Potter’s “Iron Horse” design beat another 22 entrants in the competition, which was announced in November with the intention of producing a work which will celebrate the heritage of one of the first railways in the world.
Croydon Council has yet to confirm the outcome of its competition, but Purley councillors have today named Potter as the winner.
The railway was established by Act of Parliament in 1801 and opened in 1802 as a toll railway, on which carriers used horses to draw laden wagons of coal, building materials, lime, manure, corn and seeds. The track operated until 1837, and at its zenith horse-drawn trains ran all the way from the Thames at Wandsworth through Mitcham, Croydon and Purley, to Merstham and Godstone. Part that track is still visible in Rotary Field. Continue reading
Black theatre group handed studio space at Fairfield Halls
A renowned black drama group, the Talawa Theatre Company, has been given offices and use of a 200-seat studio theatre at the refurbished Fairfield Halls in Croydon when it reopens in September.
The refurbished Fairfield Halls will re-open… eventually
The building will enable black artists “to make outstanding work which will truly diversify and shape the cultural life of the whole country”, Talawa’s artistic director, Michael Buffong, said today.
Talawa was established in 1986 as the first professional black theatre company in Britain. One of its missions was to provide black actors with roles they were not getting in the West End.
The Fairfield Halls venue managers, Bournemouth-based BHLive, have previously announced the award-winning and inclusive Savvy Theatre Company as providing the Fairfield’s community arts programme.
The Fairfield Halls closed in June 2016 for what was supposed to be a two-year, £30million refurbishment of the prestigious venue, which comprised a concert hall, the Ashcroft Theatre and the Arnhem Gallery.
The Fairfield’s venue management and its publicists have not stated where the Talawa’s studio theatre might be located within the arts complex. The Arnhem Gallery – which used to provide some space for studio theatre and music concerts – has been demolished as part of the refurb works, with BHLive going against public opinion and renaming the two-storey space replacing it “The Croydon Wreck”, whose major attraction is supposed to be an ice rink in the winter.
The upper floor of the Wreck seems the likely option for the studio theatre.
BAFTA Fellow Samuelson to attend David Lean screening
Sir Sydney Samuelson on a previous visit to the David Lean Cinema. Photo by Wally Conquy
One of the most renowned figures associated with British film-making – Sir Sydney Samuelson – is coming to the David Lean Cinema next Tuesday, to introduce a screening of a recently restored film that his father produced in 1923.
A Couple of Down And Outs is the charming story of a decorated corporal who rescues one of his wartime horses from slaughter. It’s a rare opportunity to see a film with a World War I theme that was made so soon after the war ended.
Sir Sydney’s father George was one of the pioneers of British cinema and ran GB Samuelson Productions from 1914 to 1933.
Sir Sydney enjoyed a successful career as a cinematographer and producer, and also created Samuelson’s Film Service in the mid-1950s, providing equipment hire services to the film and TV industry. He became a Trustee and the first chairman of BAFTA from 1973-1976. Continue reading
Croydon Amnesty Quiz Night, Ruskin House, Mar 23
Posted in Activities, Amnesty Croydon, Charity, Ruskin House
Tagged Croydon Amnesty, Ruskin House
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Council threatens to quadruple Council Tax bills on empty flats
Our housing correspondent BARRATT HOLMES on the slow introduction of increased local taxes in an effort to deter the borough’s ‘executive apartments’ being used as investment vehicles and not as homes
Innova House, an office-to-residential development next to the Croydon Flyover, has been marketed to Chinese investors
Absentee landlords with homes deliberately left vacant could face punitive annual Council Tax bills of nearly £7,000 under proposals to be rubber-stamped at next week’s Croydon Town Hall cabinet meeting.
The Labour council wants to deter investors from buying up flats in the borough and then leaving them empty, while hundreds struggle to put a roof over their families’ heads.
Using London’s soaring property market as a get-rich-quick scheme has been a popular and tax-efficient option for wealthy Chinese and Middle East speculators for more than a decade, but it has seen hundreds of new flats in the capital left vacant for years at a time, while the owners count their profits in the ever-rising value of their property investment.
Posted in Alison Butler, Council Tax, Croydon Council, Housing
Tagged Alison Butler, Council Tax, Croydon Council, Housing, Labour
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Seven in the running for Norbury and Pollards Hill by-election
KEN LEE, our Town Hall reporter, goes through the runners and riders for next month’s council by-election
There are to be seven candidates in the Norbury and Pollards Hill ward by-election being staged on March 14, after UKIP and the LibDems, who didn’t bother contesting the ward at the local elections just nine months ago, this time managed to scrape together candidates and the nominees required to get to the start line.
The by-election has been called following the death last month of long-standing Labour councillor Maggie Mansell, with the nominations being released yesterday.
As well as five candidates from established parties, there’s also two independents, though neither are thought to have any thing to do with Chuka Umunna. There are no communist or socialist party candidates, and no Monster Raving Loonies. At least, none who have admitted as much so far. Continue reading
Posted in Leila Ben-Hassel, Norbury
Tagged Conservative, Green Party, Kathleen Garner, Labour, Leila Ben-Hassel, Liberal Democrats, Norbury, Norbury and Pollards Hill, Tory, UKIP
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A Plastic Ocean free screening, East Croydon, Mar 19
Posted in Croydon Friends of the Earth, Environment, Wildlife
Tagged Croydon Friends of the Earth
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Sanderstead Library poetry competition, deadline Apr 13
Posted in Libraries, Poetry
Tagged Sanderstead, Sanderstead Library, Sanderstead Residents' Association
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MP in plea: Don’t let tax-dodging online retailers ruin our town
Political editor WALTER CRONXITE on the growing concerns surrounding the redevelopment of the town centre
Sarah Jones MP: questions in the House
Sarah Jones, the MP for Croydon Central where Westfield and Hammerson were supposed to have built a retail mega-mall by 2017, has asked for an urgent meeting with Christophe Cuvillier, the chief executive of the French parent company which announced last week that it is “reviewing” its plans for the £1.4billion centre.
Jones says that the grand plan for Croydon town centre’s retail regeneration has been undermined because of “tax-dodging online retailers”.
Croydon Labour MP Reed is quick to reject Umunna’s splitters
The ex-Labour MPs at their launch this morning. Umunna, immaculate in his bespoke suit, appropriately is on the right
STEVEN DOWNES on reactions and responses to the not-so-magnificent seven’s resignation from the Labour Party
The bitter, decade-long personal, political feud between Chuka Umunna and Steve Reed OBE may have played a significant factor in the former vice-chair of Progress today stating determinedly that he would be remaining a Labour member and not joining the seven splitters who announced their resignation from the party this morning. Continue reading
Posted in Croydon Central, Croydon North, Jack Buck, London-wide issues, Sadiq Khan, Sarah Jones MP, Steve Reed MP
Tagged Chuka Umunna, Croydon, Croydon Central, Croydon North, Labour, London, Mayor, Steve Reed OBE
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Cancer charity’s Youth Convention will have Town Hall buzzing
Croydon Town Hall this coming Friday, February 22, will be buzzing with live music, speakers and workshops, as it hosts the first Youth Convention, a free day of entertainment and personal growth for young people, organised by the Duffus Cancer Foundation.
The Duffus Youth Convention is offering a wide range of activities this Friday
From boxing and dance sessions to creative writing, the aim of the day is to support young people’s wellbeing.
Acts on the day include Beats and Eats DJ workshops, Chris Lewis (award-winning global speaker) and Gloves not Gunz (tackling youth violence and crime through boxing). Continue reading
What’s Happened To Croydon’s Birds, Shirley Library, Apr 23
What’s Happened To Croydon’s Birds?
John Birkett, an enthusiastic member of Croydon RSPB, gives an illustrated talk on how the borough’s bird population has changed in recent years.
Tuesday April 23 from 2.15pm.
Contact Shirley Library to book your free place. Continue reading
Posted in Environment, Libraries, Shirley North, Wildlife
Tagged Croydon RSPB, Shirley, Shirley Library
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