Responsible waste disposal matters more than ever in Croydon

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As Croydon continues to grow and evolve, keeping the borough clean has become a shared responsibility between local authorities, businesses and residents.

Whether people are renovating their homes, moving house or simply clearing out unwanted belongings, planning for waste removal is an important part of the process.

Disposing of bulky items responsibly helps prevent fly-tipping, supports recycling efforts and keeps neighbourhoods looking their best. While everyday household rubbish is collected regularly, larger items often require extra planning to ensure they are removed legally and with minimal environmental impact. Continue reading

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Pioneer of sociology whose book called for an evolution

CROYDON CHRONICLES: A quiet residential street in South Croydon was where one of the leading works of 19th-Century philosophy was drafted and written. DAVID MORGAN looks at the life and works of Benjamin Kidd

After Benjamin Kidd died of heart failure at his home at 39 Blenheim Park Road in South Croydon on Monday October 2, 1916, obituaries were published nationally as well as locally. The news even reached Australia, with a paragraph in the Adelaide Advertiser later that week.

Kidd had been catapulted into worldwide status in 1894 with the publication of his book, Social Evolution.

Social pioneer: Benjamin Kidd was published around the world in the 1890s

Born in Ireland, Kidd was a career civil servant. But he spent much of his spare time with his nose deep in books, and had been writing essays, pamphlets and articles for several years. But Social Evolution was his first venture into writing at length about a subject which fascinated him.

It took him two years to draft, write and edit the book, after collecting evidence and developing his thoughts about life. Not for Kidd the academic view of the world from a university chair, but from a working man’s perspective.

As with all authors, stories of angst emerged about the writing process.

On one sunny day Kidd was writing outdoors when a breeze carried away a few pages of foolscap. Kidd was not amused. “Those pages carried sentences which, one day, would have been read by the whole civilised world,” he said. Continue reading

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Eco Living Fest, Holy Innocents South Norwood, Sat July 18

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Gardening bargains, MHA The Wilderness, Shirley, Mon-Fri

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Songbird Showcase Night, The Oval Tavern, Sat July 18, 8pm

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TfL trams boss in public appeal to take care crossing the tracks

UNDER THE FLYOVER VIDEO EXCLUSIVE
In our latest podcast, TfL’s Mark Davis urges pedestrians and motorists to exercise due care when crossing tramway, where there’s ‘one near-miss a week’. PLUS: We reveal how a tram has been driven the wrong way round the Croydon town centre loop to prepare for this summer’s engineering works

Inside Croydon can reveal how the operators of the London Trams network have been conducting test runs on the town centre circuit with trams running “the wrong way” – anti-clockwise between Reeves Corner, Church Street and George Street to East Croydon in preparation for a three-week closure in August to carry out track replacement works.

Mark Davis, Transport for London’s general manager of the tram network, revealed the test runs during an Under The Flyover podcast for this website. Continue reading

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Wildfire risk rated as ‘extreme’ as Brigade issues public advice

Tinder box: wildfires have become increasingly common in and around Croydon’s parks and green spaces. Inside Croydon was on the scene in 2023 at Roundshaw Downs when this grass fire took more than two hours to get under control

London is facing an “extreme” wildfire risk this weekend, with more days of hot and sunny weather following the prolonged dry spell.

That’s according to the London Fire Brigade, who have been handling record numbers of call-outs during the latest heatwave.

The latest assessment by the Natural Hazards Partnership shows the risk of wildfires in London will grow from today until at least Monday. The assessment is driven by factors including further prolonged dry weather and heat as well as wind speed and direction. Continue reading

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Up! Up! And away! You’re invited to Crystal Palace celebrations

Free flight: balloon rides were popular with visitors to the Crystal Palace more than 150 years ago

After more than a year of regeneration works, key areas of Crystal Palace Park have been transformed, including the world-famous Grade I-listed dinosaurs, while the new Visitor Centre is ready to open and a dinosaur adventure playground has been built.

Other updates and improvements have been made to pathways, the park’s landscapes, accessibility and spaces “for everyone to enjoy”, says the Crystal Palace Park Trust, ahead of a weekend of celebrations to mark the transformation – and you’re invited to attend and take part in the free activities. Continue reading

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Three men in court charged over Livingstone Road murder

Three men have been charged with murder following the death of a 23-year-old man in what eyewitnesses described as “a knife fight” on Livingstone Road, Thornton Heath, on Thursday.

Murder charges: Rodrigo Gomes Da Silva, Caio Vinicius and Weder Da Costa, all from South Norwood, are due to appear in court today

Police were called at 4.52am to reports of an assault, but found no trace of any victim or suspects at the scene when they arrived.

Soon after, a man arrived at hospital “with injuries consistent with a stab wound”. He died soon after. He has since been named as Matheus Dos Santos Mori.

The three suspects were arrested later on Thursday. Continue reading

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Ruskin House Folk and Blues Festival, Coombe Road, July 18

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Blues at the Oval, Sunday nights in July from 6pm, entry free

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Perry promises – again – Bridge to Nowhere to open ‘next year’

Bridge to Nowhere: 14 years after its installation and three years after the Cherry Orchard Road link was finally completed, the bridge is  still not open at both ends

Fifteen years since he was the cabinet member responsible for the botched legal agreement with developers that allowed Menta to deny public bodies necessary access to complete the £22million pedestrian bridge at East Croydon, and Jason Perry, now the Mayor of Croydon, is trying to claim the credit for finally getting it finished.

Blob the builder: Jason Perry was the cabinet member in charge in 2011 when the flawed deal with Menta was agreed

Except the Bridge to Nowhere remains just that, still without the long-promised access from the Cherry Orchard Road, eastern end, and now even by Perry’s council’s best guess, unlikely to be open for at least another five months, in 2027.

Works on the bridge, and its eastern access point, were completed in 2023, when developers Menta finished their Blossoms housing developments alongside the London-to-Brighton railway tracks.

Menta have had this £22million-worth of public infrastructure literally on the doorsteps of the residents of their tower blocks since 2012.

Yet no agreement was reached to open up access from the eastern side of the tracks, for Menta’s residents or anyone else in Addiscombe. Continue reading

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Boomer Harris setting records on way to Surrey’s T20 finals

HOOK’S SHOT: The county’s women’s side are guaranteed a place in the T20 finals at The Oval next week, with the men’s side closing in on a place. Here, MARCUS HOOK interviews the players, including Laura Harris and Jason Roy, about their latest, impressive batting achievements 

Things are hotting up for Surrey in the  T20 competitions. While the men, as in the County Championship, have failed to establish any momentum, the women are through to T20 finals day at The Oval next Friday.

All-round talent: Surrey’s Alice Monaghan

Surrey, the defending T20 women’s champions, will be joined in the last four on July 17 by Durham, Hampshire and either Nottingham’s “The Blaze” or Somerset, who are playing today.

The concluding round of group matches on Sunday see Surrey entertain Hampshire in what many are billing a rehearsal ahead of the final.

The combination of Maia Bouchier with the bat and all-rounder Georgia Adams (daughter of Surrey’s former director of cricket, Chris) have given Hampshire an air of near invincibility in this season’s T20 Blast. Continue reading

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Flook’s off! Reform candidate quits job at Wallington grammar

Grifter-in-chief Nigel Farage is not the only Reform Ltd figure to have announced his resignation this week.

Grifters united: school teacher Ben Flook at his campaign launch earlier this year with multi-millionaire Nigel Farage (far right)

Ben Flook, the Reform candidate in May’s Croydon mayoral election, has handed in his notice, too.

Flook works as a senior member of staff at Wallington County Grammar School, the boys’ selective school on Croydon Road where he teaches… checks notes … politics!

Parents were advised yesterday in a note from the school that “Mr Flook” will be leaving at the end of the summer term.

Flook has retained his position at the school throughout the time he was Conservative Party candidate in Chesterfield at the 2024 General Election, and then this year, when he was the controversial and somewhat chaotic third-choice pick (at best) as Reform’s candidate for Mayor of Croydon. Continue reading

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LibDems win in Streatham as Greens retain Lambeth control

WALTER CRONXITE, Political Editor, on another bad night for Steve Reed, the MP for Streatham (and Croydon North when he can be bothered)

Brixton bounce: Lamebth’s LibDems celebrate the by-election win for Alex Davies (front row, spectacles)

“‘Burnham bounce’ in London could stop so many voters deserting Labour to the Greens and LibDems” chirped the London SubStandard today, the morning after Labour had lost two by-elections in Steve Reed’s fiefdom of Lambeth, to the Greens and the LibDems.

With the parliamentary Labour party’s nominations all in, Andy Burnham, this time last month the Mayor of Greater Manchester, is expected to become Prime Minister by the end of July.

Today’s virtual evening newspaper’s headline (was the story really by-lined to “Phil Space”?) was based on the results of an opinion poll. A day before, the SubStandard was reporting the results of another opinion poll, this one predicting large Labour losses in London to the Greens if a parliamentary election was to be held today. Continue reading

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Lanfranc Memorial rededicated ahead of air crash anniversary

Re-dedication: Bishop Rosemarie Mallett led the service in the memorial garden on Monday.  Photo: Emma Sears/reelfeelproductions

By NEIL BENNETT

The memorial to the Croydon schoolboys and teachers who died in the 1961 air crash in Norway has been rededicated in a ceremony at Croydon Cemetery.

More than 200 relatives, classmates and family friends, gathered in the Lanfranc Memorial Garden to hear the service led by the Bishop of Croydon, Rt Rev Dr Rosemarie Mallett. The service followed, as closely as possible, the original memorial event that was held in 1962.

In total, 34 teenaged boys from what was then the Lanfranc Secondary Modern School, as well as two teachers and three aircrew died when the aeroplane taking the boys on a summer camping holiday in Norway crashed into a mountain as it tried to land at Stavanger Airport.

The cause of the crash has never been confirmed. Continue reading

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What AI tagging means for your image searches in 2026

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Anyone who has ever lost half a morning hunting for one photo knows the problem. The file existed, someone uploaded it, and now nobody can find it. AI tagging is the feature quietly fixing that, and in 2026 it’s turning up almost everywhere you store images.

How auto-tagging reads your images

When you upload an image, the AI scans what’s in the picture and generates keyword tags on its own. A photo of a fruit stall on Surrey Street in Croydon might come back tagged with “market”, “stall”, “outdoor” and “shopping”, without anyone typing a word.

It does this by recognising shapes, objects, colours and scenes it has been trained on.

The more an image matches patterns the model knows well, the more confident and accurate the tags will be. Continue reading

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Eco Living Fest, Holy Innocents South Norwood, Sat July 18

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LibDems’ £1m costs and damages in Campanale challenge

INSIDE SUTTON: Time could be running out for MP Luke Taylor, as former party leader Tim Farron joins calls for an independent inquiry into the nasty and illegal campaign waged against a properly selected candidate

Happy days: David Campanale (left) with party leader Ed Davey. The LibDems have admitted they broke discrimination law over Campanale’s deselection

The simmering scandal over the Liberal Democrats’ deselection of their candidate for Sutton and Cheam because … checks notes… he is a Christian, could end up costing the party a cool £1million, and make the position of the party leader, Ed Davey and his shadow spokesman for London, Luke Taylor MP, entirely untenable.

When the LibDems’ Tewkesbury MP Cameron Thomas was arrested last month, the party leadership could not suspend him quickly enough.

Yet, in Sutton, Taylor continues to take the LibDem parliamentary whip, despite his part in an often vicious bullying campaign against a selection rival, David Campanale, that has seen his party dragged through the courts and forced to admit illegal discrimination and harassment. Continue reading

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£275,000: Loadsamoney Perry breaks the bank for new CEO

Job’s a good ‘un: Croydon’s cash-strapped council has hiked the rate for the top job at Fisher’s Folly by more than 20%, to £275,000 per year. Plus pension. Plus exes

CROYDON IN CRISIS: As the council faces having to replace its interim CEO with an interim interim CEO, the Mayor splashes the cash to try to find someone for what he calls ‘London’s most important leadership role’

Loadsamoney: recently re-elected Mayor Jason Perry has failed to stabilise the finances at a council which is now £1.7bn in debt

Recruitment ads for the cash-strapped council’s new chief executive officer have appeared offering the successful applicant a salary of £275,000 per year, plus exes and a mammoth pension pot.

That’s £50,000 more in salary than the incumbent, Elaine Jackson, is being paid.

It will place the CEO of Croydon Council in a pay bracket with the top four or five local authority staffers in England and Wales.

Croydon Council has debts of £1.7billion, and has needed government bail-outs with emergency loans every year since 2020. Twelve months ago, the government appointed Commissioners to oversee the management of Croydon’s finances. Continue reading

Posted in Brick by Brick, Commissioners, Conrad Hall, Council Tax, Croydon Council, Dean Shoesmith, Elaine Jackson, Ged Curran, Jenny Rowlands, Jo Negrini, Katherine Kerswell, Mayor Jason Perry, Nathan Elvery, Section 114 notice | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 7 Comments

Do you recognise your council as described in the CEO job ad?

CROYDON IN CRISIS
In the recruitment ad, are the Commissioners seeking a competent and experienced civic administrator with more than the charisma of a dead fish for the role of council chief executive?
Or are they looking for a knight in shining armour with the ability to perform minor miracles? Read the job description here and make up your own mind (and if you know what ‘a borough with momentum’ is supposed to mean, answers on a postcard, please…)

Croydon: London’s largest borough
London’s most important leadership role
A borough with momentum

Croydon is a borough defined by its aspiration. As London’s largest borough, it is home to extraordinary communities, creativity and potential. It sits at the heart of south London’s economy, with the scale, energy and aspiration to shape its own future and its place within London.

Croydon is also a borough that has faced profound challenges. In recent years, the council has taken decisive action to confront an unprecedented financial crisis. It has made difficult decisions to stabilise its position, strengthen governance, and rebuild the foundations of the council. That work is well underway. Progress is being made through improving services, greater financial discipline, and a clearer sense of direction. Continue reading

Posted in Brick by Brick, Commissioners, Conrad Hall, Council Tax, Croydon Council, Dean Shoesmith, Elaine Jackson, Ged Curran, Jenny Rowlands, Jo Negrini, Katherine Kerswell, Mayor Jason Perry, Nathan Elvery, Section 114 notice | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 7 Comments

London bus and tram fares to rise by 10p from November

An inflation-busting fare increase on Croydon’s trams and London buses “will be hard to take for passengers”, according to a transport watchdog.

Going up: after a three-year fare freeze, Tram and bus fares are set to rise in November

Single bus and tram fares will increase 10p to £1.85 on November 1, Transport for London announced at the weekend, as they extended a fares freeze across the networks by a further four months.

Tube fares were increased in March, but bus fares were kept at the same level until July 5. Tram fares have been linked to Tube fares since TfL has operated the network. Continue reading

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Perry tries to hide homelessness service with South End move

CROYDON IN CRISIS: Just hours before his council was due at the High Court to face a possible Judicial Review over its closure of Access Croydon, the Mayor announced that he was moving the housing service.
EXCLUSIVE by STEVEN DOWNES

Judicial Review: Mayor Jason Perry must have a season ticket for the High Court, his council has to defend cases there so frequently

With Jason Perry and Croydon Council virtually on the steps of the Royal Courts of Justice for today’s hearing before a High Court judge over the closure of Access Croydon, at the 11th hour yesterday evening the calamity council issued a note proclaiming a change in service.

Not that the shift of a housing front desk to a building on South End is likely to materially alter the grounds of the legal test case, since Perry’s omnishambles council maintains that appointments to see council housing staff will still need to be by appointment only.

It is almost as if no one at Perry’s council has quite grasped the fundamental point of the application for a Judicial Review over the closure of public access to statutory services.

The legal case, with the backing of 30 Croydon voluntary organisations and charities, is being brought over claims that the council’s cost-cutting move to shut itself off from the people it is supposed to serve breaks the law in respect of its statutory responsibilities for homeless people. Continue reading

Posted in Bernard Weatherill House, Council Tax, Croydon Council, Housing, Katherine Kerswell, Mayor Jason Perry | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 9 Comments

Croydon High takes a stand at the Royal Society exhibition

Pupils from Croydon High School who are trying to become the first in the world from an all-girls school to design, build and launch a satellite into space, have reached another stellar milestone after showcasing their research at the Royal Society Summer Science Exhibition.

Examing the science: a long-term school project, Mission Pegasus, is seeing pupils at Croydon High developing essential skills

Last week, the school’s Astrogazers Physics Club presented research demonstrating how sunlight can be used to monitor atmospheric pollution from space – work that forms part of Mission Pegasus, the pupils’ ambitious satellite programme.

As part of Mission Pegasus, pupils have been working with the University of Bath and Spirent Communications to investigate how changes in sunlight intensity and wavelength can be used to monitor atmospheric particles and air quality, through the Royal Society Partnership Grants Scheme.

This year, that work resulted in the Royal Society inviting Croydon High to take an stand at their summer exhibition, attended by some of the world’s most eminent scientists. Continue reading

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Green-eyed monster prowls the stage in South Norwood

Othello opens at the Shoestring Theatre in South Norwood tomorrow night, with Kristian Michael Swaby, recognised last week at the Croydon Youth Awards, leading the cast.

Swaby won the Creative Expression prize at the awards. for his “exceptional talent, dedication and contribution to the arts”, and is now taking on one of William Shakespeare’s most demanding roles in the Croydon Youth Theatre Organisation’s production.

Wednesday July 9 is opening night for Othello, with performances at 7pm also on July 10 and 11. Continue reading

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