Selsdon Road estate agent shortlisted for businesswoman prize

Posted on August 4, 2025 by insidecroydon

Michelle McPherson, the founder of Hyde and Rowe estate agents based on Selsdon Road, South Croydon, has been hailed as a “trailblazer” after being shortlisted for a prize at the 2025 Best Businesswomen Awards.

Estate agent and author: Michelle McPherson

Hyde and Rowe describe their business as a “truly exclusive independent luxury property agency, specialising in the sales, acquisition and lettings of luxury properties”. McPherson’s business empire now includes four businesses generating a combined annual turnover of £7million.

She is also the author of The Female I Am, and she is now expanding Hyde and Rowe through franchising.

McPherson has been shortlisted in the Lifetime Achievement category of the Best Businesswomen Awards.

Debbie Gilbert, the founder of the Best Businesswomen Awards, said: “This is the 11th year of these awards, and once again, we’ve seen an incredible calibre of entries. Continue reading →

Posted in Business, South Croydon | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments

Best Polonius you’ll never see: Miles Malleson’s classic clown

Posted on August 3, 2025 by insidecroydon

SUNDAY SUPPLEMENT: Born in South Croydon in 1888, actor and playwright Miles Malleson’s work drew plaudits from Olivier, Thorndike and Gielgud. DAVID MORGAN recalls the life, career and campaigning of a well-recognised but often overlooked talent

Character actor, and so much more: Croydon-born Miles Malleson

Alice Malleson, one of Croydon’s generous Victorian philanthropists, is remembered with a plaque on the north wall of Croydon Minster. When she died, in September 1901, she left the lease of her home on Park Lane to Myrrha, the wife of her nephew, Edmund.

Myrrah and Edmund, who was described as a manufacturing chemist, were married in 1887 and initially lived at Roslyn, Avondale Road in South Croydon (no record seems to exist to indicate which house number Roslyn relates to today; unless, of course, any of our readers can assist).

Myrrha and Edmund had two children: a son, William Miles Malleson, was born in May 1888, and a daughter, named Alice, followed in 1890.

Miles Malleson grew up to be one of the great British actors, screenwriters and playwrights of the 20th century, described as the finest Shakespearean clown of his generation. Continue reading →

Posted in Art, Church and religions, Croydon Minster, David Morgan, History, Theatre | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 4 Comments

Ratty’s back! Rewilding on the Hogsmill helps endangered vole

Posted on August 3, 2025 by insidecroydon

There is something of a quintessential English summer that is conjured up by Kenneth Grahame’s delightfully quaint Wind In The Willows, and the adventures of Mole, Badger, Toad and, of course, Ratty.

Making a comeback: water voles have been released on the Hogsmill near Kingston and at Ewell

Ratty has been described, by the Daily Torygraph, no less, as, “Dependable and thoroughly decent, with a fondness for impromptu picnics and impeccable taste in clothes, this twinkly-eyed country gentleman would take you out for a glorious day on the river before asking you, as the sun began to set and he draped his jacket over your shoulders, whether you’d care to have dinner with him next week.”

Except, of course, Ratty isn’t really a rat.

He’s a water vole, the country’s largest vole. Perhaps a little less attractive in the flesh than as portrayed by Grahame, the presence of water voles has become one of the critical measures of the health, or lack of it, of local ecosystems, especially around river banks and the sides of lakes or ponds across the country. Continue reading →

Posted in Charity, Community associations, Environment, Epsom and Ewell, Kingston, Outside Croydon, Surrey, Thames Water, Wildlife | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 5 Comments

The 2025 Stan Allen Mile, Tooting Bec Track, Wed Sep 3

Posted on August 3, 2025 by insidecroydon

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Carserides gets new job as a lobbyist offering inside influence

Posted on August 2, 2025 by insidecroydon

Who does your local councillor really represent? It’s a reasonable question for all residents to ask, particularly those in South Norwood.
By WALTER CRONXITE, Political Editor

Long-time aide: Carserides worked for Steve Reed in various capacities since 2018, including a spell as a DEFRA SPAD

Just who does Labour councillor Louis Carserides represent?

It’s not an unreasonable question for the residents of his ward, South Norwood, to ask about the former close aide to environment secretary Steve Reed, as Carserides winds down his short-lived spell as an elected councillor, while still collecting allowances from the cash-strapped council.

With the council in crisis and the government sending in Commissioners, Carserides was a no-show at the latest meeting of full council last month. South Norwood residents also relate that not much has been seen of the former rising star of Croydon Labour for a while.

Inside Croydon reported last month how, after only five years as a local councillor, Carserides’ once promising political career will come to an end next May, as he has not sought selection to stand as a Labour candidate in the 2026 local elections.

Carserides had already quit his day job as a SPAD, a special adviser, in the Department for the Environment, Farming and Rural Affairs, just a few months after his long-time boss, Reed, had been handed a front-bench job in government following last year’s General Election. Continue reading →

Posted in Croydon Council, Louis Carserides, South Norwood, Stephen Lawrence-Orumwense, Steve Reed MP, Streatham and Croydon North, Stuart King, Tony Newman | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 4 Comments

Sutton fear ‘Croydonisation’ as developers chalk up extra flats

Posted on August 2, 2025 by insidecroydon

Profit-hungry developers have been given permission to build more than 1,000 flats in Chalk Gardens, the town centre site of the former B&Q store

Optimistic: work is underway on the site on Carshalton Road, for eight tower blocks of up to 21 storeys. Will any homes really be ready in 2026?

It seems that 970 flats in one of the biggest residential developments in Sutton, at something called Chalk Gardens, was just not enough to satisfy profit-hungry Berkeley Homes, who this week got a rubber-stamp of approval from City Hall for an additional 44 units to be built on the site of the former B&Q store in the town centre.

Just those extra units could have an estimated retail value of more than £12million for the builders.

This latest decision follows the December 2023 planning permission for the development on the one-way system overlooking Manor Park which caused howls of anguish from residents and opposition councillors, including complaints about the “Croydonisation” of the town centre. And not meant in a good way, you understand.

But with LibDem councillor “Calamity” Jayne McCoy now leading Sutton’s planning committee, what could possibly go wrong? Continue reading →

Posted in Business, Housing, Jayne McCoy, London-wide issues, Planning, Property, Sutton Council | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 13 Comments

Old Walcountians: Want to play rugby? Then join our club!

Posted on August 2, 2025 by insidecroydon

A D V E R T I S E M E N T

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The Fiery Spirits: John Rees history talk, Ruskin House, Aug 6

Posted on August 2, 2025 by insidecroydon

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‘Traumatic’ reaction to Spurgeon’s College’s abrupt closure

Posted on August 1, 2025 by insidecroydon

Spurgeon’s College, based in grand buildings on South Norwood Hill and one of the country’s oldest theological institutions, with a history that goes back almost 170 years, yesterday announced that it was closing with immediate effect because of insurmountable financial pressures.

Sudden closure: Spurgeon’s College, which has been based in their South Norwood home since 1923, gave no notice of this sudden decision

The college’s board of trustees said that Spurgeon’s had “no choice” but to declare the college insolvent following the abrupt termination of a key funding partnership.

The college, aligned with the baptist, Christian church, was founded in 1856 by Charles Spurgeon as “Pastors’ College”.

It adopted its current name in honour of its founder when moving to its current building in 1923.

Public records at Companies House hint at the gathering financial storm facing Sturgeon’s, with four directors, including Rev Prof Philip McCormack, the chair of the board and college principal, all having resigned since June this year. Continue reading →

Posted in Business, Charity, Church and religions, Community associations, Karen Jewitt, South Norwood, Thornton Heath | Tagged , , , , , , | 8 Comments

Costa Del Croydon offers beach experience unlike any other

Posted on August 1, 2025 by insidecroydon

Westfield’s latest sop for failing to deliver the long-promised regeneration of the town centre has been to have tons of sand dumped on the top of a shopping centre’s multi-storey car park. KEN TOWL donned his ‘Kiss Me Quick’ hat and went along to find out what all the fuss is about

Oh, the glamour: shopping centre managers Westfield have ensured that the signage to the car park is clear

It’s the old problem. What do you do when you go to the beach and it rains?

What might be a bit of a downer on the Costa del Sol or on Brighton beach is less of a problem at a costa closer to home.

Starting today, for the whole of the month of August, there is a beach in the centre of Croydon, on the roof of Centrale shopping centre, and, because the people running it know that the sun doesn’t always shine on Croydon, they have added a load of weather-proof activities.

Yesterday, for a press preview, in between the showers and the storms, they needed it. Continue reading →

Posted in "Hammersfield", Activities, Business, Centrale, Costa del Croydon, Ken Towl, North End Quarter, Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

Croydon’s rubbish High Street: what they say versus the reality

Posted on August 1, 2025 by insidecroydon

Croydon Council’s propaganda department was busy this week.

On Monday, they pumped out this cheery piece of social media, to big-up the great work they claim is being done on Croydon High Street and North End.

Continue reading →

Posted in "Hammersfield", Business, Crime, Croydon BID, Croydon Council, Fairfield, Fly tipping, Mayor Jason Perry, North End Quarter, Refuse collection, Surrey Street, Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield, Veolia, Whitgift Centre | 11 Comments

Croydon-born children’s author Allan Ahlberg has died

Posted on August 1, 2025 by insidecroydon

Allan Ahlberg, the children’s author and poet whose writing touched the lives of countless families, died this week. He was 87.

Shed of dreams: Allan Ahlberg wrote many of his 150 books at the end of his garden

Ahlberg was born in Croydon in 1938.

Working with his illustrator wife Janet Ahlberg, together they produced a host of bestselling nursery classics including Burglar Bill, Peepo!, and Each Peach Pear Plum.

After Janet’s death, from breast cancer, aged 50, Allan Ahlberg worked with illustrators such as Raymond Briggs and Bruce Ingman, and eventually with daughter Jessica Ahlberg, their works including Half A Pig.

Ahlberg was an illegitimate child, and in the months before the outbreak of World War II, he was adopted and brought up in Oldbury, in Sandwell in the West Midlands. He described his upbringing as being in “a very poor working-class family” and identified himself as the baby in one of his most popular books Peepo!. Continue reading →

Posted in Art, Poetry | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Blues at The Oval with the Niall Kelly Duo, Sun Aug 3

Posted on August 1, 2025 by insidecroydon

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Now Streatham MP Reed faces court action over water torture

Posted on July 31, 2025 by insidecroydon

Rivers charity begins a Judicial Review, accusing the environment secretary of having ‘no policy at all’ for solving the crisis around Thames Water 

Out of his depth: Streatham and Croydon North MP Steve Reed now faces a Judicial Review over water policy

Environment secretary Steve Reed, the MP for Streatham (and Croydon North, if he can ever be bothered) could be dragged into court by a rivers charity which has accused him of an unlawful failure to publish his policy on taking failing water companies into temporary nationalisation.

Lawyers for River Action argue that Thames Water has breached its duties and violated its licence conditions seriously and repeatedly, making it the clearest possible case for special administration.

Reed has come under fire even from senior figures in the Labour Party this month, as they have joined calls from celeb environomentalist Feargal Sharkey and others to re-nationalise basketcase utility company Thames Water, following the environment secretary’s soggy mess of a water reform review. Continue reading →

Posted in Business, Environment, Leonie Cooper, London Assembly, London-wide issues, Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, Steve Reed MP, Streatham and Croydon North, Thames Water | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 7 Comments

There’s a revolution going on in a wooded glade in Coulsdon

Posted on July 31, 2025 by insidecroydon

‘Man is the only creature that consumes without producing’ wrote George Orwell 80 years ago, but as the Theatre Workshop Coulsdon has shown once more, they certainly know how to produce compelling drama.
KEN TOWL was at the opening night of Animal Farm in the grounds of the Coulsdon Manor Hotel. Photos: STEVE NORTH for TWC

Farmyard animals: Theatre Workshop Coulsdon has avoided animal masks and costumes, and avoided their version of Animal Farm turning into a pantomime

In a silvan glade in the grounds of the Coulsdon Manor Hotel, Theatre Workshop Coulsdon pulls no punches in a fast-paced and knowing performance of George Orwell’s Animal Farm.

The idyllic surrounding is, in itself, loaded with irony.

The wooded space that borders the manicured lawns of the hotel are far from either the terrors of Stalin’s Soviet Union or the muck and stench of the farmyard.

However, as we have seen from their productions of Machinal, A Christmas Carol and Accidental Death of an Anarchist, TWC are ready to get down and get dirty and focus on the meeting place between the personal and the political. Continue reading →

Posted in Art, Coulsdon, Ken Towl, Theatre, Theatre Workshop Coulsdon | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 6 Comments

Animal Farm in pictures: impressive staging of Orwell classic

Posted on July 31, 2025 by insidecroydon

STEVE NORTH’s images capture some of the drama, and the impressive set design, for Theatre Workshop Coulsdon’s production of Animal Farm

Coulsdon’s Animal Farm: ‘The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which’. George Orwell wrote his book in 1945

Continue reading →

Posted in Art, Coulsdon, Ken Towl, Theatre, Theatre Workshop Coulsdon | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

China-made electric buses introduced on Croydon SL5 route

Posted on July 31, 2025 by insidecroydon

Double-decker: the first of the new, electric buses made in China began operating through Croydon this week on the SL5 Superlool route. Pic: Graham Lambourne

The SL5, one of three Superloop buses that run through Croydon, now has shiny, new electric-powered double-deckers plying the route from the town centre to Bromley.

The new buses began operation this week, part of a phased replacement of the often overcrowded single-decker Alexander Dennis Enviro200 Darts. Continue reading →

Posted in Commuting, East Croydon, TfL, Transport | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Trams ‘inconvenience’ with planned works on Coombe Lane

Posted on July 31, 2025 by insidecroydon

Crossing work: TfL is carrying out engineering work between Coombe Lane and Lloyd Park stops

Transport for London has issued another service warning, as “essential upgrade works” began this week, expected to continue until “early September” at an emergency crossing opposite Coombe Wood School, between the Lloyd Park and Coombe Lane tram stops.

Tram services should continue to operate as normal while the works go on, with the exception of August 17 and August 24, when nighttime works will be conducted. Continue reading →

Posted in Lloyd Park, TfL, Tramlink, Transport | Tagged , , | 2 Comments

Croydon choristers add their voices to Lions’ roar in Australia

Posted on July 31, 2025 by insidecroydon

PETER GILLMAN on the latest ‘world tour’ by a doughty band of singers from the Croydon Male Voice Choir

Sing when they’re winning: the Lions Choir, including Croydon dontingent, performing in Melbourne last week

Sporting history could be made on Saturday, when the British and Irish Lions rugby team take on Australia in Sydney seeking a Test whitewash for the first time in more than half-a-century.

And there to serenade the players, and the other 80,000 fans in the Olympic Stadium, will be a clutch of singers from the Croydon Male Voice Choir, part of the core of choristers who have been touring with the Lions for a quarter of a century.

On the pitch, the Lions have already secured the series win, with the late try against the Wallabies in Melbourne last weekend.

Eight members of the Croydon Male Voice Choir were in the crowds at the MCG that night, too, continuing a tradition that has seen them singing all around the world. Continue reading →

Posted in Croydon Male Voice Choir, Elliot Daly, Music, Peter Gillman, Purley-John Fisher, Rugby Union | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Help to clear-up the Minster churchyard, this Sat, Aug 2

Posted on July 31, 2025 by insidecroydon

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Charity Nightwatch appeals for volunteers to help vital service

Posted on July 30, 2025 by insidecroydon

Nightly service: Nightwatch volunteers are out in Queen’s Gardens helping those in need

Croydon homelessness charity Nightwatch has issued an urgent appeal for volunteers to come forward to assist with its vital work.

Nightwatch, which has been operating for almost 50 years, offers food and other support to the homeless and working poor every night in Queen’s Gardens, close to Croydon Town Hall.

The charity’s chiefs blame the cost-of-living crisis for the increasing numbers of needy people coming for food at Nightwatch’s nightly distribution – sometimes as many as 100 per night.

Nightwatch prides itself on going out every single night of the year to help homeless and otherwise vulnerable people in the middle of Croydon. But with many volunteers away on holiday over the summer months, the charity is struggling to stay staffed up.

Continue reading →

Posted in Charity, Croydon Nightwatch, Croydon parks, Queens Gardens, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

Polka has 9,000 tickets to give away for school theatre trips

Posted on July 30, 2025 by insidecroydon

All the world’s a stage: the Curtain Up! programme at the Polka Theatre offers free tickets and travel grants to school groups

The Polka children’s theatre in Wimbledon is celebrating 30 years of its Curtain-Up! programme – a pioneering subsidised ticket scheme that offers free tickets to school groups facing barriers to accessing live theatre.

For many under-12s attending these performances, it is their first-ever theatre experience. Continue reading →

Posted in Activities, Art, Schools, Theatre | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Park Trust announces events for Crystal Palace Summer of Play

Posted on July 30, 2025 by insidecroydon

Plenty to do: the Crystal Palace Park Trust’s activities programme stretched well into August

There’s a Summer of Play being organised at Crystal Palace Park, with a host of free activities for children and young people.

The programme has been curated to support children and young people to gain new skills, be active, harness creativity and make friends in a sociable setting. Continue reading →

Posted in Activities, Charity, Croydon parks, Crystal Palace Park, Crystal Palace Park Trust, Education | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Folk troubadour Alex Roberts at The Oval Tavern, Fri Aug 1

Posted on July 30, 2025 by insidecroydon

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How chief Nimby Philp built in Tories’ own Purley backyard

Posted on July 29, 2025 by insidecroydon

BARRATT HOLMES, housing correspondent, on what is undoubtedly, even by Croydon’s low standards, the most egregious example of ‘do as we say, not as we do’ from our politicians

Chief Nimby: even estate agents have more scruples than Croydon South MP Chris Philp

Croydon residents living south of the Flyover, whether they are in his constituency or not, have become all-too-familiar with regular, ever-so-slightly shrill, emails from the borough’s only Conservative MP, Chris Philp.

For when the shadow home secretary isn’t counting small boats crossing the Channel or chasing delivery drivers down the street, he and his state-funded assistants – who include two Tory councillors: Lynne Hale and Simon Fox – appear to like nothing better than to demonstrate how many homes they have managed to block from being built in the borough.

It’s almost as if they don’t want any more donations from rich property developers.

And just as you might expect from Philp (the “nose in search of a bum” according to Grauniad journalist John Crace), the regular emails from Croydon Conservatives are about as reliable as a second-hand motor sold by Arfur Daley. Continue reading →

Posted in Business, Chris Clark, Chris Philp MP, Croydon South, Housing, Mayor Jason Perry, Planning, Property, Purley | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | 6 Comments