Busy South Croydon main road closed for hours after collision

Posted on August 17, 2025 by insidecroydon

Emergency call-out: the collision was reported to involve a van and a pedestrian. Pic: David Nathan

The busy South End main road in South Croydon was closed in both directions for more than two hours late yesterday afternoon, as emergency services rushed to the scene of a collision, reportedly involving a van and a pedestrian, close to the Swan and Sugarloaf by the junction with Selsdon Road.

The air ambulance attended the crash scene, as did the London Fire Brigade.

A London Ambulance Service spokesperson told Inside Croydon: “We were called at 4.07pm yesterday to reports of a road traffic collision on South End, Croydon. Continue reading →

Posted in London Ambulance Service, London Fire Brigade, Policing, South Croydon | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

When ‘Rinkomania’ skated up Park Lane to delight Croydon

Posted on August 17, 2025 by insidecroydon

Latest craze: indoors and outdoors, with trees and viewing bridges, the Croydon skating rink drew large crowds in the years after its opened in 1875

SUNDAY SUPPLEMENT: Town centre attractions and installations are nothing new, as DAVID MORGAN demonstrates with a delve into the archives from 150 years ago

Grand opening: how the event was publicised in the Advertiser in 1875

There was no such thing as Costa Del Croydon for our Victorian predecessors. But they knew how to enjoy themselves through the summer months 150 years ago or so. In fact, they really got their skates on…

Readers of the Croydon Advertiser in June 1875 would have been very excited to discover the coming of a dedicated roller skate rink. “Rinkomania”, as the national press dubbed it, was about to arrive on their doorsteps.

The craze for roller skating had begun in New York with a four-wheeled skate which could be strapped to the foot and allow the skater to turn. Patented by James Plimpton, his invention revolutionised roller skating. At one point in the 1870s, there were more than 50 rinks in London. Continue reading →

Posted in David Morgan, History, Sport | Tagged , , , , , | 2 Comments

Coombe Lodge to close as part of Whitbread’s pubs sales

Posted on August 17, 2025 by insidecroydon

Closing down: the Coombe Lodge Beefeater is to shut on September 2

The writing on the wall: notices of closure went up this week

The Beefeater at Coombe Lodge, the large chain pub on Coombe Road near Lloyd Park, is to close on September 2, as its owners, Whitbread, continue to get out of the business of brewing (long gone) and selling of beer.

The nearby Premier Inn motel, also owned by Whitbread, is not thought to be affected by the pub closure.

Earlier this year owners Whitbread announced plans to sell off 38 Beefeater restaurant-pubs for £38million.

Around 1,500 jobs were expected to be lost as a consequence, although in many cases, including it is thought Coombe Lodge, the properties will continue to trade, but under a different operator. Continue reading →

Posted in Business, Property, Pubs, Restaurants, South Croydon | Tagged , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Local Labour members angry at ‘travesty’ of selection process

Posted on August 16, 2025 by insidecroydon

Uncharacteristic ‘openness’ from the Labour Party exposes their latest sham selection process, with candidates for next year’s local elections being named without grassroots members in most wards getting any say at all.
EXCLUSIVE by STEVEN DOWNES

The fix is in: Croydon Labour announced this and eight other ward selections last night, with local members largely removed from the process

The fix is in.

After stubborn silence for months from the Labour Party on the matter of their candidate selections for next year’s local elections in Croydon, last night they used social media to issue a blitz announcement of their candidate selections in nine of the safest Labour wards in the borough.

In the majority of cases, the selections appear to have been made with minimal, if any, involvement of grassroots Labour members.

As one angry, disenfranchised Croydon Labour member shared on a WhatsApp group in a ward where the three candidates “selected” was neatly stitched up by the all-powerful NEC and Labour’s London region, “Rowenna Davis: If you want to be Mayor of Croydon, you need to stop this travesty.”

And they also appealed to Croydon West MP, Sarah Jones: “Take action for justice and for democracy.” Continue reading →

Posted in 2026 council elections, 2026 Croydon Mayor election, Addiscombe East, Alisa Flemming, Amy Foster, Appu Srinivasan, Bensham Manor, Brigitte Graham, Catherine Wilson, Chrishni Reshekaron, Christopher Herman, Croydon East, Croydon West, Enid Mollyneaux, Eunice O'Dame, Fairfield, Janet Campbell, Jeet Bains, Jess Hammersley-Rich, John Wentworth, Karen Jewitt, Leila Ben-Hassel, Louis Carserides, Maddie Henson, Matt Griffiths, Mohammed Islam, Natasha Irons, Norbury, Norbury Park, Patsy Cummings, Rowenna Davis, Sarah Jones MP, Selhurst, South Norwood, Stella Nabukeera, Steve Reed MP, Streatham and Croydon North, Stuart King, Thornton Heath, Waddon, West Thornton, Woodside | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 14 Comments

Elianne memorial mural removed during Wellesley roadworks

Posted on August 16, 2025 by insidecroydon

Roadworks: the site of the Elianne Andam memorial, outside the Whitgift Centre, where works to install a pedestrian crossing are underway

The memorial mural and bench installed outside the Whitgift Centre last year, on the first anniversary of the death of Croydon schoolgirl Elianne Andam, have been removed.

Sources suggest that this is to save them from any possible damage during roadworks. Continue reading →

Posted in "Hammersfield", Crime, Knife crime, Rosemarie Mallett, Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield, Whitgift Centre | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 7 Comments

Calls for TfL to save £80m a year by scrapping 60+ Oyster card

Posted on August 16, 2025 by insidecroydon

As many as 60,000 Croydon residents could lose their 60+ Oyster discount travelcard if calls to scrap the benefit to reduce future fare rises are taken on board by Transport for London.

Card trick: lobby groups are trying to take free travel privileges away from the over-60s

The 60+ Oyster entitles holders to free travel on London’s buses, Tubes, the Croydon Tram and most trains (after 9.30am each day). Removing the card could save the capital’s transport authority £80million or more each year in fare revenue, according to TfL’s own figures.

TfL says it has 379,216 60+ Oyster cards in use across London, of which 119,735 were registered in 2024-2025. There are no usage figures available by borough, but the 2021 Census showed that approximately 60,000 Croydon residents are aged 60 or over. Continue reading →

Posted in Commuting, Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, Shaun Bailey, TfL, Tramlink, Transport | Tagged , , , , , , , | 24 Comments

From Westerham to Bletchingley, we retrace our walker’s steps

Posted on August 15, 2025 by insidecroydon

Tales from the riverbank: Ken Towl’s latest walk took him from Westerham in Kent to Bletchingley in Surrey, via the picturesque Oxted Mill

WEEKEND WANDERINGS: Continuing our tradition of providing guides to readily accessible walking routes in and around Croydon, KEN TOWL set off in the footsteps of this website’s original guide, Walker Dunelm, to revisit the Greensand Way

Follow the arrows: the Greensand Way is not very well-signposted

On April 13, 2020, a month into covid lockdown, and a little short of his 86th birthday, Patrick Ford died after a battle with Alzheimer’s.

Ford, a librarian and jazz musician, was an early contributor to Inside Croydon, writing under the nom de plume Walker Dunelm, about walks outside Croydon, but never too far away.

Most of these were written between 2011 and 2012, and some of them followed the Greensand Way, that lesser-known cousin of the North Downs Way which is bisected by the Kent-Surrey border and runs largely along a ridge parallel to the A25 and accessible from Nutfield and Godstone along the line between Redhill and Tonbridge. There is also the 400 bus, running through Redhill, Nutfield, Godstone and Bletchingley.

When I was invited by a friend to walk east-to-west along a section of the Greensand Way, from where it passes below Westerham in Kent, and along past Limpsfield Chart, skirting under Oxted and along to Tandridge, Bletchingley and finally Earlswood, just to the south of Redhill, I thought this would be the chance to follow in Walker Dunhelm’s footsteps. Continue reading →

Posted in Ken Towl, Outside Croydon, Redhill, Surrey, Tandridge District Council, Walker Dunelm, Walks | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 4 Comments

From ‘last orders’ to holy orders: pub in change of use scheme

Posted on August 15, 2025 by insidecroydon

Our south of the borough correspondent, SANDRA STEAD, looks into one of the more bizarre planning application received by the council, even by Croydon standards

“Sins downstairs, forgiveness upstairs.”

Place of worship: the Tree House pub in South Croydon

That was the shrewd assessment of one local when they heard that a planning application has been submitted to turn the first floor of the Tree House pub in South Croydon into a place of worship.

“That upstairs gonna need a lot of blessing,” they added, knowingly…

The Tree House, previously the Blue Anchor, at the junction of South End and Southbridge Road, is the last remaining large, roadhouse public house building along that stretch of road. Landmark buildings the Swan and Sugarloaf and the Red Deer have both undergone conversions of their own in the past decade or so, to serve the gods of Tesco and, initially, Morrisons.

The plans submitted to the council’s planning department would see the Tree House continue to operate as a pub downstairs, while the Dunamis International Gospel Centre would dispense blessings of a different kind on the first floor. Continue reading →

Posted in Business, Chris Clark, Church and religions, Croydon Council, Fairfield, Parking, Planning, Property, Pubs, South Croydon | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | 5 Comments

View from the boundary looking good for our local cricket clubs

Posted on August 15, 2025 by insidecroydon

Shady haven: club cricket continues to thrive at places such as Mitcham, with its famous old Cricket Green in between busy main roads

The Test summer may have finished prematurely early, making way for the crash and bash of franchise cricket, but as NEIL BENNETT, right, the former BBC Television News sports correspondent, found at the grassroots in south London, the game is thriving and much-loved

Club cricket looks and sounds very different from the game I played in Croydon in the ’50s and ’60s. Competitive leagues, short forms of the game, red ball and white ball, coloured kit, loads of shouted encouragement on the pitch, and even matches streamed live on YouTube. Addiscombe, Beddington and Mitcham were always prominent local clubs back in the day, for different reasons, and they remain so today, through all the many changes.

And how things have changed. Continue reading →

Posted in Cricket, Sport, Surrey CCC | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

London Mayor Khan is 12,000 homes short of his own target

Posted on August 15, 2025 by insidecroydon

According to figures from City Hall, just 347 new affordable homes have been started in London in three months since April.

Bodge the builder?: London Mayor Sir Sadiq Khan is in danger of missing his own housebuilding target

Inside Housing reports the figures from the Greater London Authority which also show that 312 of the homes were started under its Affordable Homes Programme, a five-year plan that ends in 2026, with London Mayor Sir Sadiq Khan some 12,000 homes short of his own target.

The housing website reports that of the build starts so far this year, four were started under the Single Homelessness Accommodation Programme and 31 homes were started under other projects.

“A total of 120 homes (35%) were for social rent, while 85 (24%) were for affordable rent, plus 84 for London Living Rent and 58 for shared ownership,” Inside Housing reports. Continue reading →

Posted in Housing, London Assembly, London-wide issues, Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Old Palace pupils deliver improved grades in school’s final year

Posted on August 14, 2025 by insidecroydon

It was a poignant A-Level results day in Croydon Old Town, where the last cadre of pupils in Old Palace School’s 136-year history received the news that could shape their adult lives.

Poignant moment: Old Palace Sixth Former Skye is off to study human, social and political science at Cambridge, as one of the last girls from her school to complete their A-levels

Old Palace of John Whitgift formally closed its school gates for the final time last month, the £20,000 per year girls’ independent school having been closed by its owners the Whitgift Foundation, officially due to falling rolls, but widely thought to be the victim of the land-owning charity’s sticky finances after more than a decade waiting for Westfield to redevelop its town centre properties and shopping centre.

Despite all the travails of working through the covid lockdown and the unsettling experience of spending their Sixth Form at a school being wound-down towards closure, girls at Old Palace increased the number of A*-C grades this year, with 83% accepted for their first-choice university courses. Continue reading →

Posted in Alasdair Kennedy, Andrew Halls, Education, Old Palace, Schools, Trinity School, Whitgift School | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Corbyn’s new party to stage first public event in Croydon

Posted on August 14, 2025 by insidecroydon

Big numbers, and some big figures from Croydon politics, are expected at Ruskin House next Tuesday, reports Political Editor WALTER CRONXITE

Anyone wanting to get themselves a seat had better turn up early at Ruskin House next Tuesday, when the tentatively named Your Party will have its first formal, open meeting in Croydon.

The new party formed by former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana, another MP frozen out of the Morgan McSweeney-dominated Labour party, has already attracted more than 650,000 expressions of support in the three weeks since they launched their website.

If even half that number sign up as members, it will comfortably become Britain’s largest political party.

So Cedar Hall is likely to be packed to the rafters for the meeting organised by the Croydon Assembly under the sub-heading: “The fight-back starts here!”

What form any such “fight-back” might take, like the party’s as yet undetermined name, is yet to be agreed, as Corbyn, Sultana and the Independent Alliance parliamentary group that includes four other MPs prepare for a first national conference “in autumn 2025”. Local elections across England, including Croydon and other London boroughs, are of course just nine months away. Continue reading →

Posted in 2026 council elections, 2026 Croydon Mayor election, Alisa Flemming, David White, Enid Mollyneaux, Eunice O'Dame, Karen Jewitt, Patsy Cummings | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 8 Comments

Perry’s Piles: Council refuses to act on 30 dumped mattresses

Posted on August 14, 2025 by insidecroydon

Perry’s pile: the fly-tipped mattresses, around 30 of them, were dumped off Stoney Lane last week. Despite pleas for help from residents, Croydon Council refuses to act

Croydon’s dismal reputation for clearing up fly-tips around the borough leaves residents defenceless against criminal gangs dumping on the streets in an industrial scale 

Having presided over council contractors dumping hundreds of books on the street in Broad Green last week, now failed Mayor Jason Perry’s council is refusing to act over another massive pile: around 30 mattresses, all fly-tipped in a residents’ car park in Upper Norwood.

The mass fly-tipping incident occurred last week off Stoney Lane.

This is in the heart of the Upper Norwood Triangle Conservation area, which adjoins similar conservation areas in Bromley and in Lambeth and, according to Croydon, “contains a wide variety of historic buildings”.

And now, it is home to a veritable Perry’s pile of ancient bedding, too. Continue reading →

Posted in Business, Crime, Croydon Council, Environment, Fly tipping, Mayor Jason Perry, Refuse collection, Veolia | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | 15 Comments

Men plead not guilty at Old Bailey to Birdhurst Road murder

Posted on August 14, 2025 by insidecroydon

Murder victim: Leroy Mitchell

Two men have denied murdering Leroy Mitchell in a shooting at a silent disco in South Croydon in 2021.

Mitchell, 35 years old and a father of three, was shot as he left the party on Birdhurst Road just before 5am on October 2 2021.

A £20,000 reward was offered by charity Crimestoppers later that year, but it wasn’t until 2025 that any arrests were made.

Cimarron Dume-Gooden, 32, of no fixed address, was charged in June this year with the murder of Leroy Mitchell and perverting the course of justice.

Yesterday, he appeared at the Old Bailey alongside Alpacino Veii for a pre-trial preparation hearing. Continue reading →

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Captain Chippie’s Pizza Party at Trickle, from 6pm, Thu Aug 14

Posted on August 14, 2025 by insidecroydon

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

TODAY!!!!

Continue reading →

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It’s a red-letter day for our ‘covid generation’ of school pupils

Posted on August 13, 2025 by insidecroydon

‘Jumping for joy’: some newspapers, especially the Torygraph, seem to run virtually the same hackneyed A-level results story, and pictures, every year. And note the absence of working-class boys from most of the images

CROYDON COMMENTARY: Secondary school teacher KEN TOWL on the sense of anticipation gripping the nation’s teens, and their parents and tutors, ahead of tomorrow’s big A-levels results reveal

All over the country, 17- and 18-year-olds are getting nervous. Their parents are getting nervous. Their teachers are getting nervous.

Tomorrow, A-level and other level three results are published, deciding, we tell these nervous young people, the course of their lives.

I am guilty of it myself.

As a teacher, I take every opportunity to tell my pupils of the benefits of passing exams, of getting the best grades they can, so that they have a greater choice of university courses, so that they have greater agency over their own lives.

We tell them that the stakes are life-changingly high. No wonder they get nervous in the middle of August. Continue reading →

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Tenison’s now has innovative solar energy farm up on the roof

Posted on August 13, 2025 by insidecroydon

Croydon Community Energy yesterday plugged in and switched on the first of its innovative schemes, after installing solar panels on a public building in the borough with the intention of saving you money while helping to save the planet.

‘We’ve done it’: Croydon Community Energy’s Connie Duxbury, and solar panels, on the roof of Archbishop Tenison’s School

“We did it!” they declared.

“Solar panels are officially up and running at Archbishop Tenison’s School.”

They certainly picked the right day to achieve their first milestone, with Croydon in the middle of a 30ºC heatwave, the fourth of this summer.

After more than four years’ hard work and planning, Croydon Community Energy held an initial fund-raising round just six months ago, and quickly achieved its first target, £120,000, enough to install panels on three sites.

The share scheme offers up to 5% return on investments, while leaving any surplus to provide community gardens and alleviate fuel poverty.

“From idea to delivery, it’s been a long journey and not without challenges, but this amazing group of volunteers installed 96.3kWp of solar on a school to reduce their carbon and bills,” CCE announced yesterday after finishing the installation at the secondary school on SelborneRoad, Addiscombe. Continue reading →

Posted in Archbishop Tenison's, Business, Climate Crisis Commission, Community associations, Croydon Community Energy, Environment | Tagged , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Trust mourns Mathew Frith, champion of Hutchinson’s Bank

Posted on August 13, 2025 by insidecroydon

Mathew Frith of the London Wildlife Trust, who championed Croydon’s nature reserves

The London Wildlife Trust last night announced the sad news of the death of Mathew Frith after a long illness.

“Mathew was, in many ways, the heart and soul of London Wildlife Trust. His passion for nature, his commitment to London’s wild spaces, and his unwavering belief in the power of community have shaped the Trust into what it is today,” they said in a brief online tribute.

Croydon’s open spaces and nature reserves, in particular Hutchinson’s Bank, at New Addington, Bramley Bank and Chapel Bank, owe their existence and their worldwide reputations to Frith’s persistence to defend and champion them. Continue reading →

Posted in Charity, Environment, Hutchinson's Bank, Inside Croydon, New Addington, Wildlife | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

£204,000 per year CEO tells staff they’re getting 3.2% pay rise

Posted on August 12, 2025 by insidecroydon

Our Town Hall reporter KEN LEE on the increasing inequalities in pay at the cash-strapped council

Condescending: Katherine Kerswell

Everyone can relax: Katherine Kerswell’s back!

Croydon Council’s chief executive announced her return from holiday with her regular, condescending “Weekly Waffle” internal email to staff on Friday.

There, she told council employees that summer holiday childcare “can be an expensive and pressured time for people” (as if they didn’t already know) and then proceeded to offer patronising tips on “free things to do in Croydon to keep the little ones entertained”.

Not that any of that will be much of a concern to Kerswell on her £204,000 salary, while presiding over an organisation where many staff have to cope with wages of little more than one-tenth of that figure. Continue reading →

Posted in Council Tax, Croydon Council, Dean Shoesmith, Katherine Kerswell | Tagged , , , , , , , | 16 Comments

‘It seems that certain clubs have unique privilege and power’

Posted on August 12, 2025 by insidecroydon

Denied their rightful place in the Europa League, Crystal Palace have hit out at the governing body: ‘This growing and unhealthy influence… does not bode well… when rules and sanctions are unevenly applied in the most flagrant way’

After giving themselves a day for calm reflection over the decision handed down by the Court of Arbitration for Sport, which confirmed Crystal Palace’s demotion to the UEFA Conference League, club chairman Steve Parish and his fellow directors today issued a furious condemnation of the game’s European governing body.

“Sporting merit has been rendered meaningless” said Palace in a club statement issued at lunchtime, after their appeal against their demotion from the Europa League was rejected yesterday.

The FA Cup-winners will play Europe’s third-tier competition this season, following a convoluted legal case regarding multi-club ownership.

Doubling down on the inevitable feeling that Palace have in some way been singled out because they are not one of the “big” clubs, Palace said that it was “almost impossible to receive a fair hearing” at CAS.

They highlighted how at their CAS hearing, they were denied the usual legal formalities of disclosure of evidence, as well as a refusal to allow witness testimony from those involved.

“The European Court of Justice has made it clear that rulings similar to this will be under greater scrutiny from national courts in future. Only then will fairness and due process be granted to every team,” Palace said, ominously, in the statement.

“It appears that certain clubs, organisations and individuals have a unique privilege and power.” Continue reading →

Posted in Crystal Palace FC, Football, John Textor, Steve Parish | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

London on amber alert as heatwave risks wildfires and deaths

Posted on August 12, 2025 by insidecroydon

Wildfires: yesterday’s blaze across several acres of Wanstead Flats needed dozens of fire crews to get it under control. The Fire Brigade and charities are urging the public to take extra care to avoid causing similar fires in their areas

An amber heat health warning is in place for London from today until 6pm on tomorrow, as temperatures soar above 30°C in the capital’s fourth heatwave of this summer.

Temperatures in London reached 31.9°C yesterday, and are forecast to touch as high as 34°C today.

The long, dry summer has seen wildfires take hold at multiple locations around the country in recent days, closest to home at Wanstead Flats in east London, with RoSPA, the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents, issuing a special public warning to take hot weather risks seriously and act responsibly to prevent further incidents. Continue reading →

Posted in City Commons, Croydon parks, Environment, Health, London Ambulance Service, London Fire Brigade, London-wide issues | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Council cover-up over security costs for empty community café

Posted on August 11, 2025 by insidecroydon

CROYDON IN CRISIS: With no prospect of a business taking over the long-vacant Wandle Park café during the busy summer period, the council is spending thousands of pounds on ‘private security’
EXCLUSIVE by STEVEN DOWNES

Still closed: despite repeated broken promises by Mayor Perry, no business has taken the lease on the Wandle Park café

Despite repeated promises by Croydon’s failed Mayor, Jason Perry, the Wandle Park café today remains vacant and unused, five years after it closed, and more than two months since the council called in the police to effect an eviction of squatters.

Inside Croydon can reveal that the cash-strapped council has spent almost £8,000 in just six weeks on private security to “patrol” outside the café to deter further incursions, still with no prospect of a business ready to take up a lease on the property. The “security” appears to consist of a bloke, looking very bored, sitting in a beaten-up estate car parked yards from the unused council-owned building. Continue reading →

Posted in Broad Green, Business, Croydon Council, Croydon parks, Friends of Wandle Park, Mayor Jason Perry, Waddon, Wandle Park | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 8 Comments

Palace swizzled as Swiss sports court upholds UEFA decision

Posted on August 11, 2025 by insidecroydon

You win some. You lose some.

Considering his legal options: Palace chairman Steve Parish

Less than 24 hours after Crystal Palace captain Marc Guehi lifted the Charity Shield as his side beat Liverpool on penalties at Wembley, his club was handed the verdict of a panel of specialist lawyers at the Court for Arbitration in Sport that consigned the FA Cup-winners to a season playing in UEFA’s third-tier competiton, the Conference League.

Crystal Palace were demoted from the Europa League last month under UEFA’s multi-club ownership rules, and following a day-long hearing on Friday, today CAS lawyers dismissed the south London club’s appeal and ruled that UEFA’s decision should stand.

UEFA are expected to confirm that Nottingham Forest will take Palace’s place in the Europa League – a move that some football insiders suggest is another example of a powergrab by the Premier League, at the expense of the prestige of the world’s oldest cup competition, the FA Cup.

Cup-winners Palace will now consider their legal options – not that they have many. Continue reading →

Posted in Crystal Palace FC, Football, John Textor, Steve Parish | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | 4 Comments

Record number of old people arrested at Palestine Action demo

Posted on August 11, 2025 by insidecroydon

Three women from a group of mostly Croydon-based protestors were among the record 532 people arrested at Saturday’s protest in support of Palestine Action and free speech outside the House of Commons.

Police force: six officers carry 62-year-old charity worker Ita Gallagher away from Saturday’s protest

They included one 62-year-old charity worker who said that before Saturday, “I’d never had as much as a parking ticket.

“Now I’m classified as a terrorist.”

All three women were released on street bail, and are to report to a south London police station in October.

The Met had called in extra officers from across the country to police the protest, where hundreds held up placards with a message which the Labour government and Home Secretary Yvette Cooper had proscribed using anti-terror legislation.

Few arrests were made during the hour-long protest, but many more were detained in the aftermath. Among the arrestees were NHS workers, Quakers and a blind man in a wheelchair. Continue reading →

Posted in London-wide issues, Policing | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 6 Comments

New Addington tram service closed next two Sunday mornings

Posted on August 11, 2025 by insidecroydon

There will be no tram service to New Addington for the next two Sunday mornings – August 17 and August 24 – due, once again, “to essential engineering works”.

Out of service: there will be no tram service between Sandilands and New Addington, including Lloyd Park and Coombe Lane, for the next two Sunday mornings

Transport for London issued its advisory note today, saying that there would be no service between Sandilands and New Addington between 00.30am and 11.30am on the two summer Sundays.

This disruption is in addition to the on-going “essential upgrade works” at an emergency crossing opposite Coombe Wood School, between the Lloyd Park and Coombe Lane tram stops, which is going on into September. Continue reading →

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