90-year-old Sanderstead Brownies in appeal for volunteers

Posted on January 26, 2018 by insidecroydon

The 3rd Sanderstead Brownies is 90 years old this year. But they could close unless enough volunteers step forward to help run the group.

According to the local Guides’ leadership, “The current Owl leaders are happy to come and assist and any new helpers or leaders will get training and support.

“Whether leading the unit, or helping out more casually, you’ll run activities, games, projects and events that give girls the opportunity to discover their potential and the world around them. You’ll be supported to complete our Leadership Qualification, with training on everything from planning your programme to child safety.

“There are many units. Rainbows, Brownies, Guides and Senior Section units that are on the verge of closing or have closed due to lack of volunteers. You can make a difference.” Continue reading →

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Whitehall orders Camden to take charge of children’s services

Posted on January 26, 2018 by insidecroydon

An independent commissioner has recommended that Croydon’s crisis-hit children’s services department needs outside help, after failures of leadership and management. WALTER CRONXITE reports

Pressure continues to mount on Tony Newman, the council leader, after the Department for Education last night released their commissioner’s report which confirmed that Croydon children’s services is failing and inadequate, and that managers from another council need to be called in to oversee improvements over the next 12 months.

Under pressure: Croydon’s council leader Tony Newman

Eleanor Brazil was appointed as a commissioner to review Croydon by the DfE last September, after an inspection by Ofsted during the summer found the council’s children’s services provision to be inadequate, in some cases dangerously so.

In her report to the DfE, Brazil said: “At this time, I believe the council should retain responsibility for managing children services and should be given time to drive the improvements forward.

“However, I do not consider that they have the necessary capacity and expertise within the service, to undertake this effectively and quickly without support.”

And in a directive issued yesterday, the DfE has ordered Croydon to allow social work managers from Camden Council to oversee the children’s services work, which is responsible for the care and support of some of the borough’s most vulnerable youngsters, including those in care, or fostered, and the large number of unaccompanied asylum seekers in the borough. Continue reading →

Posted in Adult Social Care, Alisa Flemming, Barbara Peacock, Children's Services, Chris Philp MP, Croydon Central, Croydon Council, Croydon North, Croydon South, Jo Negrini, Sarah Jones MP, Steve Reed MP, Tony Newman | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

Making bird boxes, Coulsdon Common, Feb 10

Posted on January 26, 2018 by insidecroydon

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Beddington Park spring lecture series, Feb 12-Apr 3

Posted on January 26, 2018 by insidecroydon

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Lambeth is showing the way with destruction of five estates

Posted on January 25, 2018 by insidecroydon

Brixton Town Hall: recently refurbished, but hugely more expensive than it should have been. Sound familiar?

This week, Labour’s ruling NEC stepped in to stop one London council from undertaking a property deal which could have seen hundreds of council tenants evicted from their homes. Yet meanwhile, a bus ride up the A23 from Croydon, at Brixton Town Hall, another Labour-run authority was pushing through plans to do much the same.
THOR KANDELLS reports

On Monday, Lambeth Council’s cabinet gathered to vote through Homes for Lambeth, the private company it has set up to demolish six estates – Knights Walk, South Lambeth, Fenwick, Westbury, Central Hill and Cressingham Gardens – and build and manage private homes on the cleared sites.

Even the location of the meeting ought to have served as a warning that the council can’t be trusted with construction projects.

This was the first day of full operation in Brixton Town Hall after an 18-month closure for a refit that was supposed to cost £50million but is likely to end up coming in at an eye-watering £150million, or perhaps even more. Which will make it only just a few million more expensive than Croydon’s palace to the pride of local politicians and local authority execs, Fisher’s Folly. Clearly, it is not just Tory-run administrations who are capable of frittering away public cash. Continue reading →

Posted in Brick by Brick, Croydon North, Crystal Palace and Upper Norwood, Housing, Jo Negrini, Lambeth Council, London-wide issues, Matthew Bennett, Outside Croydon, Planning, Property, Steve Reed MP | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 4 Comments

Corbyn supporter launches appeal against party suspension

Posted on January 25, 2018 by insidecroydon

A black activist who has campaigned against racism throughout his life is seeking donations towards a legal fighting fund to help overturn the suspension of his membership of the Labour Party.

Jeremy Corbyn with Marc Wadsworth

Marc Wadsworth, who lives in Thornton Heath, in the Croydon North constituency of Steve Reed OBE, the former vice-chair of Progress, has been suspended from the party for nearly two years, without ever being given the right to an appeal or have a hearing of his case.

He believes that he has been targeted as part of an attempted purge of Corbyn supporters by right wingers in the party.

Wadsworth says that he has been “smeared and vilified as anti-semitic”, despite his life-long anti-racism record. Continue reading →

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Screen25 adds two extra dates and romance of Valentines

Posted on January 25, 2018 by insidecroydon


There  are an extra two screenings scheduled for South Norwood’s new film club next month, as Screen25 holds its first ever Saturday Morning Pictures with an animation classic. Continue reading →

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Sutton LibDems facing serious challenge for council control

Posted on January 25, 2018 by insidecroydon

BELLE MONT reports from Sutton, where the local Labour party is sounding confident of establishing a foothold on the Liberal Democrat-dominated council

After 28 years of effectively a one-party state dominating their local council, Labour thinks it has a chance of breaking through against Sutton’s polluting, thieving and cage-fighting Liberal Democrat councillors and ex-councillors.

Sutton Labour think that the numbers are with them in this local election campaign

Apart from a brief spell when a LibDem defected to the Labour Party six years ago, Sutton has been an orange and blue duopoly for… well, forever, really, with the LibDems taking overall control of the council from the Tories for the first time in 1990 and hanging on to it ever since.

It is 16 years since Labour last had a candidate elected as a councillor in Sutton.

But with changing demographics, the impact of Corbynmania and growing dissatisfaction with the council’s ancien regime over local issues including the Beddington incinerator and #SuttonBinShame (as Croydon’s neighbours swiftly discovered the joys of Veolia), Labour is confident of ending its absence from the Sutton council chamber at this year’s local elections on May 3. Continue reading →

Posted in 2018 council elections, Charlie Mansell, Emily Brothers, Sutton Council | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments

City Commons Spring Park event, Monks Orchard, Jan 28

Posted on January 25, 2018 by insidecroydon

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Spring Weather event, Honeywood Museum, Apr 6-7

Posted on January 25, 2018 by insidecroydon

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Council Tax to increase by 5% just weeks before local elections

Posted on January 25, 2018 by insidecroydon

WALTER CRONXITE reports on the inevitable consequence of Tory government cuts to Croydon Council

Tony Newman: has the backing of the Labour group for Council Tax increase

With the local elections just weeks away, Croydon’s council leader says that he has decided to be honest.

“We are being honest with residents about Council Tax,” Tony Newman said in announcing that Croydon residents will face a local taxation hike of £1.50 per week from April.

In reality, Council Tax is set by the Government, which decides on the (rapidly diminishing) level of grant that goes to local authorities, and then sets a limit on the rate of increase councils like Croydon can apply to civic tax-raising in order to cover the difference and still pay for a range of local services. Newman’s Labour council has opted to increase Council Tax by the maximum allowed. Continue reading →

Posted in 2018 council elections, Council Tax, Croydon Council, Tony Newman | Tagged , , , , , , , | 6 Comments

MP Philp joins with Corbyn to object to widow’s eviction

Posted on January 24, 2018 by insidecroydon

Tomorrow, at around 11.30am, a widow and her five school-aged children seem likely to be rendered homeless, as bailiffs will be knocking on the door of their home in Benson Road to demand that they leave.

Some tenants are left with no choices

The eviction is being carried out, it is alleged, because the tenants had the audacity to get the landlords to carry out repairs and improvements to the property, which was previously in “an atrocious condition”.

Zaib U Nisa’s rent has been paid up-to-date. She has the backing and support of her next-door neighbour, and friends have offered to act as guarantors for the £1,400 monthly rent on the property.

But her landlords, through property managers at a Croydon branch of the estate agents Choices, seem determined to kick the family out.

The Nisa family will then have to be re-housed by Croydon Council. It is what is known as a “no fault eviction”, but for landlords who can get rid of good, reliable tenants almost on a whim, it is a no risk eviction. Continue reading →

Posted in Chris Philp MP, Croydon Council, Croydon South, Housing, Landlord licensing, Waddon | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Shh. Don’t tell anyone. Queen’s Hotel has some revised plans

Posted on January 24, 2018 by insidecroydon

Plans to extend the already large Queen’s Hotel will go before the planning committee tomorrow

Even by the oh-so-low standards of consultations which the Croydon public have learned to endure (how about the Selhurst Park expansion consultation last week that didn’t mention the five houses that would have to be bulldozed?), the latest effort from consultants working on behalf of the Queen’s Hotel in Crystal Palace has managed to plumb new depths.

As Inside Croydon reported last October, it took the votes of two Labour councillors on the Town Hall planning committee to side with local residents and overturn the recommendations of the council planning officials, and make planning chair Paul Scott go even redder in the face, by blocking an application from Euro Hotels to make their big old hotel on Church Road into a 530-room low-rent mega-hostel. Continue reading →

Posted in Croydon North, Crystal Palace and Upper Norwood, Planning, Property, Queen's Hotel, South Norwood, Stephen Mann, Steve Reed MP | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Oooh matron! Kenneth Williams’ clock goes up for sale

Posted on January 24, 2018 by insidecroydon

Catherine Southon was thrilled when a woman walked into her auctioneer’s office in Bromley to show her a classic 1960s clock with some great provenance.

Wake up call: Kenneth Williams

The clock once belonged to Kenneth Williams, actor, comedian and diarist most famous for his roles in the Carry On films.

“I had always been a bit of a fan and once wrote to him after he recited a poem that made a reference to West Wickham and I got a lovely letter back from him,” Southon’s new client told her.

“Then I happened to go to a fundraiser for one of Robert Knox-Johnston’s sailing adventures in 1978 and the auction included this clock, which had belonged to Kenneth Williams, so I simply had to bid for it.”

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£20m for cycling strategy could get Croydon on their bikes

Posted on January 24, 2018 by insidecroydon

The council has announced a five-year plan for cycling in the borough. Our biking correspondent, EDDIE MERKS, reckons it might finally get Croydon out of second gear

Croydon’s never really taken cycling seriously.

Will the council’s new cycling strategy get more people on their bikes?

At a time when other London boroughs are introducing ambitious “mini-Hollands” and the biking Tory Mayor of London was installing cycling super highways, Croydon was turning cycle lanes into car parking spaces, abandoning modest “Quietway” proposals, and even the style-over-substance “Croydon Cycle Hub” bike shed at East Croydon now lies in pieces, the victim of a private property developer’s requirements.

So last week, an announcement of a £20million, five-year programme of cycle-friendly improvements around the borough represented a bit of a breakthrough. If Croydon was a cyclist in a race at the London Velodrome, they would still be about two laps behind the rest of the field, with a lot of catching up to do.

It is 20 years since Croydon last published a cycling strategy paper. That was full of fine words but little else and led to not much at all. Continue reading →

Posted in Commuting, Croydon Council, Cycling, East Croydon, Stuart King, TfL, Transport | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 6 Comments

Newman: Fairfield Halls won’t be ready to open until 2019

Posted on January 23, 2018 by insidecroydon

The wrecking crew was let loose on the Arnhem Gallery last month. The £30m Fairfield refurbishment is more than six months behind schedule

Fairfield Halls will not re-open until 2019, Tony Newman, the leader of the council, announced in a somewhat off-hand matter last night.

The prestigious arts complex was supposed to be ready for a grand re-opening in July 2018. But now, there’s even doubts about which parts of the Fairfield Halls – the concert hall, Ashcroft Theatre and the Arnhem Gallery – will be ready next year.

The delays could badly jeopardise Newman’s pet project, of accessing around £1million arts funding by having Croydon declared London’s Borough of Culture for 2019.

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Posted in 2018 council elections, Art, Ashcroft Theatre, BH Live, Fairfield Halls, Theatre, Tony Newman | Tagged , , , , | 10 Comments

History of Carshalton Ponds, Honeywood Museum, Mar 22

Posted on January 23, 2018 by insidecroydon

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Penguins ask Croydon to p-p-p-pick up their petition

Posted on January 22, 2018 by insidecroydon

The goat man of Croydon has become something of urban legend (but not myth, he really did exist; whatever happened to him?), and there really is a woman in the town centre who daily takes her macaw out for a “walk”.

There really were ‘penguins’ on Croydon’s streets at the weekend

But last weekend, for the first time, saw a “waddle” of penguins on Croydon’s streets.

Croydon Greenpeace toured the town centre in an effort to raise awareness of the need for the world’s largest protected area to be created in the Antarctic Ocean. Penguins have joined activists around the world, from Argentina to India, South Korea to South Africa, campaigning to protect their home.

Greenpeace want Croydon residents to call on the Government to do all they can to ensure that this vast, icy protected area becomes a reality, as part of efforts to help preserve, maintain and enhance the global environment.

The Antarctic Ocean Sanctuary would be the largest protected area on earth, covering 1.8million sq km of ocean. It would be a safe haven for animals like penguins and whales, and put the waters off limits to the industrial fishing vessels sucking up the tiny shrimp-like krill on which Antarctic wildlife relies. Continue reading →

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Keep off the glass: Dogs viciously targeted in Wandle Park

Posted on January 22, 2018 by insidecroydon

Wandle Park: been subjected to some dangerous vandalism over the weekend

Parents of young children and dog-walkers are being urged to take extra care when out enjoying their local park, after reports at the weekend of poison and broken glass being deliberately left to cause harm.

The incident occurred in Wandle Park, with one dog taking the poison and suffering internal bleeding as a consequence. With treatment, the animal is not at risk. Continue reading →

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Newman’s patronage proves persuasive with ambitious Skipper

Posted on January 22, 2018 by insidecroydon

Momentum supporters in Croydon are growing concerned that their leadership has ‘gone native’ to support Blairites. WALTER CRONXITE reports

The ill-judged ‘joke’ posted by wannabe Labour politician Caragh Skipper after the 2016 US Presidential election

It is not only Toby Young who has been trying frantically to rewrite his past through mass deletions of his embarrassing social media history.

In Croydon, the chair of the Croydon Central Constituency Labour Party would rather people weren’t aware that she has (hopefully jokingly) called for the assassination of the President of the United States.

Caragh Skipper was elected as chair of Croydon Central CLP last summer, while local Labour supporters were still bathing in the warm glow of Sarah Jones’s winning of the seat in the General Election. Jones had been the CLP chair. Skipper replaced the new MP backed by a large number of Momentum supporters with whom she had campaigned long and hard to get Jones elected to Parliament.

But for all the scare-mongering reports in the mainstream media last weekend about Corbyn-supporting Momentum ousting Blairites from positions of influence in the party, in Croydon something different has been happening. Rank-and-file Momentum supporters are beginning to express concerns that Skipper, and other erstwhile leaders of their group, have “gone native” and joined up with the local party’s Blairite leadership. Continue reading →

Posted in 2018 council elections, Addiscombe East, Caragh Skipper, Maddie Henson, Tony Newman | Tagged , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Felicity Buckland concert, South Norwood, Jan 27

Posted on January 22, 2018 by insidecroydon

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Honeywood Museum Easter holiday activities, Mar 31-Apr 15

Posted on January 22, 2018 by insidecroydon

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Philp’s PPS appointment creates a Purley poser for Javid

Posted on January 21, 2018 by insidecroydon

So Chris Philp didn’t miss out in the Prime Minister’s Government reshuffle at the start of the week after all.

The Croydon South Tory MP got what amounts to a demotion.

Chris Philp: job change is at best a sideways move. In reality, it’s a demotion

Thus Theresa May has managed to create a situation where the Parliamentary Private Secretary to her minister in charge of housing is a multi-millionaire entrepreneur who refuses to publish his tax returns and who remains a director of companies which annually invests millions in… speculative housing schemes.

The dust had long settled on May’s reshuffle, roundly dimissed as a piece of Barwellian fudge and blunder by most political columnists, when on Thursday it emerged, almost like an afterthought, that Philp was to be shunted from the post of PPS to Treasury ministers, where he had been an aide to Chancellor Philip Hammond only since last summer, and instead he was to take up the less prestigious bag-carrier job at housing, for Sajid Javid. Continue reading →

Posted in Chris Philp MP, Croydon South, Housing, London-wide issues, Property, Purley | Tagged , , , , | 1 Comment

Asian Resource Centre friends’ coffee morning, Jan 24

Posted on January 21, 2018 by insidecroydon

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History walk in Carshalton’s industrial heartland, Mar 18

Posted on January 21, 2018 by insidecroydon

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