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Santa’s Workshop, Fieldway Family Centre, Dec 5
Posted in Fieldway, New Addington
Tagged Fieldway, Fieldway Family Centre, New Addington
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First Birthday Exhibition, Elizabeth James Gallery, Dec 7
Posted in Art, South Norwood
Tagged Croydon, Croydon Council, London Borough of Croydon, South Norwood
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Collins deserves new T-shirt as fly-tip figures start to fall
Now might be the time for Stuart Collins to start dishing out the T-shirts.
Stuart Collins (right) and his T-shirts. Figures published today demonstrate that his campaign is having some effect
Three years ago, the Labour councillor put in charge of getting Croydon’s streets clean launched a “Don’t Mess With Croydon – Take Pride” campaign, handing out badges and balloons before he had the bins and road-sweeping staff in place to back-up the sloganising.
But today, following a £1.3million investment in the road-cleaning programme with contractors Veolia, Croydon Council produced figures which showed a decrease in fly-tipping incidents across the borough of more than one-fifth, compared to the same six-month period in 2016.
From April to October this year there were 11,876 reported incidents of fly-tipping, down from 15,211 during the same period in 2016.
Beddington incinerator is out-of-date before it is even started
CROYDON COMMENTARY: After travelling past the Beddington Lane incinerator yesterday in the knowledge that the furnaces are about to be fired up for the first time, SHASHA KHAN, pictured right, who has been prominent in the campaign opposing the Viridor project for almost a decade, is more worried than ever
After first being consulted upon in 2008, with details hidden deep in a dodgy waste review, it has taken nearly 10 years for this incinerator to finally reach completion. During this time, the world has moved on.
Television programmes like Blue Planet have highlighted to a wider audience the need to move away from plastics. The days of single-use plastics – presently sent for incineration because it has no further use – are numbered as we move towards a circular economy, where waste becomes a resource and not a “feedstock” to burn in this incinerator. Continue reading
Posted in Environment, Shasha Khan, Waste incinerator
Tagged Beddington Lane incinerator, Shasha Khan, Viridor
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South Norwood Tourist Board offers perfect poster presents
They missed the retail orgy that is Black Friday – probably deliberately – but the free spirits at the South Norwood Tourist Board have the perfect artwork gift for family and friends at Christmas.
The SNTB has a selection of its poster art – including More Lakes Than Cumbria! – which capture the essential beauty and awe-inspiring majesty of the area around Norwood Junction.
On their website, the SNTB describe the posters thusly: “These A3 posters are full colour on 135gsm silk stock and would make a great Christmas present for both the patriotic South Norwoodian or those unable to see the beautiful South Norwood views for themselves. Continue reading
Energy Garden at West Croydon joins Overground grand tour
Energy gardens at Norwood Junction and West Croydon are to form part of a magical tour of the London Overground network this Saturday.
The organisers say, “Energy Garden is one big community and we want to get together to take a look at all of the gardens, share ideas on how we can develop the gardens and congratulate you all in person for your hard work.
“Join us and make sure your gardens are in tip-top shape for the winter. The tour will host discussions at each of the stations along the route, but if you think your Energy Garden needs some extra pruning or weeding… tell us!”
Posted in Gardening, South Norwood, Transport, West Croydon
Tagged Norwood Junction, South Norwood, West Croydon station
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Santa’s Reindeer Trail, Kenley Common, Dec 23
Posted in Activities, Environment, Kenley, Kenley Airfield Friends Group, Wildlife
Tagged City Commons, Kenley, Kenley Common
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Thornton Heath’s new restaurant has something for everyone
YahSo’s Jamaican grill will offer much more than chicken
Thornton Heath is to get its own, Jamaican-inspired restaurant when YahSo opens on Whitehorse Road this Friday.
The business is the concept of Jamaican-born restaurateur, Andrew Dell, and Londoner Yvonne Clarke.
The eclectic menu in a vibrant venue promise to provide a dining experience like no other, with appetising food for diners while enjoying authentic music and entertainment, and promising “more than the generic”, as it tries to cater for vegetarians. Continue reading
Sign-up for local author’s book launch, South Croydon, Dec 7
South Croydon writer David Matthews is staging the official launch and book-signing of his debut novel, That They Might Lovely Be, next Thursday, December 7, where copies of the book will be on sale with more than one-third off the recommended retail price.
Matthews, the popular (with pupils as well as staff) former head teacher at St Andrew’s High School, gave a very well-received talk about the craft and complexities of plotting out his novel, which is about the lives of a family in the intra-war years, at one of the Talking Inside Croydon events staged in the summer.
“David Matthews has managed the trickiest of doubles – a literary page-turner with a heart and a brain,” according to one of the early reviews of the book, which takes its title from a line in a 17th-century hymn which has also inspired one of Coldplay’s songs. Continue reading
Posted in Art, Church and religions, St Andrew's
Tagged David Matthews, St Andrew's Church, St Andrew's School
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Churchill’s spectacles for sale at Farleigh Christmas auction
The Churchil spectacles, which are estimated could auction for up to £2,000
A pair of spectacles belonging to Churchill – the wartime Prime Minister, not the insurance company’s nodding dog – are the highlight lot in the latest auction to be staged at Farleigh Golf Club next month, on December 6 (with viewings on December 5).
Auctioneer Catherine Southon is including a pair of Sir Winston Churchill’s tortoiseshell spectacles made by his opticians CW Dixey & Sons in her Christmas auction next Wednesday, December 6. Continue reading
Posted in Art, Business, Selsdon & Ballards
Tagged Catherine Southon, Farleigh Golf Club, Winston Churchill
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Brick by Brick begins its privatisation of public open space
The Brick by Brick hoardings going up around green space at Auckland Rise – where a proper equalities consultation was never done
Oh, how we laughed – not – when someone in the offices of the council’s unaccountable property speculators, Brick by Brick, decided to tweet a joke yesterday.
“This week we have been mainly painting hoardings…”, they said, apparently channeling The Fast Show.
Except Brick by Brick has been anything but, well, fast. The housing company, which is supposed to be delivering 1,000 new homes around the borough, has taken nearly three years and has yet to lay a single brick.
“We’re delighted to be starting to build out our first batch of 10 or so sites from this week. Look out for info locally from our development team and contractors, and contact us if you need any other info,” they offered, as if they have shown any concern for existing residents at all so far, with schemes being granted planning permission when legally required consultations had not been properly conducted.
SPAD Creatura about to become dumb and dumber at Town Hall
WALTER CRONXITE reports on how the law of unintended consequences – and the rules of the Civil Service – might just be about to catch up with Gavin Barwell’s gobby fac totum
Theresa May’s digital special adviser, Mario Creatura, was looking forward to Christmas
Ho! Ho! Ho! Has Christmas come early for the people of Croydon with the news that Mario Creatura, the erstwhile Tory councillor for Coulsdon West, may be barred from speaking and voting at Town Hall meetings?
Because that’s the only reasonable conclusion that can be taken from the code of conduct for Special Advisers, or SPADs, and the over-arching Civil Service code, which Creatura is now subject following his meteoric rise to become a special adviser at No10 Downing Street, where he is reunited with his old boss, Gavin Barwell.
Creatura is the third figure from Croydon to get a job in Downing Street since Barwell was hired as Theresa May’s Chief of Staff last June, following his shattering defeat in the General Election when he lost his Croydon Central seat.
But the old Croydon double act is looking more like Dumb and Dumber than the Batman and Robin paring which Barwell sought to portray in his vanity publishing election memoir, because strict public service rules – which Barwell and Creatura have played fast and loose with in the past – do not usually allow civil servants in politically restricted roles simultaneously to hold elected office, even as self-important councillors for suburban Coulsdon. Continue reading
Posted in Coulsdon, Coulsdon Town, Croydon Council, Gavin Barwell, Mario Creatura
Tagged Barwell, Conservative, Coulsdon, Croydon, Croydon Council, Gavin Barwell, Mario Creatura, Tory
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Licensing changes are halted over bashment ban concerns
Council plans to alter its licensing policy in the town centre, after several years of strictly applying rules which discouraged new bars, night clubs and pubs to open, failed to get past the first hurdle of last week’s committee meeting when chief executive Jo Negrini failed to staff the meeting with a qualified legal adviser.
The controversial bashment ban in the Dice Bar is still causing friction between police and the licensing authority
Jane Avis, the Labour councillor who chairs the committee, halted proceedings when she was concerned that one of her colleagues, Callton Young, was at risk of slandering the Metropolitan Police over their controversial “bashment ban”, which has been used to block black and Asian music in some of the borough’s night spots.
In September, Sadiq Khan, the Mayor of London, ordered the Met to conduct a review of their 696 form, which many critics have claimed has been used to target black and ethnic minority music venues, which play grime, garage and bashment venues. The police form was introduced in 2005 as a risk assessment for live music to prevent violence.
Last year, Croydon police used the 696 form to enforce a so-called “bashment ban” at the Dice Bar on Croydon High Street, after the Jamaican music was deemed “unacceptable” by the borough’s police. Continue reading
Posted in Andrew Pelling, Business, Callton Young, Croydon Council, David Wood, Jane Avis, Jo Negrini, London-wide issues, Mayor of London, Pubs, Sadiq Khan, Steve O'Connell
Tagged Andrew Pelling, Bashment Ban, Callton Young, Conservative, Croydon Council, Croydon High Street, Dice Bar, Jane Avis, Labour, Tory
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Viridor about to use chimneys that Santa won’t want to visit
The industrial-scale waste incinerator at Beddington Lane is set to be fired up for the first time in the next couple of weeks, Inside Croydon has learned.
“It’s the sort of Christmas present no one in south London would want,” one campaigner against the incinerator said this morning.
Ready for the burn: the Viridor incinerator at Beddington Lane
No one, that is, perhaps with the exception of multi-national rubbish burners Viridor.
Viridor will be getting £1billion of public money from Croydon and three other south London councils in a highly profitable deal to operate the incinerator over the next 25 years – which works out at £10million per year for Croydon and each of the three other boroughs, Sutton, Kingston and Merton – for the duration of the agreement.
But at least the company will be providing the first 15,000 items to stick in the Beddington furnaces: their own propaganda leaflets which are to be distributed to households in Sutton in the weeks between now and Christmas.
Built at a cost of £210million, the incinerator plant is sited near the Beddington Farmlands land-fill site, which was supposed to have been reclaimed as a country park. Instead, it could prove to be an environmental disaster in a highly populated part of the capital for generations to come. The trial burn happens to coincide with London Mayor Sadiq Khan running a high-profile campaign claiming that he wants to take radical steps to reduce the illegally high toxic emissions in the capital’s air.
The Beddington incinerator scheme was given the go-ahead by Sutton Council, as the local planning authority, under controversial circumstances, with Liberal Democrat councillors failing – as is required by law – to declare their close personal relationships to the company’s chief executive, and Viridor doling out hundreds of thousands of pounds of “charity” aid to a local church which is very closely linked to LibDem MP Tom Brake.
Posted in Business, Croydon Council, Croydon Greens, Environment, London-wide issues, Peter Underwood, Refuse collection, Sadiq Khan, Shasha Khan, Sutton Council, Tom Brake MP, Waste incinerator
Tagged Beddington Farmlands, Beddington Lane, Beddington Lane incinerator, Liberal Democrats, Peter Underwood, Sutton Council, Tom Brake MP, Viridor
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£5 tickets for under-25s go with a rush at David Lean Cinema
The David Lean Cinema is introducing “rush tickets” for the under-25s from January.
“Unfortunately, we have had to increase ticket prices by 50p to £8.50 for standard tickets, and £7 for concessions. However, in order to encourage younger patrons, we are introducing special ‘rush’ tickets at a reduced price of £5,” the cinema’s latest newsletter explains.
From January 8, tickets at the special price of £5 will be available to customers aged 25 and under, in the final hour before the advertised start time of films showing at the David Lean Cinema. Continue reading
Posted in Art, Cinema, David Lean Cinema Campaign
Tagged David Lean Cinema, David Lean Cinema Campaign
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Benson Primary Christmas Fair, Shirley, Dec 2
Posted in Schools, Shirley North
Tagged Benson Primary School, Harris Primary Academy Benson, Shirley
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Miss P’s Barbecue is serving up some beefy platters
JASON HINTON visits an old pub in Addiscombe that has been given a new lease of liveliness
I’d long believed that what was once the Cricketers pub on Addiscombe Road, just round the corner from where I live, could be so much more than the quiet, dark and rather sombre establishment that I had occasionally.
The beef brisket – without bun for gluten-free option – melts in the mouth
Then it closed. But over the course of the past few months, it has been transformed into Miss P’s Barbecue, somewhere that is lively, bright and far from sombre.
After briefly meeting Miss P and her partner on a hot summer afternoon when they were in the midst of transforming the pub into an Atlanta-style barbecue restaurant, and seeing their enthusiasm for their concept and venture, I was eager to try the food they had to offer.
A few weeks after opening my wife and I enjoyed a lazy Sunday afternoon lunch at Miss P’s. My first impressions of the restaurant were that considerable effort had gone into the refurb. The decor is a contemporary wood-stained theme, consistent with a barbecue. The tables are canteen style, with cushions available for comfort, if required. Continue reading
Posted in Addiscombe West, Business, Pubs, Restaurants
Tagged Addiscombe West, Miss P's Barbecue
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Croydon Philharmonic Choir Christmas Cheer, Dec 18
Posted in Art, Croydon Philharmonic Choir, Music
Tagged Addiscombe West, Croydon Philharmonic Choir
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Shirley’s surprises hidden in the heath on Addington Hills
The views north to central London from the Addington Hills are an under-appreciated bonus for Croydon’s residents and Sunday morning strollers
WANDLE WANDERINGS: Under gin-blue skies, KEN TOWL headed for the hills and encountered views that could rival a New England Fall
Advertisements in the Sunday newspaper supplements for trips to Boston to see the glories of the New England “Fall”, as they like to call it, are all very well for those with surplus cash. But in these days of austerity, some of us have to tighten our belts and look for our pleasures nearer to home.
Fortunately, a round trip to the Addington Hills will only set you back £3, and now is the time to go when the autumn sun at your back lights up a vista from the hills that takes in the Wembley arch in the west to the hi-rises of Canary Wharf in the east. Continue reading
Posted in Croydon parks, Environment, Ken Towl, Pubs, Restaurants, Shirley North, Walks, Wandle Wanderer, Wildlife
Tagged Addington Hills, Ken Towl, Shirley, Shirley Windmill, Wandle Wanderings
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Heathfield House Grand Christmas Bazaar, Dec 3
Posted in Activities, Environment, Gardening, Heathfield House, Wildlife
Tagged Heathfield House
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Senior Tory councillor quits Town Hall but keeps it all quiet
KEN LEE, our Town Hall reporter, on the disappearing act performed by one of the local Tories’ former leading lights
Unannounced at the Town Hall, and unmentioned to the people of Selsdon and Ballards ward she was supposed to be representing, Sara Bashford, the sometime deputy leader of the Croydon Tories at the Town Hall, has quit as a councillor.
Bashford quietly handed in her Town Hall pass on November 8, after more than a decade of pocketing generous allowances as an elected councillor.
The only signal of this departure of an elected member of the council is a note on what used to be her contact page on the council website. “Councillor Sara Bashford… Not currently an elected councillor,” it states, apparently oblivious to the imbecilic contradiction therein. Continue reading
