Recent Comments
Strawberry Fair and barbeque, St George’s Waddon, June 21
Posted in Activities, Church and religions, Waddon
Tagged St George's Church, Strawberry Fair, Waddon
Leave a comment
Judgement Day has happened for Croydon. Now we need to act
CROYDON COMMENTARY: This borough has been failed multiple times, by the Mayor, by the majority of opposition councillors, by council directors, and by the government. PETER UNDERWOOD, the Green Party’s candidate for Croydon Mayor in 2026, offers some suggestions
The people of Croydon have been let down by a bunch of failures. We have been left in a mess, and we now need big changes to get us out of it.
The biggest failure is Jason Perry. He has said his “top priority has always been to fix the council’s finances”. It’s clear he has completely failed.
Even worse than that, Perry and his Conservative council cabinet haven’t even managed to get the most basic financial management systems in place. They don’t know where the money is being spent, so how can they claim that they know what they are doing?
They have put our Council Tax up by 27% in two years, sold off our assets on the cheap, slashed public services and still failed to do the biggest thing they promised before the election.
Perry is claiming that bringing in government Commissioners is just a political attack by Labour. He says that if the government wanted them to do more, they should have said so. Surely any sensible person would have realised that if you are continuing to fail, then you shouldn’t have to wait for someone else to tell you do something about it. Continue reading
Posted in 2026 council elections, 2026 Croydon Mayor election, Commissioners, Council Tax, Croydon Council, Croydon Greens, Elaine Jackson, Improvement Board, Jane West, Katherine Kerswell, Marie Snelling, Mayor Jason Perry, Peter Underwood, Rowenna Davis, Section 114 notice, Stabilisation Plan, Tony McArdle
Tagged 15% Council Tax hike, Cllr Rowenna Davis, Commissioners, Conservative, Council Tax, Croydon, Croydon Council, Government, Government Commissioners, Green Party, Improvement and Assurance Panel, Improvement Board, Jim McMahon, Katherine Kerswell, London Borough of Croydon, Mayor Jason Perry, MHCLG, Ministry of Housing Communities and Local Government, Peter Underwood, Section 114, Section 114 Notice, Tory
14 Comments
Labour figures accuse wasteful Perry of ‘serious incompetence’
‘Once again, the people of Croydon are paying the price for the failure of politicians who don’t have our community’s interests at heart’, according to 2026 Mayoral candidate Rowenna Davis
Labour’s candidate for Mayor of Croydon, Rowenna Davis, has accused her political opponent, Tory Mayor Jason Perry, of making the wrong choices at every stage.
Davis and two of Croydon’s three Labour MPs all weighed in on Perry, after the Labour government yesterday effectively torpedoed his failing administration, leaving the borough with a lame duck Mayor for the next 11 months. Albeit with an £84,000 salary by way of compensation.
Davis, a councillor for Waddon ward, had crossed swords with Mayor Perry several times in the 18months she was chair of the council’s scrutiny committee. Now, she took the increasingly desperate-seeming Perry to task for his wastefulness with public money, spending millions on consultants and council lap-tops, while cutting services such as the Youth Engagement Team and the lollipop road safety patrols at primary schools across the borough.
“This is a sad day for Croydon and a damning indictment of the Conservatives’ mismanagement of the Council’s budget,” Davis said following the announcement that Commissioners are to be imposed on Croydon, possibly until 2027. Continue reading
Posted in 2026 council elections, 2026 Croydon Mayor election, Commissioners, Council Tax, Croydon Council, Croydon East, Croydon West, Elaine Jackson, Improvement Board, Jane West, Katherine Kerswell, Marie Snelling, Mayor Jason Perry, Natasha Irons, Richard Howard, Rowenna Davis, Sarah Jones MP, Section 114 notice, Stabilisation Plan, Steve Reed MP, Streatham and Croydon North, Tony McArdle
Tagged 15% Council Tax hike, Claire Bonham, Cllr Rowenna Davis, Commissioners, Conservative, Council Tax, Croydon, Croydon Council, Croydon East, Croydon West, Government, Government Commissioners, Improvement and Assurance Panel, Improvement Board, Jim McMahon, Katherine Kerswell, London Borough of Croydon, Mayor Jason Perry, MHCLG, Ministry of Housing Communities and Local Government, Natasha Irons MP, Sarah Jones MP, Section 114, Section 114 Notice, Steve Reed OBE, Streatham and Croydon North, Tory
7 Comments
Radical change is overdue at council says LibDem Howard
A former Army bomb disposal expert who will be leading the Liberal Democrats’ election efforts in 2026 says Croydon’s residents are ‘fed up with paying more and getting less’
Richard Howard, the LibDems’ candidate for Mayor of Croydon in 2026, has today called for “urgent, radical change” in the way the borough is run.
Howard was responding to yesterday’s announcement from the government that it had run out of patience with the bungling and borrowing of Tory Mayor Jason Perry and his chief exec Katherine Kerswell.
With the council’s finances “deteriorating rapidly”, Jim McMahon, the minister for local government, described Croydon as “one of the most financially distressed councils in the country”, and that he is “minded” to parachute in Commissioners to take over the running of Fisher’s Folly.
The appointment of Commissioners would leave Perry as a lame duck Mayor until local elections next May, and raises serious questions about the position of £204,000 per year CEO Kerswell. Continue reading
Posted in 2026 council elections, 2026 Croydon Mayor election, Commissioners, Council Tax, Croydon Council, Elaine Jackson, Improvement Board, Jane West, Katherine Kerswell, Marie Snelling, Mayor Jason Perry, Richard Howard, Section 114 notice, Stabilisation Plan, Tony McArdle
Tagged 15% Council Tax hike, Claire Bonham, Commissioners, Conservative, Council Tax, Croydon, Croydon Council, Government, Government Commissioners, Improvement and Assurance Panel, Improvement Board, Jim McMahon, Katherine Kerswell, Liberal Democrats, London Borough of Croydon, Mayor Jason Perry, MHCLG, Ministry of Housing Communities and Local Government, Richard Howard, Section 114, Section 114 Notice, Tory
9 Comments
Reeves’ Spending Review sees Labour take London for granted
Taking Londoners, and Labour voters in London, for granted in a big effort to secure ‘Red Wall’ areas less loyal to the party looks like a ploy straight out of the Morgan McSweeney playbook.
By WALTER CRONXITE, Political Editor
Empty-handed: Chancellor Rachel Reeves had not much to offer for London or beleaguered local councils
The Spending Review delivered by Chancellor Rachel Reeves this week left the capital, and many of the country’s financially embarrassed local authorities, empty-handed, as the Labour government funnelled most of its spending towards those “Red Wall” seats in the Midlands, North and in Wales that are thought to be under threat from Nigel Farage and his rag-tag party of chancers.
Wednesday’s speech was a review of the budgets for government departments for the next three years that appeared to be less the work of Treasury economists, and more like something straight out of the Morgan McSweeney political playbook.
Overall, Reeves announced that departmental budgets will grow by 2.3% a year – a more modest sum compared to 3.8% annually at the 2021 spending review under Boris Johnson’s Conservative government.
There was a record boost for the NHS, amounting to an extra £29billion a year, as well as some extra funds for policing and prisons.
There was some funding for London, but nowhere near enough for a city that is the engine of the national economy, and Mayor Sir Sadiq Khan, the day after his investiture as a knight with King Charles at Buck House, must have felt bitterly let down by his own party. Continue reading
Posted in Council Tax, Croydon Council, Housing, London-wide issues, Mayor of London, Policing, Sadiq Khan
Tagged Chancellor of the Exchequer, Chancellor Rachel Reeves, Chief Secretary to the Treasury, Council Tax, Croydon, Croydon Council, Darren Jones, Labour, LCA, London, London Assembly, London Borough of Croydon, London Communications Agency, Mayor, Morgan McSweeney, Rachel Reeves
Leave a comment
Routes to Roots, with Shelley King, Stanley Arts, June 22
Posted in Activities, Art, Dance, Music, Stanley Halls
Tagged Coronation Street, Routes to Roots, Routes to Roots Exhibition, Shelley King, Stanley Halls
Leave a comment
Mayor Perry: ‘Residents of Croydon have felt enough pain’
The Mayor who has hiked your Council Tax by 27% in just two years today tried to claim that he has the Town Hall finances under control and that no one had raised any concerns about soaring levels of borrowing
Opposition councillors today demanded that Croydon Mayor Jason Perry should hold an emergency meeting of full council to discuss the government’s announcement that it is to send in Commissioners to run the borough.
Katharine Street sources said that they were “appalled” by the Tory Mayor’s response to the news. After imposing swingeing cuts to public services and hiking Council Tax by 27%, today Perry claimed that “the residents of Croydon have felt enough pain”.
Mayor Perry, like his chief executive, Katherine Kerswell, appears to be in denial of the severity of the situation, and their impotency to improve it.
Perry, who has a growing reputation for not telling the truth, even tried to claim that he had never received directions from the government or from the Whitehall-appointed improvement panel – a direct contradiction of what was written in the improvement panel’s report to Angela Rayner, which was made public today. Continue reading
Posted in 2026 council elections, 2026 Croydon Mayor election, Council Tax, Croydon Council, Elaine Jackson, Improvement Board, Jane West, Katherine Kerswell, Marie Snelling, Mayor Jason Perry, Section 114 notice, Stabilisation Plan, Tony McArdle
Tagged 15% Council Tax hike, Cllr Rowenna Davis, Commissioners, Conservative, Council Tax, Croydon, Croydon Council, Government, Government Commissioners, Improvement and Assurance Panel, Improvement Board, Jane West, Jim McMahon, Katherine Kerswell, London Borough of Croydon, Mayor Jason Perry, MHCLG, Ministry of Housing Communities and Local Government, Section 114, Section 114 Notice, Tony McArdle, Tory
17 Comments
Kerswell admits that council bail-outs are ‘not sustainable’
Crisis? What crisis? Council’s £204,000 per year chief exec spent last night at a glitzy awards event in Mayfair, with the government set to announce it would be sending in Commissioners to run the borough
Back from a night out on the lash at a flash Mayfair hotel, Katherine Kerswell was kept busy this morning, including drafting a lengthy missive to staff explaining why, after almost five years in post and after three Section 114 Notices on her watch, the government does not think that she, the council’s £204,000 per year chief exec, can be trusted to run the organisation without the supervision of Commissioners.
The scepticism shown in local government minister Jim McMahon’s announcement this afternoon, and the multiple criticisms in the improvement panel’s damning report about the slow pace of progress and reliance on evermore borrowing, all might be traced back to Kerswell’s office in Fisher’s Folly. Continue reading
Posted in Council Tax, Croydon Council, Elaine Jackson, Improvement Board, Jane West, Katherine Kerswell, Marie Snelling, Mayor Jason Perry, Section 114 notice, Stabilisation Plan, Tony McArdle
Tagged 15% Council Tax hike, Commissioners, Conservative, Council Tax, Croydon, Croydon Council, Government, Government Commissioners, Improvement and Assurance Panel, Improvement Board, Jane West, Jim McMahon, Katherine Kerswell, London Borough of Croydon, Mayor Jason Perry, MHCLG, Ministry of Housing Communities and Local Government, Section 114, Section 114 Notice, Tony McArdle, Tory
9 Comments
Borrowing plan would lead to council’s ‘collapse’ says report
The government-appointed improvement panel recommended intervention by Commissioners after the cash-strapped council laid out ‘impossible’ plans for additional borrowing
The “runaway position of the council’s finances” and a plan for continued bail-outs from central government had created “an impossible position”, according to a report on the management of Croydon’s finances which has been released today.
The government’s decision to send in Commissioners to take over the running of Croydon Council was made after the report from their “improvement and assurance” panel.
The panel, which was parachuted into Croydon’s crisis-hit council in early 2021, has spent the past 18 months or so planning its “exit strategy”, intending to leave a more stabilised council than the one they first encountered more than four years ago. Yet this latest report also amounts to a 19-page admission of their own failure by panel chair Tony McArdle and his well-paid team of “experts”.
The massive overspend in the last financial year and council officials’ plans to borrow their way out of trouble over the next four years would, according to the improvement panel’s report, lead to Croydon Council’s complete “collapse”. Continue reading
Posted in Council Tax, Croydon Council, Elaine Jackson, Improvement Board, Jane West, Katherine Kerswell, Marie Snelling, Mayor Jason Perry, Section 114 notice, Stabilisation Plan, Tony McArdle
Tagged 15% Council Tax hike, Commissioners, Conservative, Council Tax, Croydon, Croydon Council, Government, Government Commissioners, Improvement and Assurance Panel, Improvement Board, Jane West, Jim McMahon, Katherine Kerswell, London Borough of Croydon, Mayor Jason Perry, MHCLG, Ministry of Housing Communities and Local Government, Section 114, Section 114 Notice, Tony McArdle, Tory
13 Comments
McMahon acts after serious concerns on ‘aspects of leadership’
‘The deteriorating financial position, which is not being gripped and tackled adequately by the council, is reaching a “financial crisis”.’
Here is the full written statement to the House of Commons today from Jim McMahon, the local government minister
I have previously updated this House that this government is committed to resetting the relationship between central and regional government, and to establishing partnerships built on mutual respect, genuine collaboration and meaningful engagement. Local councils must be fit, legal and decent and this government is taking the action necessary to fix the foundations of local government.
Today, I am updating the House on the steps we are taking to support the London Borough of Croydon to recover and reform.
London Borough of Croydon
I am today publishing the latest report of the London Borough of Croydon Improvement and Assurance Panel, which I received in April. The report acknowledges and welcomes the hard work of the council’s members and staff and notes that there has been some progress over the course of the intervention, which is due to end on 20 July this year.
However, the Council’s financial position is deteriorating rapidly and the report documents serious concerns particularly on the council’s ability to improve, on some aspects of leadership and on use of resources.
Croydon remains one of the most financially distressed councils in the country. The council’s General Fund debt sits at around £1.4billion and it relies on the allocation of Exceptional Financial Support (EFS) through in-principle capitalisation directions to balance its budget. The dramatic increase in the council’s £136million EFS for 2025-2026 from £38million granted for 2024-25 is highly concerning.
The council has received approximately £553m in total EFS since March 2021. This is simply not sustainable. Continue reading
Posted in Council Tax, Croydon Council, Elaine Jackson, Improvement Board, Jane West, Katherine Kerswell, Marie Snelling, Mayor Jason Perry, Section 114 notice, Stabilisation Plan, Tony McArdle
Tagged 15% Council Tax hike, Commissioners, Conservative, Council Tax, Croydon, Croydon Council, Government, Government Commissioners, Improvement and Assurance Panel, Improvement Board, Jane West, Jim McMahon, Katherine Kerswell, London Borough of Croydon, Mayor Jason Perry, MHCLG, Ministry of Housing Communities and Local Government, Section 114, Section 114 Notice, Tony McArdle, Tory
6 Comments
Government sends in Commissioners to run Croydon Council
After more than four years of ‘soft-touch’ intervention with a so-called ‘improvement panel’, today Whitehall mandarins lost patience with Mayor Jason Perry and CEO Katherine Kerswell’s poor management of Croydon Council. By STEVEN DOWNES
Jim McMahon, Labour’s minister for local government, has announced to the House of Commons that his department, the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, is to appoint Commissioners to take over the management of Croydon’s basket-case council.
“The council’s financial position is deteriorating rapidly,” McMahon’s written statement said, expressing “serious concerns, particularly on the council’s ability to improve”.
McMahon was also critical “on some aspects of leadership and on use of resources”.
Sending in Commissioners is the most extreme intervention that a government can take with mismanaged and financially distressed local authorities. But today’s announcement is extraordinary since it comes after more than four years of “soft-touch” oversight by a government-appointed improvement and assurance panel. Continue reading
Posted in Council Tax, Croydon Council, Elaine Jackson, Improvement Board, Jane West, Katherine Kerswell, Marie Snelling, Mayor Jason Perry, Section 114 notice, Stabilisation Plan, Tony McArdle
Tagged 15% Council Tax hike, Commissioners, Conservative, Council Tax, Croydon, Croydon Council, Government, Government Commissioners, Improvement and Assurance Panel, Improvement Board, Jane West, Jim McMahon, Katherine Kerswell, London Borough of Croydon, Mayor Jason Perry, MHCLG, Ministry of Housing Communities and Local Government, Section 114, Section 114 Notice, Tony McArdle, Tory
16 Comments
What will sending in Commissioners mean for our council?
Government-appointed bureaucrats taking over the running of local level services happens only in ‘very exceptional circumstances and very much as a last resort’ according to Whitehall guidance
Since 2020, following Croydon’s first Section 114 Notice issued that November, a number of other local authorities have fallen into financial difficulties, with the government opting to use the powers available to it to intervene in the management of those councils, with the appointment of Commissioners to oversee how services are run.
Until today, Croydon had managed to avoid such a full-scale intervention. Continue reading
Posted in Council Tax, Croydon Council, Elaine Jackson, Improvement Board, Jane West, Katherine Kerswell, Marie Snelling, Mayor Jason Perry, Section 114 notice, Stabilisation Plan, Tony McArdle
Tagged 15% Council Tax hike, Commissioners, Conservative, Council Tax, Croydon, Croydon Council, Government, Government Commissioners, Improvement and Assurance Panel, Improvement Board, Jane West, Jim McMahon, Katherine Kerswell, London Borough of Croydon, Mayor Jason Perry, MHCLG, Ministry of Housing Communities and Local Government, Section 114, Section 114 Notice, Tony McArdle, Tory
6 Comments
New Addington ‘cut off’ after 130 bus crashes over tram tracks
Bus stopped: the 130 lodged over the tram tracks yesterday afternoon
A crash investigation is being conducted by Transport for London after a single-decker bus careered off the road and lodged itself over two sets of tram tracks in New Addington yesterday, just before the afternoon’s school run.
The Metropolitan Police are also investigating the incident, which occurred near the junction of Field Way and Lodge Lane.
Early reports from the emergency services called to the scene suggested that one person needed to be taken to hospital for treatment. Continue reading
Posted in New Addington, New Addington North, TfL, Tramlink, Transport
Tagged Croydon Tramlink, Croydon Trams, Field Way, Lodge Lane, New Addington, TfL, Transport for London
2 Comments
Palace fans’ forums express outrage over dodgy dog searches
Eagles fans were shocked by findings in our exclusive investigation into searches conducted by a private security firm outside Selhurst Park
Search centre: the Metropolitan Police failed to respond to Inside Croydon’s questions about their policy with private firms’ sniffer dogs
Inside Croydon’s exclusive report about potentially unlawful security searches outside Selhurst Park Stadium, using sniffer dogs, received overwhelming support from Crystal Palace supporters, several of whom reported having to endure similarly suspicious experiences.
Last month, former Sunday Times Insight journalist Peter Gillman reported for this website how a security firm, InvictaK9, had been hired by the football club to deploy sniffer dogs along Holmesdale Road to detect drugs and pyrotechnics on fans as they queued to enter the stadium.
Gillman’s findings, after he had endured an unpleasant experience of his own, found that handlers working for InvictaK9 were breaking the terms of their licence, by failing to, or even refusing, to identify themselves and who they worked for. Continue reading
Posted in Crime, Crystal Palace FC, Football, Inside Croydon, London-wide issues, Policing
Tagged Croydon, Crystal Palace FC, Football Supporters Association, Holmesdale Stand, InvictaK9, Metropolitan Police, National Training Inspectorate for Professional Dog Users, Peter Gillman, Private Security Industry Act 2001, Scotland Yard, Security Industry Authority, Selhurst, Selhurst Park
Leave a comment
Labour deselects Jewish Streatham councillor for Gaza support
Councillor Martin Abrams has accused those running Keir Starmer’s party of ‘pursuing their factional obsession against the interests of both the community and the Labour Party’
Martin Abrams, a councillor for Streatham St Leonard’s ward in Lambeth, has been deselected by the Labour Party and barred from standing for them in the 2026 local elections, ostensibly because he called for an end of the killing in Gaza.
Banned: Martin Abrams has been frozen out of Lambeth Council by the Labour Party
The move comes a few weeks since Andy Burnham, the Mayor of Manchester and a former Labour leadership contender, called for an end of factional in-fighting in the Labour Party which has seen an exodus of tens of thousands of members since Keir Starmer, backed by former Lambeth Council gofer Morgan McSweeney, took over in 2020.
Streatham St Leonard’s ward is in the Streatham and Croydon North parliamentary constituency of right-whinger Steve Reed OBE, who when he was leader of Lambeth Council worked closely with McSweeney.
In 2022, Abrams won his council seat from the Greens, with the most votes of the Labour candidates standing in his ward. Yet after three years, the Labour leadership on the council has barred him from ever making his maiden speech at Brixton Town Hall. Continue reading
Addiscombe firm backing director’s long ride for St Raphael’s
A Croydon builders’ merchant is supporting a dedicated colleague as they gear up for an incredible charity challenge, cycling more than 200 miles from London to Paris to raise vital funds for St Raphael’s Hospice.
Ready for his challenge: Chris Dack is riding his bicycle to Paris, taking a detour over the South Downs via Brighton this Sunday, all to raise funds for St Raphael’s
Chris Dack is the IT director at Harris and Bailey, and this Sunday he’s taking on the London to Brighton cycle ride.
But Dack won’t be stopping once he reaches the seafront. From there, he’ll continue to Paris, solo, aiming to ride down the Champs-Élysées by next Tuesday.
Dack will cover 210 miles in the three days, winding through the scenic countryside of southern England and northern France towards his personal finish line in the French capital.
Dack is self-funding the challenge entirely, so that every donation goes straight to the charity which supports people with life-limiting and terminal illnesses. Continue reading
Posted in Business, Charity, Health
Tagged Chris Dack, Harris and Bailey, London to Brighton, London to Paris, Merton, St Raphael's Hospice, Sutton, Worcester Park
Leave a comment
Thornton Heath man sentenced to 21 years for ‘vicious’ killing
Paul Campbell, from Thornton Heath, was yesterday jailed for 21 years with a five-year extended licence after “a particularly vicious” assault on an elderly and vulnerable man, who he left to die.
Guilty: Paul Campbell killed Gordon Ogunmuyiwa on Christmas Eve 2022
Campbell, 43, of Dunheved Road West, was found guilty last month at Woolwich Crown Court of the manslaughter of 62-year-old former doctor Gordon Ogunmuyiwa.
During his three-week trial, the court heard that on Saturday, December 24, 2022, Campbell had brutally assaulted Ogunmuyiwa, who had visited him at his property. Before fleeing, Campbell had called paramedics. By the time they arrived, however, Ogunmuyiwa was already dead.
The police investigation found that Ogunmuyiwa had been subject to more than a year of abuse, physical and financial. Continue reading
RSPCA issues life-saving appeal over back garden football nets
The RSPCA has rescued a young fox stuck down a well at St Helier Hospital.
Springwatch: this is the time of year when fox cubs start exploring their environment – including your back garden
And the animal charity has issued some potentially life-saving advice to all Londoners about everyday equipment kept in many gardens which can pose a deadly threat to local wildlife.
A fox cub was discovered by a member of the nursing team at St Helier Hospital on Wrythe Lane, Sutton, who found it at the bottom of a deep drainage well.
The fox was trapped six feet below ground, and it needed RSPCA Animal Rescue Officer Yalina Blumer to use a ladder to reach the stricken animal. Continue reading
Posted in Charity, Gardening, RSPCA, St Helier Hospital
Tagged Football nets, Foxes, Gardens, RSPCA, St Helier Hospital, Sutton
Leave a comment
‘Council’s finances remain broken’ MP Irons tells Commons
Local government minister admits that Croydon’s finances ‘are not small problems to deal with’
Questions in the House: Croydon East MP Natasha Irons spoke of the council’s ‘broken finances’
Natasha Irons, the Labour MP for Croydon East, yesterday made an 11th-hour plea to government ministers to act to salvage something from the wreckage of Croydon Council, after a decade and a half of austerity and crass mismanagement.
Irons, who was elected to parliament at last July’s General Election, was speaking in a Commons debate on local authority funding, where she and other backbench MPs from across the country made similar points about how unfair funding had seen savage cuts to local services since 2010.
Tomorrow, Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves is due to deliver a spending review, although few in Westminster believe that she will wave a magic wand to solve the composite issues across housing, adult and children’s social care that have steadily worsened during a decade and a half of austerity.
Questioning Jim McMahon, the Minister for Local Government, Irons told the House: “Despite an increase in Council Tax of 27% since 2022…,” (it is actually 27% since 2023 under Tory Mayor Jason Perry; the previous Labour council administration increased Council Tax by 5% in 2022), “… £136million in exceptional financial support this year and brutal cuts to services, Croydon Council’s finances remain broken. Continue reading
Posted in Adult Social Care, Children's Services, Council Tax, Croydon Council, Croydon East, Housing, Mayor Jason Perry, Natasha Irons, Section 114 notice
Tagged Conservative, Council Tax, Croydon, Croydon Council, EFS, Exceptional financial support, Government Spending Review, Jim McMahon, Labour, London Borough of Croydon, Mayor Jason Perry, Natasha Irons MP, Rachel Reeves, Section 114, Section 114 Notice, Spending Review, Tory
4 Comments
Crisis for Perry as Interim Adam resigns council planning job
KERSWELL’S CHAOTIC COUNCIL: A journeyman council director notorious for charging fees of £1,000 per day and taking massive pay-offs has quit as Croydon’s head of planning, following an investigation by this website. EXCLUSIVE by STEVEN DOWNES
On his way out: Adam Wilkinson lasted barely a fortnight working for Croydon Council
Adam Wilkinson, the journeyman civic official described as an “interim specialist” who took up the role as Croydon’s “interim director of planning and strategic planning” at the end of May, yesterday resigned his position.
Wilkinson’s resignation follows Inside Croydon’s report which revealed that he was recruited by Croydon Council at around the same time that his private consultancy company was being formally dissolved as a consequence of His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs having the business wound-up for its failure to pay tax, owing tens of thousands of pounds.
According to the council’s published records and Freedom of Information responses, Wilkinson had been working for Croydon Council only since the end of May.
His appointment had been recommended to the cash-strapped council’s appointments committee by council chief executive Katherine Kerswell (£204,000 per year) and approved by Mayor Jason Perry (£84,000 per year). Continue reading
Posted in "Hammersfield", Adam Wilkinson, Brick by Brick, Business, Council Tax, CPO, Croydon Council, Heather Cheesbrough, Jo Negrini, Katherine Kerswell, Mayor Jason Perry, Planning, Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield, Whitgift Centre
Tagged Adam Wilkinson, Adam Wilkinson Consultancy Ltd, Cllr Alasdair Stewart, Cllr Jason Cummings, Companies House, Conservative, Croydon, Croydon Council, Derby City Council, Heather Cheesbrough, Katherine Kerswell, Kent County Council, London, London Borough of Croydon, Mayor Jason Perry, Planning, Tory, Westfield, Whitgift Centre
24 Comments
Businesses! Speed up your cashflow by using myPOS
A D V E R T I S E M E N T
Posted in Advertisement, Advertisement features, Business
Tagged Advertisement, Advertisement Feature, myPOS
Leave a comment
Council cuts off Whitgift Centre by closing subway permanently
CROYDON IN CRISIS: Mayor Perry’s council has made another cost-cutting decision that could put the lives of pedestrians at risk.
EXCLUSIVE by STEVEN DOWNES
‘People have been killed crossing here’: the council sign on Wellesley Road, close to where the council has now permanently closed its pedestrian subway
Just a few steps away from the entrance to the Wellesley Road pedestrian subway, Croydon Council fixed a sign to a fence halfway across the multiple lane urban motorway which splits the town centre in half, between Addiscombe and East Croydon Station on one side and the Whitgift Centre on the other.
“WARNING”, the sign says in foreboding black capitals.
“People have been killed crossing here.”
Back into capitals, the sign then said: “USE THE SUBWAY”.
Except the very same highways department of the very same council that commissioned and installed that important warning sign has now decided that the Wellesley Road subway is to be closed off permanently. Continue reading
Posted in "Hammersfield", Business, Croydon Council, Transport, Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield, Whitgift Centre
Tagged Conservative, Croydon, Croydon Council, Hammersfield, London Borough of Croydon, Phil Crawley, Wellesley Road, Wellesley Road pedestrian underpass, Westfield, Whitgift Centre
15 Comments
Perry accused of ‘betrayal’ as he smuggles out more youth cuts
CROYDON IN CRISIS: Local MP and opposition councillors accuse the council of having no clear plan on what will replace an in-house team which works to reduce drugs and knife crime and to engage the borough’s youngsters. By our Town Hall reporter, KEN LEE
Gang hot-spot: crimes committed near McDonalds on Church Street have been used by Mayor Perry as an excuse to shut down the council’s youth service
The failure in policing large gangs of schoolchildren congregating around local branches of McDonalds is the latest excuse offered by Croydon Mayor Jason Perry for axing another council service, its Youth Engagement Team.
Mayor Perry wants to outsource the council’s responsibility towards the borough’s young people to outside groups, doling out hundreds of thousands of pounds in grants from City Hall and elsewhere to a variety of organisations, some of which are run by people who say that they are former gang members.
The cutting of the Youth Engagement Team has been described by a local MP as “a betrayal of Croydon’s young people”.
Since 2021, £1.5million of grants from MOPAC, the Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime, have been allocated to a collection of groups operating in Croydon, supposedly providing youth services and anti-knife crime “initiatives”. Opposition councillors have expressed worries that some of that money simply “disappears”, without ever being used for the purpose intended. Continue reading
Posted in Amy Foster, Children's Services, Crime, Croydon Council, Croydon East, CVA, Education, Fieldway, Knife crime, London-wide issues, Mayor Jason Perry, Natasha Irons, New Addington, New Addington North, Policing, Restaurants, Schools
Tagged Amy Foster, Cllr Amy Foster, Conservative, Croydon, Croydon Council, Croydon East, Elianne Andam, Labour, London, London Borough of Croydon, Mayor Jason Perry, MOPAC, Natasha Irons MP, New Addington, Tory, YET, Youth Engagement Service, Youth Engagement Team
8 Comments
TfL unveils its ‘Bakerloop’ bus while hoping for Tube extension
Transport for London has today confirmed the introduction from the autumn of a new “Bakerloop” express bus route between Waterloo and Lewisham, via the Elephant and Castle and the Old Kent Road, as the latest addition to the Superloop routes to improve transport links across south London.
Tube replacement service: the BL1 will provide an express bus service along much of the proposed Bakerloo line extension
The bus route is TfL’s stop-gap as it awaits government funding towards an extension of the Bakerloo Tube line – a decision on which might come in Wednesday’s Spending Review, although the chances are that the Bakerloop bus could be here to stay for many years yet.
TfL makes no secret of its use of the bus route to show the need for a Tube extension: “The bus route will demonstrate the opportunities presented by the Bakerloo line extension to better connect people in south-east London,” they said.
“TfL continues to develop plans for the Bakerloo line extension, including tunnel design, station designs and plans for a possible extension beyond Lewisham,” TfL said, referring to the possible adoption of existing rail lines from Lewisham on to Beckenham Junction. Continue reading
Posted in Commuting, Lewisham, London-wide issues, Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, Southwark Council, TfL, Tramlink, Transport
Tagged Beckenham Junction, Croydon, Croydon Tramlink, Croydon Trams, Elephant and Castle, Lewisham, London, Mayor, Old Kent Road, Southwark, Superloop, TfL, Transport for London
1 Comment
