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Not much to show for £5.4m spent on East Croydon’s bus stops
£5.4m on three bus shelters, delivered after six months. Nice work if you can get it
So is that it? Is that what the council and Transport for London took almost six months and, they tell us, spent £5.4million to achieve?
All that time and all that money, and for what? Continue reading
Croydon’s cuts to IVF treatment are not fair and are not NICE
CROYDON COMMENTARY: Three-quarters of those who responded to a recent consultation on local health services said that fertility treatment should be offered on the NHS. Then the NHS bean-counters, who had failed to review the service for eight years, announced they were going to cut it anyway. KIRSTIE SMITH on another example of health service policy which is forcing more people to go private
When a couple makes the decision to try for a baby, it’s an exciting time. When it is not possible for this to happen naturally, it is a devastating blow.
There can be all sorts of reasons why it’s not possible, but what’s important is not to look to apportion blame but to put all energies into “what next”.
Assisted conception – using In Vitro Fertilisation, or IVF – or intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI) is a big decision and often a last resort. It has a huge impact on couples, not only physically but mentally and financially.
So when an area makes a decision to remove a couple’s chance on the NHS, that adds to the burden. Infertility affects 1 in 7 couples and is the second most common reason a woman visits her GP. It is recognised by the World Health Organisation as a condition for which medical treatment should be provided. But it won’t be provided in Croydon, if the cuts in services recommended by the local Clinical Commissioning Group are approved by the health minister, Jeremy Hunt.
In England and Wales, guidelines from NICE, the National Institute of Clinical Excellence, state that for the best chances of successful IVF treatment, three full cycles are recommended. For some time, the NHS in Croydon has provided only one. Continue reading
Posted in Croydon CCG, Croydon Council, Health, Kirstie Smith, Mayday Hospital
Tagged Conservative, Croydon, Croydon NHS, Croydon NHS CCG, Tory
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Something smelling fishy about Sutton’s environmental record
Nesting wildfowl have been left high and dry by Sutton Council’s decision to drain Carshalton Ponds in the nesting season
Sutton’s growing reputation for being an environmental disaster area has just got even worse after allowing one of the area’s beauty spots, Carshalton Ponds, to be drained of water right in the middle of the waterfowl breeding season.
The move has left ducks, geese and other wildfowl high and dry, just as they are nurturing eggs and newly hatched chicks, and has managed to kill off dozens of fish and other wildlife that depended on the ponds.
This is how Carshalton Ponds should look…
Worried Carshalton residents first sounded the alarm about falling water levels at the weekend.
Sutton and East Surrey Water said that their company is under licence to keep the River Wandle flowing to sustain wildlife living in, or near the river, and so had diverted the water flow from the pond. With some cracks around the pond edges also causing leakages, Sutton Council was to carry out repair work this week while the ponds were drained.
But the belated explanation did not placate angry residents, who had been annoyed that no one from the water company nor the council had bothered to inform them of the works, nor had considered the area’s resident wildlife at one of the most sensitive times of the annual cycle. Continue reading
All change at Edenham as parents give dressing down to head
GENE BRODIE, our education correspondent, reports on a parents’ backlash against uniform and other changes being imposed at one of the borough’s poorest performing schools
There must come a time for any struggling school when its governors and staff decide that the only way to rescue its reputation is to give it a complete identity change.
There has not been uniform acceptance of recent changes at Edenham High
“The new name and badge represent the school’s location at the heart of the Monks Orchard community and the heritage of the school site, taking elements of the family crests of previous landowners,” a letter from the school’s governors told parents and guardians.
Posted in Education, Orchard Park High, Schools, Shirley North
Tagged Edenham High School, Orchard Park High, Shirley
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Council hands Hunt final decision over cuts to IVF treatment
The Council’s health and social care scrutiny committee has thrown a curve ball to the Tory government over cuts in NHS provision by referring the decision to end the provision of IVF fertility treatment in Croydon to Jeremy Hunt, the health minister.
Jeremy Hunt: won’t be content until the NHS is reduced to this small
The Croydon Clinical Commissioning Group’s decision to end provision of IVF – making Croydon the only London borough where such treatment is not available on the NHS – will now be suspended, pending the ruling from Hunt, and making the health minister responsible for making the cuts.
This represents the second knock-back for Croydon CCG’s latest round of government-imposed cuts on local health provision, as it seeks to find £36million-worth of “savings” this year, on top of cuts already made.
Last week, Inside Croydon reported how the CCG had been forced to make a U-turn over proposals to withdraw prescriptions of specialist formula milk for babies, after a campaign backed by this website had drawn national coverage and widespread support, including backing from the borough’s two Tory MPs.
South Norwood book club to chart another decline and fall
GUY CLAPPERTON, of South Norwood’s Page Turners book club, looks back at this week’s meeting and gets on a Waugh footing for May
A terrific meeting last night with seven of us – three of whom were brand new members – saw five people who really liked this month’s book, Emma Cline’s The Girls. Of those who didn’t, Mercedes didn’t really, even though it was her suggestion, and me – I hadn’t had as much time as I’d hoped so hadn’t had a chance to finish it.
We had a lively chat about the book, the 1960s, America in the Sixties, Charles Manson and of course who can forget Georgina’s personal history in terms of growing up next to a brothel and becoming embroiled in a murder investigation in America (she was an innocent bystander in both instances I promise!)
A great evening which saw a lot of different perspectives on the book, which added a lot to it. Continue reading
Volunteer in Croydon parks as part of the John Muir Award
Posted in Charity, Community associations, Croydon Council, Croydon parks, Environment
Tagged John Muir Award
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Council has chance to get Menta to finish Bridge to Nowhere
Six years after being granted permission for a controversial 54-storey block – potentially the tallest residential block in Britain – and developers Menta Redrow will be back at Croydon’s planning committee tonight asking for permission to chop their tower in half.
Chopped in half: Menta Redrow want to abandon their 54-storey tower at East Croydon and build two 25-floor blocks instead
When they sought permission originally, in 2011, Menta said the build would take five years.
To this day, not a single brick or slab has been laid on the site, next to East Croydon Station on Cherry Orchard Road. Instead, the site is occupied by the “world’s shortest skyscraper”, in the form of the developers’ marketing Portakabin, which a ward councillor has described as “an eyesore, and an affront to local residents”.
Tonight’s pre-application approach to the council ought to present the planning department with an opportunity to take a firm line with the developers over the immediate future of Croydon’s £22million Bridge to Nowhere. Because despite having originally agreed to have the railway station’s northern access bridge on their property, with all the associated benefits it might afford to the eventual occupiers of their buildings, Menta Redrow have spent four years blocking the bridge being completed. Continue reading
Film-maker Loach comes to Croydon to talk benefits and Blake
Ken Loach, the award-winning film director who came out of retirement to make I, Daniel Blake, the acclaimed account of life in Britain on benefits, will be visiting Croydon tomorrow to take part in a series of events organised by Momentum.
Ken Loach: from Cathy Come Home to I, Daniel Blake, the film-maker has charted Britain’s social problems for 60 years
The local branch of Momentum, a group formed to support Jeremy Corbyn as Labour Party leader, courted minor controversy last month when they tried to promote their activities by illegally fly-posting stickers and posters around the town centre. In Loach’s film, Daniel Blake’s desperate cry for help from the Department for Work and Pensions sees him resorting to painting graffiti on the Job Centre’s walls.
Loach is one of the foremost British film-makers of his generation his work, since the pioneering Cathy Come Home in the 1960s, always possessing a clear sense of social conscience. Continue reading
Posted in Cinema, Community associations, Croydon Council, Music, Theatre
Tagged Croydon Momentum, I Daniel Blake, Ken Loach
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Grange Park Easter Eggstravaganza, Old Coulsdon, Apr 15
Posted in Activities, Coulsdon, Croydon parks, Friends of Grange Park
Tagged Coulsdon, Friends of Grange Park, Grange Park
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Councillor criticises ‘casual racism’ displayed at Brexit debate
Within a week of the savage mob attack in Shrublands which left a teenaged asylum seeker fighting for his life and which is being investigated as a hate crime, a Labour councillor has felt it necessary to remind some members of an audience at a community event in the south of the borough to temper their “casual” attitudes to racism.
Andrew Pelling: highlighted casual racism
Andrew Pelling, the Waddon councillor, was one of the speakers at last night’s Coulsdon and Purley Debating Society debate on post-Brexit Britain, alongside Croydon South’s Tory MP Chris Philp.
Pelling criticised two speeches from the audience in Old Coulsdon as including “the kind of casual racism that would not have been evident in previous decades”.
Pelling urged people to stand up to racism. He singled out for criticism remarks made at the meeting by the busy Tory activist, Robert Ward.
Ward had tried to claim that levels of hate crime were low and that reports of hate crime were exaggerated. Ward asserted that in one police command there had been only one hate crime and that had been a “Poles go home” graffiti that he claimed had been written by a Pole seeking to avoid eviction by their landlord. Continue reading
Posted in Andrew Pelling, Chris Philp MP, Coulsdon, Croydon South
Tagged Andrew Pelling, Chris Philp MP, Conservative, Coulsdon, Croydon South, Labour, Tory, Waddon
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Dig It Together, community garden action day, Apr 22
Posted in Activities, Broad Green, Gardening
Tagged Broad Green, Wilford Road Play Park
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Croydon ‘Works’ – at a cost of £1,230 for every job placement
WALTER CRONXITE reports that a council job brokerage scheme has spent just £1,000 in the past year on training for unemployed local residents, but paid more than £100,000 on staff to manage the project
Croydon Council last month issued a proud boast that it had played a role in securing employment for 100 people through its jobs brokerage scheme, Croydon Works.
Mark Watson at the launch of Croydon Works. But at what cost?
As the council’s propaganda department trumpeted this success, giving full credit to Councillor Mark Watson, one thing that they failed to mention was that that each one of those jobs has cost the Council Tax-payers of Croydon:
£1,230
According to a Freedom of Information request submitted on behalf of Inside Croydon, the council revealed that in less than a year, Croydon has spent a grand total of £123,000 on Croydon Works.
Possibly most disappointing about the spending breakdown on Croydon Works for the 100 jobs it has created is that just £1,000 – less than 1 per cent – of the scheme budget has been used in the past year on job-related training for Croydon residents.
But according to Watson, “Croydon Works is doing a fantastic job”. Continue reading
Posted in Business, Croydon Council, Mark Watson, Tony Newman
Tagged Boozepark, Boxpark, Croydon, Croydon Council, Croydon Works, London Borough of Croydon, Mark Watson, Tony Newman
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Bat Walk, Wandle Park this Friday, Apr 7
Posted in Broad Green, Croydon parks, Waddon, Wandle Park, Wildlife
Tagged Waddon, Wandle Park
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Reports suggest Westfield wants 1,200 flats in town centre
BARRATT HOLMES, our housing correspondent, on the glacially slow progress being made over the Hammersfield project, which is beginning to appear ‘like a residential development with a shopping centre tacked on’
Revised plans for the £1.4billion redevelopment of a large swathe of central Croydon’s shopping area are expected to go before the council planning committee “in the next month or so”, when they could propose up to twice the volume of housing originally put forward by developers Westfield and Hammerson.
The demolition of the Whitgift Centre in central Croydon will make way for at least 1,000 flats
Reports from Australia, where Westfield are based, have suggested that in the face of a global shift towards online shopping, and set against a continuing rise in residential property values in London, their scheme to redevelop Croydon could now include as many as 1,200 flats – or “luxury executive apartments” as they are sure to be described.
“With each passing month, it’s looking like the Westfield development is more of a residential development with a shopping centre tacked on than anything else,” a Town Hall source said.
Posted in "Hammersfield", Business, Centrale, CPO, Gavin Barwell, Housing, Planning, Property, Whitgift Centre
Tagged Barwell, Boris Johnson, Conservative, Gavin Barwell, Hammersfield, Hammerson, Tory, Westfield, Whitgift Centre, Whitgift Foundation
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Kite-making workshop, Wandle Park, Apr 9
Posted in Activities, Broad Green, Croydon parks, Waddon, Wandle Park
Tagged Broad Green, Waddon, Wandle Park
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Police begin murder inquiry after Thornton Heath stabbing
Croydon police are now handling a murder inquiry, from a separate and unconnected incident in Thornton Heath last week, as well as the investigation into the brutal attack on a teenaged refugee in Shrublands on Friday night.
Chief Superintendent Jeff Boothe: Croydon’s borough commander asks the public to talk to officers
Police have made a total of 16 arrests in connection with the violent assault on the 17-year-old Kurdish Iranian asylum seeker, who has been named as Reker Ahmed.
But they are now also dealing with a parallel murder inquiry, following the death yesterday of a 23-year-old South Norwood man, Bjorn Brown, after he was victim of a knife attack in on Bensham Lane last Wednesday, March 29.
A Scotland Yard statement says: “At this early stage it is believed that the assault occurred in Kelling Gardens at the junction with Bensham Lane.
“The victim left the scene on his bicycle but collapsed. A member of the public driving past in Bensham Lane came to his aid and attempted to transport him to hospital. The driver then flagged down an ambulance which took the victim to a south London hospital.
“The victim was transferred to another south London hospital where he died in the early hours of Monday, April 3.” Continue reading
More than 200 runners take half-marathon in their stride
Even halfway into a daunting 13-mile race, half-marathon runners were feeling good
Striders of Croydon have declared their latest road race, Sunday’s Croydon Half-marathon, as a great success, after more than 200 runners from across London and the south-east took part in the warm spring sunshine.
And with the London Marathon coming up this month, Striders are ready to welcome many new runners to their clubhouse at Sandilands to join them for friendly training runs to prepare for the next big challenge.
Sunday’s race was won by Chris Wright, of Peterborough’s Nene Valley Harriers, who covered what the organisers describe as an “undulating”, which means hilly, two-lap course around Lloyd Park and the Shirley Hills in 1hr 12min 19sec, while the first woman finisher was Carole Penlington from Blackheath and Bromley in 1hr 27min 8sec. Continue reading
Posted in Athletics, Sport, Striders of Croydon
Tagged Croydon Half-marathon, Lloyd Park, London Marathon, Striders of Croydon
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Council’s planning department groaning under workload strain
Croydon’s planning department, confronted with a massive workload in the borough’s relentless drive for redevelopment, is struggling under the strain with an exodus of experienced senior employees from an already understaffed office, and reports of some officials being reduced to tears by their managers.
Block by Block: Croydon Council CEO Jo Negrini
And the rock-bottom morale in Fisher’s Folly is unlikely to be helped by the probability that one of the latest, more controversial decisions of the council’s planning committee, and the conduct of the chair of that committee, Councillor Paul Scott, seem set to be referred to the local government ombudsman.
Staff at the council had complained of a culture of bullying long before Negrini joined Croydon; one tragic instance is believed by some to have contributed to the suicide of a former colleague after they had been made redundant.
Posted in "Hammersfield", Boxpark, Brick by Brick, Chris Philp MP, CPO, Croydon Council, Croydon South, Heather Cheesbrough, Housing, Jo Negrini, Paul Scott, Planning, Property, Purley, Whitgift Centre
Tagged Chris Philp MP, Conservative, Croydon Council, Croydon South, Hammersfield, Hammerson, Heather Cheesbrough, Jo Negrini, London Borough of Croydon, Paul Scott, Purley, Tony Newman, Tory, Westfield, Whitgift Centre
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