Recent Comments
Big Dance after party, Tomorrow Hub, Sep 18
Posted in Croydon parks, Dance, Music
Tagged Addiscombe West, Ashburton, Ashburton Park, Croydon, Park Hill Park
Leave a comment
Bittersweet for Rooney as he is declared an Olympic medallist
Martyn Rooney in action at London 2012. He’s now an Olympic medal-winner
Rooney, along with his team mates from Great Britain’s 4×400 metres relay squad who finished fourth at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, have been promoted to the bronze medal position following the belated disqualification of a member of Russia’s quartet for a drugs offence. Continue reading
Posted in 2012 Olympics, Athletics, Croydon Harriers, Martyn Rooney, Sport, Thornton Heath
Tagged Croydon Harriers, Martyn Rooney, Thornton Heath
2 Comments
TfL’s £7.6m grant for 20mph zones and road ‘improvements’
Croydon’s councillors will have an opportunity next Monday to demonstrate that they have grasped Einstein’s definition of insanity, and that they won’t be doing the same thing and expecting different results over the spending of millions of pounds on often pointless, cosmetic roads schemes.
Dis-Connected Croydon: £22m-worth of TfL funding was squandered in 2013-2014
The next Town Hall cabinet meeting will be discussing grants totalling £7.6 million from Transport for London for a range of road “improvements” around the borough.
Four years ago, a £22.8million riots recovery fund from City Hall was squandered by the then Tory-led council on a few traffic crossings and new paving slabs. Then, much of the cash was spent in areas of Fairfield, a Conservative-held ward, where little of the Croydon riots had actually taken place in August 2011. This “Dis-Connected Croydon” programme saw cycle lanes obliterated in exchange for creating more car parking spaces, while a public car park has been hived off for building work, and it funded the seemingly never-ending dog’s dinner that is the paving works near East Croydon Station.
The council was so slow to implement any of the agreed works that it nearly reached the point where it had to return the whole grant. In the end the money was spent, just in time, but not necessarily wisely. Continue reading
Posted in "Hammersfield", Connected Croydon, Croydon Council, Cycling, Environment, Fairfield, Parking, Purley Way, South Norwood, Stuart King, TfL, Transport
Tagged Conservative, Croydon, East Croydon station, Hammersfield, Hammerson, Labour, Phil Thomas, Purley Way, South Norwood, STUART KING, Westfield
2 Comments
Norbury’s constituency move helps to spell end for McDonagh
WALTER CRONXITE, in a final review of the Boundary Commissioners’ review, lays out the extraordinary lengths undertaken to squeeze out of existence a Labour-held seat in south-west London
If any further proof was needed to demonstrate that the Tories are determined to abuse the power they hold in government to gerrymander control of parliament for a good deal longer than five years, then take a look at the bugger’s muddle that is the Boundary Commissioners’ review of constituencies in Merton.
Siobhain McDonagh: her Mitcham and Morden Labour constituency is to be erased
This is not to impune the integrity of the Boundary Commissioners, who are independent of government. But they have had few real options. They were given a brief to reduce the number of MPs from 650 to 600, to restrict the size of constituencies to between 71,000 and 78,500 voters, and they have had to discount around 2 million electors newly registered in the first six months of this year. And that’s before you ask yourself whether the conservative (small “c”) Establishment (big “E”) wields any broader influence over public bodies. Continue reading
The Brake Escape: Sutton unscathed by Boundary Commission
WALTER CRONXITE on the wider ramifications of the Boundary Commission’s somewhat gentle realignment Sutton’s parliamentary seats
Tom Brake: Carshalton and Wallington LibDem MP who broke rules on boundary publication
All England’s MPs were given prior sight of the proposals at noon yesterday, 12 hours before the Commission’s report went live to the public.
The Commissioners’ decision not to divide Carshalton and Wallington into two or more pieces – as the previous boundary review five years ago had suggested was a solution to this part of south London’s overloaded constituencies – saw whoever it is who pulls the strings on Tom Brake’s Twitter account exhibit the social media equivalent of premature ejaculation, as they blurted the essential detail to anyone who was interested.
And they did so twice. Continue reading
Posted in 2020 General Election, Merton, Norbury, Paul Scully MP, Siobhain McDonagh MP, Sutton Council, Tom Brake MP
Tagged Boundary Commissioners, Carshalton and Wallington, Conservative, Labour, Liberal Democrats, Merton, Norbury, Paul Scully MP, Siobhain McDonagh MP, Sutton, Sutton and Cheam, Tom Brake MP
Leave a comment
Shirley shome mishtake: boundary review keeps Barwell happy
WALTER CRONXITE on the latest recommendations for Croydon’s parliamentary seats from the Boundary Commissioners, just published
Someone will be pleased with the work of the latest Boundary review
Croydon gets to keep three parliamentary constituencies under proposals published today by the Boundary Commission. But the Commissioners have surely delivered what the Tories’ ex-PM and now ex-MP, David Cameron, wanted when he set them to work on his nationwide gerrymandering exercise, as they look to have transformed the marginal Croydon Central seat into a safe Conservative constituency, something which proved beyond the political skills of its MP, Gavin Barwell.
This has all been done at some cost. Some of the work on the constituencies’ boundaries look worthy of a cut and shunt job by a dodgy garage under some south London railway arches.
And the Croydon parliamentary constituencies, at present made up of 24 council wards, would comprise just 23 wards under these proposals. Continue reading
Posted in 2020 General Election, Bromley Council, Chris Philp MP, Coulsdon, Coulsdon East, Coulsdon Town, Croydon Central, Croydon North, Croydon South, Fieldway, Gavin Barwell, Lambeth Council, New Addington, Norbury, Purley, Shirley North, Steve Reed MP, Waddon, Woodside
Tagged Barwell, Chris Philp MP, Conservative, Croydon, Croydon Central, Croydon North, Croydon South, Gavin Barwell, Labour, Member of parliament, New Addington, Norbury, Purley, Shirley, Steve Reed OBE, Tory, Waddon
10 Comments
Diwali Mela, Croydon North End, Oct 22
Posted in Activities, Church and religions, Music
Tagged Croydon Hindu Council, Diwali Mela, Whitgift Centre
Leave a comment
Cameron’s Revenge: Boundary changes force a Brake up
Four years ago, the LibDems blocked a set of Tory proposals to re-draw parliamentary constituencies. Tomorrow, the latest set of plans are due to be published, and WALTER CRONXITE suggests that they will have far-reaching consequences for four south London MPs
It was presented as a way of re-balancing the House of Commons, of streamlining the number of MPs from 650 to 600. But when, tomorrow, the Boundary Commissioners reveal the result of their latest deliberations five years after their previous effort to re-draw parliamentary constituencies, in this corner of south London it seems likely that the outcome will look like Cameron’s Revenge.
We’re doomed! Gavin Barwell’s been channelling his inner Private Frazer over the boundary changes
David Cameron may have been Prime Minister for six years, but he was the leader of a Conservative Government for barely 13 months. That’s got to hurt and, however unwittingly, something which he set in train when he was in office could wipe the last trace of parliamentary Liberal Democrats from London.
Nick Clegg’s LibDems held the balance of power for five of Cameron’s six years in No10, frustrating some Tory policies, including the re-drafting of the parliamentary constituency boundaries. Now being done under a Conservative Government, no one is pretending that when the latest Boundary Commission report is published tomorrow morning with just 600 parliamentary seats, the overwhelming beneficiaries nationally will not be the Tories.
Where they impact Croydon, and neighbouring Sutton, it is Tom Brake’s Carshalton and Wallington seat which seems vulnerable to being carved into non-existence, putting the LibDems’ last remaining London MP on the endangered list, alongside the orangutan and the rhino.
Posted in 2020 General Election, Chris Philp MP, Coulsdon, Coulsdon East, Coulsdon Town, Croydon Central, Croydon North, Croydon South, Fairfield, Gavin Barwell, Steve Reed MP, Sutton Council, Tom Brake MP
Tagged Barwell, Chris Philp MP, Conservative, Croydon, Croydon Central, Croydon North, Croydon South, Gavin Barwell, Labour, Steve Reed OBE, Tom Brake MP, Tory
2 Comments
Theatre season offers mix of solemn drama and low farce
From the solemn to the ridiculous, the autumn season at the Spread Eagle Theatre, in the room above the pub on the corner of the High Street and Katharine Street in the town centre, appears to offer it all.
Spy drama meets comedy with Eva von Schnippisch at the Spread Eagle Theatre
From How Eva von Schnippisch Single-Handedly Won WWII to the more serious Meet Tommy Atkins, which is scheduled for the weekend of Remembrance Sunday, the comedy and drama on offer in the studio theatre offers a broad spectrum of genres.
And still the ticket price for an often outstanding evening’s entertainment is, generally, just a tenner, and sometimes less, including the Monday film nights, which are free.
In case you were wondering, the Eva von Schnippisch schtick is a mix of low farce and cabaret, due to be performed on October 28-29.
The publicity spiel says, “The WWII official secrets act is over – and Eva is ready to set the record straight. Germany’s greatest underground cabaret star turned into Britain’s No1 spy and was given the toughest mission of all: infiltrate to the top. Armed only with the power of song, Eva tells a comedic story of love, Frankfurters, the other Eva… and de-bunks the bunker story once and for all. Time to burn your history books.” You get the drift.
The more sombre historical piece, Meet Tommy Atkins is more poignant, with performances on Nov 10 and 11 in a venue which is just a few yards from Croydon’s own war memorial. Continue reading
Posted in Art, Cinema, Comedy, Music, Spread Eagle Theatre, Theatre
Tagged Spread Eagle Theatre
Leave a comment
Alarms raised over Fire Brigade’s £11m training tower scheme
A £11.1 million scheme to build a six-storey training tower at Croydon fire station seems likely to be given the go-ahead at a meeting on Friday, though local figures have accused London Authority officials of being “arrogant” and expressed concerns that the proposals could end up seeing the Fire Brigade “harming the people they are there to protect”.
Croydon fire station: soon to be the site of a six-storey fire tower
Croydon has been selected as the only suitable site in south London large enough to provide the capital’s firefighters with a third training facility, where they can practice and rehearse evacuations of high-rise buildings.
With similar training facilities already in east and west London, the Fire Brigade says that it needs a south London training base to save on travel and subsistence costs. A site at Biggin Hill Airport has been dismissed as too small.
But Croydon fire station, on Roman Way, close to the Flyover, is positioned among some high-density housing in Waddon and Old Town, in an area already noted for particularly poor air quality caused by exhaust fumes from two urban motorways. There is a secondary school and a primary school close by, with another to be built. The fire station site is also less than a mile from where Westfield wants to build its £1.4 billion shopping supermall.
The use of the carbonaceous fire tower would see high intensity training drills using smoke being staged on a near-daily basis. Two firefighters have died in recent months when involved in rescues from fires in high-rise tower blocks. Continue reading
Posted in Andrew Pelling, Croydon Greens, Environment, Fiona Twycross, Joy Prince, London Fire Brigade, London-wide issues, Peter Underwood, Planning, Robert Canning, Waddon
Tagged Andrew Pelling, Croydon Council, Croydon Flyover, Green Party, Joy Prince, London, London Assembly, London Fire Brigade, Peter Underwood, Robert Canning, Waddon
5 Comments
No joke: Croydon comedian Steel reads the bans for Labour
Mark Steel, the stand-up comedian and broadcaster from Croydon who was barred from joining the Labour Party because of his support for another political group nearly a decade ago, has called for some Labour MPs to be banned for supporting Tory Party policies.
Mark Steel: keeping a close eye on Croydon
He may have only been joking.
Steel is a long-time supporter of Crystal Palace Football Club and the Socialist Workers’ Party – the former being longer lasting than the latter, Steel having left the SWP in 2007. This, though, was some time after Steel had been a candidate in Croydon and Sutton in the London elections for the Socialist Alliance, where he polled fewer than 2,000 votes.
He has just started his seventh series of Mark Steel’s In Town for BBC Radio 4, and he continues to write a weekly column for the now online-only Independent.
And with the Labour leadership contest entering its final fortnight, Steel yesterday wrote about the “purge” of applicants and members within the party. Continue reading
Amnesty’s The Secret Policeman’s Quiz Night, Oct 15
Posted in Activities, Amnesty Croydon, Charity
Tagged Amnesty Croydon, Amnesty International, Ruskin House
Leave a comment
Norbury residents call on TfL for extra buses on 109 route
The Norbury Avenue and Thornton Heath Residents’ Association has started a petition to Transport for London, asking for more buses to serve the 109 route, which runs between Croydon, Streatham and Brixton.
Hold very tight please: Passengers often have to wait 25 minutes for a 109
With so many additional blocks of flats springing up in the area, increasing demand on the bus service in the rush hour has been noticeable for some time. Recent disruption to rail services for commuters has seen many more passengers trying to take the bus.
The residents’ association’s petition states: “We want Transport for London to look at our proposal for a new bus route running through Norbury High Street and Thornton Heath to support the 109 and spread the number of people across two bus routes rather than just one, and bring an end to overcrowding on the 109 and other bus routes within the local area.
Posted in Commuting, Norbury, TfL, Thornton Heath, Transport
Tagged Norbury, TfL, Thornton Heath, Transport for London
2 Comments
Barwell remains silent as union campaign saves Land Registry
A couple of hundred civil service jobs in Croydon have been saved – though not because of any action by the Labour-run local council nor the Tory MP for Croydon Central, but following a trades union-led public outcry against the privatisation of the Land Registry.
The Tories’ austerity chancellor, Gideon Osborne, wanted to make a quick buck – well, £1.2 billion – by handing over the self-sustaining government department to private interests.
Trafalgar House on Bedford Park in West Croydon has been the Land Registry’s head office since 2011. The Land Registry’s Croydon office is one of 14 around the country, which have nearly 4,500 staff working on the ownership records of all land and property in England and Wales.
With Osborne gone, Government ministers have now quietly dropped the proposed sell-off in the face of a backlash from campaigners who warned it would make it harder to track tax avoidance and hold people to account.
It is worth noting that the MP for the area, Croydon Central’s Gavin Barwell – “a strong voice for Croydon”, according to Barwell’s own publicity – has been silent on the matter of the Land Registry privatisation, neither welcoming his Government’s privatisation proposals, nor opposing what could threaten hundreds of jobs in his constituency. And Barwell, of course, has recently been made Minister for Planning… Continue reading
Posted in Andrew Pelling, Business, Croydon Central, Gavin Barwell, Mark Watson, West Croydon
Tagged Andrew Pelling, Barwell, Conservative, Croydon, Croydon Council, Gavin Barwell, Labour, Land Registry, Mark Watson, Tory
2 Comments
Ice hockey team swaps controversial title for handgun name
South London’s leading ice hockey team goes into the new season having dropped its controversial nickname.
Streatham’s out-dated logo will be missing from the team’s uniforms on the ice this season
Streatham have decided to abandon “Redskins”, which has been part of the club’s nomenclature for more than 40 years, but which today is widely regarded as unacceptable, outdated and racist.
Ahead of Streatham’s first league fixture of the season against Chelmsford … wait for it… Chieftans, the south London club has announced the outcome of a poll among its fans for a new nickname and will be adopting “Redhawks”.
“Redhawk” is a model name for a brand of handgun. The ice hockey club says it will use the new nickname for marketing purposes. Naturally. Continue reading
Posted in Ice hockey, Sport
Tagged ice hockey, Streatham, Streatham ice hockey, Streatham Redskins
1 Comment
More redundancies at free paper take news off the agenda
Most of the journalists – or at least, any journalists who are left – at local free papers the Croydon Guardian and the Sutton Guardian have been put on notice of redundancy by the company which owns them, Newsquest, in the latest round of savage cost-cutting which seems certain to further undermine news coverage and scrutiny in south London.
The Croydon Guardian and its Sutton sister title have a well-earned reputation for breaking difficult and important local stories
The company cited “difficult trading conditions with sustained pressure on the profitability of the group” for the latest cuts. According to its last set of company accounts, Newsquest reported annual profits of £60million in 2014.
The announcement follows on from doom-laden warnings about the demise as a serious source of news of the Redhill-based Croydon Sadvertiser last month from its departing chief reporter. The paid-for Sadvertiser’s circulation has plunged by 70,000 in four years.
Sources at the Croydon Guardian suggest that their owners now want just 12 journalists to work on 11 newspaper titles and eight associated websites across London and the south-east. Less than a decade ago, just one of those newspapers alone had 12 reporters dedicated to covering its “patch”. Continue reading
Town Hall’s theatre of the absurd to stage some real drama
Having closed down its original venue and with its alternative venue temporarily shut for refurbishment, Croydon Council has had to turn over the Town Hall chamber this weekend to the Warehouse Theatre for it to be able to stage its 30th International Playwriting Festival.
Which should make a pleasant change from the chamber staging its usual theatre of the absurd.
The two-day festival also includes an interview with veteran playwright Bernard Kops on Sunday evening.
A new stage: Croydon’s council chamber
The withdrawal of its council grant by the then Tory administration in 2012 precipitated the closure of the Warehouse Theatre, which had developed a worldwide reputation for exciting new productions in its studio theatre in an old warehouse on the site alongside East Croydon Station where Ruskin Square is rapidly taking shape today.
But Ted Craig, the theatre’s determined director, has continued his hard work with the playwriting festival, and 2016 has attracted entries from the widest international spread of countries in the event’s history. Continue reading
Posted in Art, Theatre, Timothy Godfrey, Warehouse Theatre
Tagged Croydon Council, Timothy Godfrey, Warehouse Theatre
Leave a comment
Council website is dull and overly complex, according to survey
Croydon’s efforts to go “online-only”, forcing residents to engage with council staff via its website rather than using a call centre, have taken a blow this week when a survey of local authorities’ digital offerings ranked Croydon 149th out of 191 local councils.
The council offices, Fisher’s Folly: like the council website, a triumph of style over substance
The survey suggests that the content on Croydon’s council’s website is poorly written and overly complex. It has failed, therefore, in its objective of engaging residents and encouraging them to fill in forms and surveys online, all of which has the potential to save the local authority money.
Croydon Council’s online-only strategy has never been about delivering better services to Council Tax-payers. It has always been about saving money by making a few more council staff redundant.
But this survey, conducted by independent agency Visible Thread and based on government guidelines, shows that Croydon’s council website isn’t very good about getting its messages across.
AfroShoot Takeover at Croydon Photography Forum, Sep 13
The Croydon Photography Forum returns for the start of its second year next Tuesday with the AfroShoot Takeover.
Founded by Lisa Aissaoui and Tiffany Kamagate, two African photographers, they describe AfroShoot as an innovative platform with the mission to celebrate the work of photographers from Africa and of African descent to push forward an African vision of the world through the camera lens. Continue reading
Posted in Art, Croydon Photography Forum
Tagged Croydon Photography Forum, Thornton Heath
Leave a comment
Selsdon and Ballards police fraud awareness session, Sep 19
Posted in Policing, Selsdon & Ballards
Tagged Metropolitan Police, Selsdon, Selsdon and Ballards
Leave a comment
Top-level coaching on offer at Warlingham Squash Club
All comers are invited to come along to a daytime squash group starting next Tuesday, September 13, at Warlingham Squash and Racketball Club in Church Lane.
Zeb Young, the former England No15, is coaching at Warlingham each Tuesday
Zeb Young, a professional coach, will be starting a group session meeting every Tuesday, running at 12.30pm till 2pm. Sessions will include match play between players of similar standard and a beginners and improvers coaching group. Membership is not required.
These sessions are for adults only, though those with pre-school children are invited to bring them along.
Charges are £7 for a first trial session, or £35 to book a series of six coaching sessions.
Young has been playing squash for 25 years, and once reached No15 ranking in England. He now represents his county in both squash and racketball. He is a Level 2 coach and is the head coach for the county juniors. He coaches all standards of players on a daily basis. Continue reading
Posted in Activities, Sport
Tagged Sanderstead, Warlingham, Warlingham Squash and Racketball Club
Leave a comment
Council finance chief Simpson’s promotion is confirmed
Richard Simpson, formerly the council’s finance director, has been promoted to the role of executive director of resources, it was confirmed today.
Richard Simpson: promoted at Fisher’s Folly
Simpson’s move into one of the six-figure salary roles at Fisher’s Folly is part of the on-going reshuffle following the departure of chief executive Nathan Elvery, the retirement of Paul Greenhalgh, who was the “executive director People”, and the appointment of Jo Negrini as CEO.
His promotion makes Simpson effectively the second-in-command to Negrini among council staff, and on £150,000 per year.
Given his 10 years deep within the council’s finance department, Elvery’s former fiefdom, Simpson will have intimate knowledge of where the bodies are buried – figuratively speaking, at least – over past administrations’ dalliances with such ill-fated projects as CCURV in the partnership with John Laing, the real reasons for the council offices costing £100 million more than equivalent buildings, or how Tory leader Mike Fisher managed to award himself a secret pay rise without anyone noticing.
Simpson will also know the real cost of the multi-million-pound deal to flog off the Taberner House site, after it has stood empty for three years, might be to the council’s long-term finances. Continue reading
Posted in Bernard Weatherill House, Croydon Council, Jo Negrini, Nathan Elvery, Paul Greenhalgh, Richard Simpson, Taberner House, Tony Newman, URV
Tagged Bernard Weatherill House, CCURV, Conservative, Croydon Council, Fisher's Folly, Jo Negrini, Labour, London Borough of Croydon, Mike Fisher, Taberner House, Tony Newman, Tory
Leave a comment
