Holger Pooten’s conceptual photography, often used in commercial advertising, is renowned for making the viewer take a second look at his images
The next edition of the Croydon Photography Forum welcomes the award-winning photographer Holger Pooten.
The Forum, which is free of charge, meets at the CVA Centre on London Road, with its next meeting on Tuesday, April 12, from 6.45pm.
A leading transport commentator has said that there’s disappointingly little to choose between London’s two leading candidates for Mayor on one of the major issues facing the capital.
Christian Wolmar is one of the country’s leading transport correspondents, and was short-listed in Labour’s selection process for London Mayor last year. But he has been left underwhelmed by the announcements from the front-runners, Labour’s Sadiq Khan and the Tories’ Zac Goldsmith, who announced their proposals for Transport for London last week.
Writing for Londonist, Wolmar said, “It is a shame that the transport debate is focused on narrow financial issues. The trouble is that both candidates are playing very safe; they’re worried about hostages to fortune which in the febrile air of London politics is quite understandable, if disappointing.
“Neither manifesto highlights what could have been an emblematic policy: the pedestrianisation of Oxford Street, something both candidates have said they support.
“Nor is there much mention of the congestion zone, the one way that serious money could be raised… The congestion charge could be increased in price — as belatedly has been supported by Boris — or extended.”
A hard-fought 2-2 draw at West Ham thanks to a Dwight Gayle equaliser yielded Crystal Palace’s first league point for a month.
Damien Delaney celebrates scoring Palace’s first goal at West Ham yesterday
But with fellow Premier League strugglers Norwich City winning their relegation battle with Newcastle yesterday, Palace’s breathing space to other relegation strugglers has grown even smaller.
It all makes next Saturday’s Selhurst showdown between the Eagles and the Canaries a vital game for both sides, with Alan Pardew surely praying that his Palace team’s winless streak in the league is not extended to 15 games.
In truth, a point at Upton Park must be viewed as a decent outcome, since West Ham, with Dimitri Payet, have been one of the outstanding Premier League sides of the season, alongside Leicester and Spurs.
A second large area in the north of the borough could get a 20mph zone on its residential roads, as the council begins a consultation tomorrow asking residents if they agree to extending the speed restrictions into South Norwood, Selhurst and Addiscombe.
According to the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents, introducing 20mph limits reduces vehicle speeds and cuts the risk of being injured in an accident. Other London councils, including Islington and Southwark, have already introduced borough-wide 20mph schemes.
“Croydon had more than 1,000 road casualties in 2014, which underlines why our 20mph plans are important and will make our borough safer for everyone if enough people come forward to support them,” said Councillor Kathy Bee, cabinet member for transport and the environment.
Bee, or at least a small part of her (the video has been shot with only the councillor’s head visible), appears in a comically poor council video which unwittingly illustrates how busy some of the borough’s streets have become with fast-travelling traffic. As the councillor tries to deliver her unlearned and under-rehearsed 40-second script (note the frequent distracted glances to her cue cards), she has to struggle for her message to be picked up by the microphone over the noise of the passing vehicles. Continue reading
CROYDON COMMENTARY: Two of Croydon’s MPs voted for cuts in disability benefits, and one then claimed credit when the changes to PIP were dropped. PETER ROGERS, an organiser of charity fund-raising events, has written to both MPs asking for an explanation
In a recent email newsletter to his constituents, Gavin Barwell, the MP for Croydon Central, implied he had in some way been responsible for the reversal of the heartless and poorly thought-out cuts to Personal Independence Payments which support disabled people to lead slightly less uncomfortable lives.
This about-face by Barwell was no doubt partly due to the backlash from the public, who are starting to see through the government and its supportive media’s rhetoric of disabled people as some kind of scroungers or fraudsters.
This U-turn cannot lessen our disgust that Croydon MPs Barwell and Chris Philp voted in favour of measures to cut disability benefits by £30 a week only days before the Budget.
The vote was carried by the Government despite two rebellions in the House of Lords and warnings from disability organisations about the terrible impact that the proposed cut to Employment and Support Allowance (ESA) would have and that many struggled to afford food on the benefit at its current level.
Protestors gather outside Lambeth’s Carnegie Library in Herne Hill yesterday, before the occupation against its closure
The people are taking over.
It is a gathering story from deepest south London of a popular uprising, of the sort that you might expect from oppressed locals against a tyrannical Conservative local authority.
But the occupation of the Carnegie Library in Herne Hill is going on in Labour-run Lambeth, with people protesting at the closure plans for this public utility and three other libraries. This is what happens when a Labour-run local authority implements Tory cuts.
The sit-in began last night. Continue reading
There will be 12 names on the ballot paper on May 5 bidding to become the third Mayor of London, it was confirmed this morning.
Front-runners: MPs Goldsmith and Khan are among 12 candidates for London Mayor
As the race proper for City Hall gets under way, the battle lines between Labour’s front-runner Sadiq Khan (his father was a bus driver, by the way) and Old Etonian millionaire Zac Goldsmith seem set around housing and transport, but also who, under the transferable voting system, can win over more second preference votes from the LibDems, Greens and each other through their environmental and other manifesto offers.
The winning candidate will have to manage an annual budget of about £16 billion, and as well as supervising the running of Transport for London will also oversee the Metropolitan Police and London Fire Brigade.
The “unlucky” 13th non-candidate is, of course, Croydon’s own “Chump from the Dump”, Winston McKenzie, who was ruled out of standing for the English Democrats last night because he had a bit of an issue filling in the forms. Suggestions that, in an act of charity, McKenzie would be allocated the votes of all Londoners’ spoilt ballots were dismissed by City Hall this morning as being too likely to be taken seriously, rather than as an April Fool. Continue reading
MP Gavin Barwell: demonstrating that the idea of pork barrel politics has not been abandoned by the Tory Party
It was the responsibility of Barwell, the Tory MP for Croydon Central, to notify the Commons authorities when Creatura took up his new job, so that the pass could be deactivated and returned. This did not happen until this week, and only after Barwell was questioned on the matter by Inside Croydon following the publication of the latest parliamentary listing of MPs’ secretarial staff and assistants.
This was the third update of the register published since November. The listing shows Creatura as still holding a pass, despite leaving his job working for Barwell late last year. Although the register includes Creatura’s status as a Croydon councillor, the official Commons document has no record of his new full-time job, working for Heineken.
On Monday, when he was asked about Creatura’s Commons pass, Barwell told Inside Croydon: “I don’t provide him with a pass. He handed it in when he left my employment.” Continue reading
Winston “the Chump from the Dump” McKenzie is out of the London Mayor election before it has even started.
Winston McKenzie when he was booted out of the Big Brother “house”. He’s now been booted out of the Mayoral election, too
The Croydon-based serial election loser was supposed to be standing for the far-right English Democrats (after having tried his luck, and failed, with most other political parties).
But tonight, London Elects, the agency which oversees elections for the London Assembly and Mayor, issued a press release stating that McKenzie had failed to complete his candidate’s paperwork before today’s deadline.
Despite recently being paid a reported five-figure sum for his short-lived, car-crash TV appearance on Celebrity Big Brother, McKenzie was attempting to crowdfund his £10,000 election deposit, plus another £50,000 towards his campaign. It is unclear why his new friends in the English Democrats were unable, or unwilling, to stump up the dosh for their candidate.
By tonight, McKenzie’s crowdfunding had managed to raise the grand total of… £140. Continue reading
Croydon today lost one of its most famous residents, and firmest of friends, after the death of comedian Ronnie Corbett.
Ronnie Corbett: Croydon class
Corbett, who was 85, had been ill for some time.
Figures from theatre and television were quick to pay tribute to the comedy great, who for nearly 20 years was a fixture on Saturday evening primetime television with Ronnie Barker in their sketch show, The Two Ronnies – a bit like Ant and Dec today. Only funny.
But Corbett had been a mainstay of variety shows and TV since the 1960s, and he and his wife, Anne Hart, were successful enough to be able to buy one of the prestige houses on Shirley Church Road, close to Addington Palace golf course, where Corbett spent many happy hours.
Today, Corbett’s inspirational role in the re-opening the David Lean Cinema in Croydon’s Clocktower complex was recalled by both the editor of Inside Croydon and the cinema campaign.
Croydon Friends of the Earth group’s next meeting is to be held on Tuesday April 19, and will include a screening of the film Do the Math.
The film will be followed by a talk from Ellen Gibson of 350.org on fossil fuel divestment.
350.org was formed in the United States in 2008, and has since grown to be a worldwide movement of people concerned about global warming, and taking action against it. One of the group’s founders is Bill McKibben, who wrote one of the first books on global warming for the general public. Continue reading
As the clear-up continues following Storm Katie in the early hours of Monday morning, Inside Croydon‘s loyal reader has been sending in pictures of the damage caused by the winds, which gusted to more than 100mph at times.
This was nothing to match the “Great Storm of ’87”, but just as nearly 30 years ago, the area’s trees appear to have suffered most of the damage.
Tall, mature roadside trees were uprooted – as we showed in our picture story on Monday – while others had entire branches ripped out, as in this case on Shrublands Avenue in Shirley, pictured right.
There have been no reports of any serious injuries to residents, although an animal rescue group in South Norwood did put out an appeal for a lost ferret, which had escaped after the storm-force winds blew off the roof of its hutch.
Ferret and owners were soon re-united. Continue reading
Callton Young has been selected as Labour’s candidate for the West Thornton council by-election, expected to be held on May 5 alongside the London elections.
Callton Young, centre, with West Thornton councillors Bernadette Khan and Stuart King after his selection last night
Young, a retired senior civil servant and recipient of the OBE, won on the second round of voting among local party members gathered in the Croydon North constituency office, beating Chaudry Khan, the septuagenarian chair of the Labour ward group, and Upper Norwood activist Patsy Cummings.
The selection meeting was held following the resignation of The Hon Emily Benn, the sitting Labour councillor who, less than two years after being elected, has decided to pursue her merchant banking career in New York. Continue reading
A long-time official of the local Labour Party has condemned them for selecting and promoting a councillor with links to the Conservative Party.
Former councillor Adrian Dennis: surprised that Keyeremeh was given positions of authority
Adrian Dennis is the Croydon alderman who reported his concerns over Labour councillor Matthew Kyeremeh’s political links with Ghana’s New Patriotic Party, which is affiliated with the Conservative Party in Britain. Today, Dennis told Inside Croydon: “My surprise is that knowing the allegations against him, and the concerns within his own ward, he was given so many positions of authority within the Labour group.”
Dennis was a councillor for Thornton Heath ward for 20 years, from 1986, until he was de-selected ahead of the 2006 Town Hall elections, when he was replaced as a Labour candidate by … Kyeremeh. Continue reading
CROYDON COMMENTARY: Our coverage of the planning permission granted to a Harris Federation primary school beside the A23 Purley Way has drawn widespread condemnation from readers. Here, CONNIE MINTON vents her feelings about the long-term health dangers of air pollution
This planning decision by our council is shameful on many levels. The environmental department, children’s services, transport and public health departments at Croydon Council can collectively hang their heads in shame for selling out.
We already know that particulate matter and nitrogen dioxide pollution is becoming a leading cause of heart disease, lung disease and cancer in adults.
But children are disproportionately affected by pollution. Their metabolism is higher, they spend more time outdoors, they are the right height to breathe in pollution from cars, and the damage is life long.
A woman from Purley who wants to travel the length of England on a paddleboard has been selected as one of 15 champions of the great outdoors by map-makers the Ordnance Survey for a year-long #GetOutside project.
Purley’s Lizzie Carr has triangulated her love of the outdoors to be picked as a champion by OS
Lizzie Carr, a marketing consultant, was chosen for her ability to communicate her love for being outside; her part in the project was announced at a gala reception attended by naturalist Steve Backshall, endurance adventurer Sean Conway and mountaineer and Everest climber Bonita Norris.
Carr wants to travel the length of England using its connected waterways – canals and rivers – using only a paddle and a slightly over-sized surfboard.
“I want to make the outdoors accessible to everyone,” Carr said.
“People can enjoy the outdoors with minimum funds, expertise or resource. Adventure isn’t just about the fastest unsupported trip to the South Pole, or scaling unclimbed peaks – these are great achievements but they aren’t for everyone. Adventure should be defined by the individual and it can be found in the everyday.” Continue reading
The council’s CEO is the third senior executive to announce their departure from Croydon so far this year. WALTER CRONXITE reports
Ambitious for Croydon? Hmm, maybe the allure of the £1 billion Hammersfield development is not so attractive after all: Nathan Elvery, who as financial director, deputy chief executive and latterly as chief executive, has presided over thousands of job cuts at Croydon Council in recent years, is to create the ultimate vacancy by quitting his £180,000-plus CEO’s job.
Nathan Elvery: he’s outta here
“Some might say it is a case of the biggest rat jumping ship before telling anyone it is sinking,” another council furry creature – our mole inside the council HQ – said this afternoon.
Elvery is to take up the post of chief executive at West Sussex County Council, a local authority which is itself floundering as a result of Tory mismanagement. Two years ago, they were planning to axe the CEO role altogether. So Elvery’s own particular brand of self-promoting bullshit might be useful there.
Elvery must be one of very few senior members of Croydon Council staff, if not the only one, who has not been forced to re-apply for their own job in the past six years as part of various rounds of service-cutting redundancies which have been conducted on his watch.
In July 2014, he was confirmed as Croydon CEO without that post ever being advertised or subjected to a recruitment process.
At that time, Tony Newman, a month into his role as Labour’s council leader, said that Elvery was confirmed in the post for the sake of “continuity”, and there are many that believe that there has indeed been a continuity of many of the discredited policies which Elvery and his predecessor, Jon Rouse, had put in place under the previous Conservative administration. Continue reading
Croydon Council has, for the first time in more than a decade, a councillor who represents neither Labour nor the Conservatives, after Matthew Kyeremeh refused to resign his Town Hall seat following revelations surrounding his divorce case.
Micawber-like, local Labour leader Tony Newman is hoping “something will turn up” over Matthew Kyeremeh
Kyeremeh, who was re-elected in 2014 for Thornton Heath ward, has been suspended by the Labour Party and sacked from his deputy cabinet role responsible for communities, safety and justice, with council leader Tony Newman calling on him to resign altogether as a councillor, to prompt a by-election.
But Inside Croydon has learned that senior Labour figures in the borough held deep reservations three years ago about putting Kyeremeh forward as a candidate for election. It is also known that Newman was aware of these concerns regarding Kyeremeh’s selection as a candidate in 2013.
Kyeremeh, following a conference with his legal advisors on Thursday, has told Inside Croydon that he is refusing to resign his council seat, and that he has lodged a legal appeal against the family court judgement. Continue reading
The air quality measurements for the Purley Way for the seven days to March 25. The legal limit is 40 micrograms per cubic metre. The EU limits were broken on five days
Earlier this month, Inside Croydon reported how the council’s planning committee had granted permission for a 540-pupil primary school to be built alongside one of the busiest – and most polluting – arterial roads in the capital, the A23 Purley Way.
A council environmental health officer told that planning meeting that, “If a parent and child is crossing the Purley Way at Fiveways on foot, they will receive insignificant exposure to pollutants.”
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