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Library staff in walk-out as shelves are stripped of books
Council staff in Lambeth libraries walked out today in protest at plans to close five of that borough’s 10 public libraries, turning some of them into “bookish gyms”, and threatening the future of Upper Norwood Library, which has been run jointly by Croydon Council for more than a century.
The controversial library closures scheme was called in for scrutiny at Labour-run Lambeth Council last week, and after a heated meeting scraped through by a single councillor’s vote.
Today, UNISON, the public servants’ trades union staged a walk-out after hearing that staff at Upper Norwood have been asked to look at removing books.
“We are worried that process is being ignored,” a union source told Inside Croydon. “Lambeth are making it up on the hoof, and we are running out of time to save our libraries.” Continue reading
Posted in Croydon Council, Croydon North, Crystal Palace and Upper Norwood, Libraries, South Norwood, Steve Reed MP, Upper Norwood Library Trust
Tagged Croydon, Croydon Council, Croydon North, Crystal Palace and Upper Norwood, Labour, Save Upper Norwood Library Campaign, South Norwood, Steve Reed OBE, Upper Norwood Library Trust
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London Warriors American football trials, Nov 22
Posted in Activities, Selhurst, Sport
Tagged American football, London Warriors, Selhurst
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Consumer champions’ test standards that just won’t wash
At its annual general meeting today, the Consumers’ Association will be challenged by an Inside Croydon reader who reckons the charity needs to undergo some serious user testing of its own. PATRICK TAYLOR tells his story of how he started to doubt the reliability of Which?
Volkswagen: Car Manufacturer of the Year 2015. According to “consumer champions” Which?
Whoops.
Embarrassing for Which?, the brand name used by the Consumers’ Association. And also embarrassing for subscribers who may be wondering what is going on with the Which? Awards, the Which? Best Buys , and Which? Recommended Providers when such an endorsement can be issued and such glaring faults missed in tests and surveys over many years.
I have been a member of the Consumers’ Association for more than 30 years, and I am more than unhappy with Which? – I am angry.
Other members are also annoyed as trustees are paying out a multi-million-pound bonus pot for top executives, awarded despite some very poor decisions which have cost the charity millions.
So what has triggered the rage of this Kenley resident?
It was washing machines which did it.
Which? is one of the country’s most media-engaged charities, providing newspapers, radio stations and television programmes with a steady stream of surveys on consumer matters – such as the reliability of domestic appliances, such as washing machines – readily filling hours of easy airtime and millions of cheap column inches for hard-pressed broadcasters and journalists. Continue reading
Posted in Activities, Business, Kenley
Tagged Charity Commission, Consumers' Association, Kenley, Patrick Taylor, Which?, Which? magazine
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BANNED: What has the Grey Label conference got to hide?
By Steven Downes, Editor, Inside Croydon
Grey Label, the PR agency of choice of Croydon Council, has banned Inside Croydon from attending the property speculators love-in that they are “organising” at the Fairfield Halls today.
Would you pay 400 quid to hear an estate agent speak? Plenty at today’s Develop Croydon conference will endure Richard Plant’s latest speech
This will be the sixth annual Develop Croydon Conference. Presumably no one will mention that it will be at least the 11th annual conference before they will be able to use a venue within the much-delayed Hammersfield supermall.
Nor would it be polite to mention that, with the enforced closure of the Fairfield Halls, Grey Label won’t be staging the seventh, eighth or maybe even ninth annual conferences in and around the foyer of the venerable old arts complex.
Today’s conference features all the usual suspects. Jo Negrini, the Croydon Council director who has loaned £3 million of public cash to Boozepark to lure them into the borough, will be there, doubtless cosying up to Develop Croydon’s chairman Richard Plant, the agent who oversees the management of the Whitgift Foundation’s multi-million-pound estate. And if Steve Yewman, the development director at Westfield, says “jump” during the proceedings, Croydon council leader Tony Newman will be asking, “How high?”
Posted in "Hammersfield", Boxpark, Business, Croydon Council, Environment, Fairfield Halls, Jo Negrini, Mayor of London, Planning, Property, Stiles Harold Williams, Tony Newman, Whitgift Centre
Tagged Boris Johnson, Conservative, Council Tax, Croydon, Develop Croydon, Fairfield Halls, Grey Label, Hammersfield, Hammerson, Labour, London Borough of Croydon, Richard Plant, Tony Newman, Tory, Westfield, Whitgift Centre, Whitgift Foundation
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Beddington NightRun offers another route to the marathon
Another week, another local weekly running event as part of the build-up to the London Marathon, or simply for fun and fitness, jogs into our mail box.
Staged for the fourth time this week, Beddington Park now has a regular Monday night 5km run – a little more than three miles – each week, starting at 7pm from outside Carew Manor School. Organisers Harry Hutchon and Darren Lackey already have 30 runners turning out for this free run, on a measured and well-lit and flat route.
Hutchon and Lackey are personal trainers and started the run as a way of offering people of all ages and abilities a simple route into personal fitness.
Hundreds of teachers leaving Harris academies each year
GENE BRODIE, our education correspondent, reports on the mysterious case of the disappearing school staff
Parents who are considering sending their child to one of the growing number of academies, primary and secondary, that are run by the Harris Federation in Croydon might want to consider a new kind of schools performance table.
Harris Federation CEO Sir Daniel Moynihan: works for a rug salesman
They might want to consider the rate of staff turnover in Harris schools, such as the “flagship” City Academy Crystal Palace, where 114 teachers and support staff have left in the past two years alone.
This apparently high-rate of staff turnover is unlikely to be indicative of a happy staff room, nor is it usually a sign of a stable teaching environment. And it could be particularly embarrassing for the Harris Federation, which was founded by Lord Harris, the carpet salesman and generous Tory party donor, which has offices in Croydon and whose very well-paid CEO, Sir Daniel Moynihan, was previously the headmaster at the Crystal Palace school.
Posted in Education, Harris Academy Crystal Palace, Harris Academy South Norwood, Harris Academy Upper Norwood, Harris Primary Purley Way, Roke Primary, Schools
Tagged Conservative, Crystal Palace, Crystal Palace and Upper Norwood, Harris Federation, Kenley, Roke Primary, South Norwood, Tory
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Tories demand Newman keeps promise on Fairfield report
Croydon’s Conservative opposition has renewed demands that the council leader, Labour’s Tony Newman, fulfills his public promise to release a confidential report from consultants Mott MacDonald on the multi-million pound refurbishment of the Fairfield Halls and Croydon College.
Tony Newman: when is a promise not a promise?
The Tories are concerned that plans to close the venerable arts complex for two years while rebuilding work takes place could jeopardise the Concert Hall and Ashcroft Theatre’s future prospects, making it impossible for the venue to recover its current £4.8 million per year turnover.
They claim that complete closure of the Fairfield Halls while the work takes place is unnecessary, but is simply the cheaper option – offering savings of around £4.5million on the overall refurbishment costs compared to a phased operation. The Mott MacDonald consultants’ report is believed to confirm this, and offer alternatives which would make a phased redevelopment possible.
But despite offering to release the report during a recent webcast Town Hall meeting, Newman and senior council officials such as CEO Nathan Elvery have denied access to the document to the Tories, and the public.
“Tony Newman gave his word to a council meeting in the Town Hall chamber that he would make the report available,” one senior Croydon Tory told Inside Croydon. “All we are asking of his supposedly open and transparent administration is that he honours his word.”
Fairfield Halls says ‘No’ to UKIP Batten’s anti-EU debate
UKIP MEP Gerard Batten: getting the message from Fairfield Halls today
The Fairfield Halls this morning told the organisers of what was claiming to be a “debate” about Britain’s membership of the European Union that they were going to postpone the event, to have been staged in the Arnhem Gallery, in light of the atrocities in Paris on Friday night.
One of the key speakers was to have been Gerard Batten, the UKIP MEP who in the past has been accused of peddling Islamophobia.
In a brief statement issued to Inside Croydon, the Fairfield Halls management said, “After discussion with the organiser of this event this morning, Fairfield have decided to postpone the event with regard to the sensitivities of the international situation.”
Posted in Church and religions, Community associations, Fairfield Halls
Tagged Conservative, Croydon, Fairfield Halls, Gerard Batten, Labour, Liberal Democrats, Tory, UKIP
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Harris determined to build primary beside polluted A23
The Harris Federation, established by a carpet salesman to run a chain of academised schools, seems determined to push ahead with establishing a primary school on the Purley Way, on a derelict site alongside one of the busiest roads in south London, where air pollution has been measured at levels dangerously in excess of legal limits.
Croydon’s planning department recently rejected plans for a four-form-of-entry Harris primary on Purley Way because they advised that the site of the former Red Gates school was too small for a school supposed to accommodate more than 700 children.Eight pages of Harris brochure, and not a word about air pollution levels near the school
Undaunted, Harris was leafleting households in South Croydon over the weekend, in doing so announcing that their school will be opening in September 2016, initially housed in temporary huts, with the permanent-built school due to be ready a year later. The eight-page brochure invites applications from parents of children to start next year, but makes no mention of how many pupils the school will be catering for. Continue reading
Purley engineering works means more rail disruption
If you’re hoping to visit Auntie Edna in Brighton over Christmas, or maybe take in the pantomime at the Palladium or embark on some New Year sales shopping down Oxford Street, then you had better not plan to travel by train during the festive fortnight. Major engineering works will see East Croydon almost cut-off from rail stations to the north and the south over the Christmas period.
Says it all really
Croydon’s rail links into the centre of our city already promise to be seriously disrupted over the Christmas period, as the latest phase of re-building at London Bridge Station will ensure longer delays and yet more disruption, which commuters have learned to endure daily over the past two years.
But now a missive has dropped into Inside Croydon‘s email inbox from Govia Thameslink Railway, who operate what is laughably refered to as Southern’s rail “service”.
The email warns of 10 days’ worth engineering works also going on near Purley at the turn of the year. Under the subject heading of “Major changes to train services over Christmas and New Year” (“How will anyone be able to tell the difference?” we hear Inside Croydon‘s loyal reader muttering under their breath in less-than-impressed style), the GTR functionary informs us:
Posted in Commuting, East Croydon, Transport, West Croydon
Tagged East Croydon station, GoVia, Govia Thameslink, Southern, Thameslink, West Croydon
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Time travellers invited to museum for Croydon Recreated
The Museum of Croydon has been transformed into a form of time-travelling Tardis, ready to transport visitors back 100 years or more.
An exhibition, Croydon Recreated, uses three of the museum’s collections to explore what Croydon was like at the beginning of the 20th century.
Using historic paintings, photographs and maps from the period, the exhibition will recreate nine locations around the borough, allowing visitors to visualise the County Borough of Croydon around 100 years ago and consider issues such as how the past was (and is) preserved and interpreted, and the authenticity of different types of historical evidence.
Posted in Education, History, Museum of Croydon
Tagged Croydon, Croydon Clocktower, Croydon Museum, History
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Croydon Harriers want to get New Addington on the run
A new group for runners is being established in New Addington, just in time for people to start their London Marathon preparations.
Croydon Harriers Atlanta Drummond and Ernie Hann are the group’s co-leaders.
The running sessions will be held every Sunday morning, beginning next Sunday, November 22, and starting at 10am, meeting outside of the Octagon in New Addington.
The sessions are expected to last between one hour and 90 minutes.
Beginners, amateur runners and athletes of all standards are welcome. Runners are encouraged to join in if they’re looking for a long Sunday run in company in a new area. Continue reading
Posted in Activities, Athletics, Croydon Harriers, New Addington, Sport
Tagged Addington Runners, Croydon Harriers, New Addington
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Croydon’s under-9s land sponsorship from… the Freemasons
In what could be a unique sponsorship deal, Croydon FC’s under-9s took to the pitch for their match this weekend with their shirts emblazoned with the regalia of a secretive society, the Freemasons.
Croydon under-9s line up in their new shirts, emblazoned with the Freemasons’ compass and set-square symbols, as published on social media by Tony Pearson
The area’s oldest non-league club has accepted the sponsorship deal – thought to be worth a couple of hundred quid, the price of a set of kit for the next generation of Gareth Southgates and Wilfried Zahas – from the Selsdon Park Lodge masonic organisation.
The new “Master” of the sponsoring Selsdon Park Lodge is someone familiar with footballing controversy: Tony Pearson, the former Tory councillor for New Addington who was the target of the ire of Crystal Palace fans when he was working as an over-zealous steward at Selhurst Park.
According to unconfirmed reports from the local under-9s league, opposition team skippers have sometimes been confused by the pre-game handshake they have been offered this season by the Croydon FC captain.
Posted in Croydon FC, New Addington, Tim Pollard, Tony Pearson
Tagged Conservative, Freemasons, New Addington, Tim Pollard, Tory
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Sanderstead Library talk offers well-Rounded view of Army
Michael Round: entertaining talker
Michael Round, the former head of Haling Manor School, is giving a talk at Sanderstead Library on Tuesday, November 17, entitled “The Bird of Time”, taken from the title of his latest book, about his life in the Army and in self-publishing.
It is more than 20 years since a heart attack saw Round take early retirement from teaching and embark on a second (or third?) career as an author who self-publishes through Rainbow Valley Books.
Posted in Activities, Libraries, Sanderstead
Tagged Michael Round, Sanderstead, Sanderstead Library
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UKIP’s ‘Muslim Charter’ author Batten in Fairfield debate
Given the febrile atmosphere of distrust and fear that is sure to follow last night’s appalling atrocities in Paris, where more than 100 innocent people were killed in terrorist shootings and bombings, the management of Fairfield Halls, Croydon police and the council leadership may need to reconsider very carefully whether to allow the staging of a meeting, ostensibly to debate Britain’s future in the European Union, in which one of the lead speakers is a UKIP MEP who has been accused of peddling Islamophobia.
Gerard Batten: anti-immigration policies which might have been copied from far-right groups
Gerard Batten’s “Charter of Muslim Understanding” might have been cut-and-paste from the manifesto of a far-right group, and its premise so appalled his own party leader, Nigel Farage, that he has stated publicly that the charter and its contents “are not and never have been UKIP policy”.
But Batten remains a UKIP member and on Monday he is the “star turn” of an event being enthusiastically promoted by Peter Morgan, the Coulsdon resident notorious for having his membership of the Croydon Tories suspended while he was also being expelled from UKIP for “being a disruptive influence”. Continue reading
TfL’s loopy scheme will strangle town centre to a stand-still
CROYDON COMMENTARY: Multi-million pound proposals for the trams in the town centre could see the Croydon road network being gridlocked, says bus passenger VALERIE HUNTER
According to Transport for London, the improvements – new platforms and more frequent services – which they are introducing on Tramlink’s line from Wimbledon to Croydon will have positive impact on other transport services in the area, “helping to relieve congestion on buses and encouraging car owners to leave their vehicles at home, reducing traffic and carbon emissions”.
However, the Dingwall Road loop of tram track which they are also proposing will have exactly the opposite effect.
Posted in "Hammersfield", Addiscombe West, Business, Commuting, Croydon Central, Croydon Council, Cycling, East Croydon, Environment, Fairfield, New Addington, One Lansdowne Road, Planning, Ruskin Square, Tramlink, Transport, West Croydon
Tagged Croydon Council, East Croydon station, Hammersfield, Hammerson, TfL, Transport for London, Wellesley Road, West Croydon, Westfield
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Children hurt by ‘burning rocks’ at Croydon BID fireworks
It could turn out to be a metaphor for the whole £1 billion Hammersfield redevelopment of our town centre: Attract thousands of people, many with small children, into central Croydon with promises of a few (short-lived) bright lights and sparklers.
And then unleash a whole host of crap to rain down on the people’s heads.
Croydon’s ceremonial Christmas light switch-on last night, “organised” by the Croydon BID business lobby group, saw several spectators, many of them children, burnt and injured by fireworks that had been set-off on the roof of Centrale. Inevitably, some might suggest, these fireworks fell to the ground nearby, in the midst of the crowds of spectators.
“There were hot rocks actually falling into people’s heads,” one spectator said, according to the Evening Standard.
Others have said that there was screaming and some panic, with children diving to the floor to take cover.
Ruskin Square considered for HMRC’s new tax supercentre
Senior officials from Her Majesty’s Customs and Revenues – HMRC – were in Croydon on Wednesday visiting the Ruskin Square development as a potential office location for a new tax supercentre.
The Government announced yesterday a plan to close 170 HMRC offices around the country – many of them Local VAT offices – to save £100 million a year by axing thousands of jobs from the tax staff, who are to be re-organised into 13 regional centres. Croydon could be the first of those, planned to open in April 2017.
Five years ago, when he was first seeking election, Gavin Barwell, the Tory MP for Croydon Central, promised to bring government departments to Croydon to help boost the local economy. Until yesterday, he had singularly failed to deliver on his promise.
Even Barwell gave an indication of his failure when he tweeted a link to the news: “Finally,” he, or whoever it is operating his Twitter account these days, said, “some progress on relocating public sector jobs to Croydon – very encouraging news.”
Up to 600 Town Hall jobs at risk in latest council redundancies
Croydon Council yesterday launched another round of voluntary redundancies, as it tries to balance the Town Hall budget from a £3.5 million overspend.
Croydon Town Hall: will there be any staff left?
Some estimates suggest as many as 600 more council jobs may need to go. The budget short-fall will surely make inevitable a 1.9per cent Council Tax increase from April – likely to yield an additional £1.5 million from residents who receive ever-diminishing services.
The council’s hard-pressed staff have endured annual culls for more than five years under the six-figure-salaried chief executives Jon Rouse and, more recently, Nathan Elvery, who continues to preside over a failure for which he is principally responsible. The 2015 edition of job cuts was announced yesterday through an unsigned missive via the somewhat remote council intranet system, and comes just in time for Christmas. All staff will have also received an email from Elvery. Continue reading
Posted in Croydon Council, Jon Rouse, Nathan Elvery, Tony Newman
Tagged Croydon Council, Jon Rouse, Labour, London Borough of Croydon, Nathan Elvery, Tony Newman
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