By Jupiter! Is Whitehall considering a move to Fisher’s Folly?

Posted on February 20, 2015 by insidecroydon

A government department is looking to move into a 250,000 square foot office building in East Croydon, according to reports in the commercial property trade press this week.

Fisher's Folly: Built at a cost of £144 million, plus £85m interest payments, the council's head offices seem likely to be a drag on borough finances for years to come

Fisher’s Folly: Built at a cost of £144 million, plus £85m interest payments, the council’s head offices could be a drag on borough finances for years to come

And the only relatively new office block in the vicinity offering that amount of floor space is… Fisher’s Folly.

According to the commercial property website CoStar, agents GVA have this week been given instructions by an unnamed government department to find a 250,000 sq ft headquarters building in East Croydon.

Fisher’s Folly offers 240,000 sq ft of floor space.

Commissioned by the previous Conservative Town Hall administration under Mike #WadGate Fisher, and officially known as Bernard Weatherill House, the council offices were opened in October 2013. Croydon Council paid £144million for its headquarters building – which is about £100million more than similar-sized office builds elsewhere in London have cost.

This “cornerstone project” of the disastrous CCURV urban regeneration joint venture with John Laing therefore works out as having been more expensive to build than The Shard.

Continue reading →

Posted in "Hammersfield", Bernard Weatherill House, Business, Croydon Council, Planning, Property, Ruskin Square, URV, Whitgift Centre | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

Croydon Wordfest open mic Friday, Thornton Heath, Feb 27

Posted on February 20, 2015 by insidecroydon

Open Mic Friday Continue reading →

Posted in Activities, Libraries, Music, Thornton Heath | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Barwell aide: ‘Gavin has no idea. He trusts me to do whatever’

Posted on February 19, 2015 by insidecroydon

Further proof, as if any were needed, that Mario Creatura has been hired at considerable public expense by local Tory MP Gavin Barwell to spend much of his time managing his boss’s political career prospects, rather than actually doing any work for the people in his Croydon constituency.

Mario Creatura: busy revising history for his boss, at public expense

Mario Creatura: busy revising history for his boss, at public expense

The Croydon Conservatives’ activist was rewarded for his assiduous arse-licking in 2012 when he was taken on the staff of the Croydon Central MP. Creatura is believed to be paid up to £33,000 as a parliamentary assistant.

He also now receives a further £11,000 in public-funded pay as a councillor for Coulsdon West.

Yet, as has long been suspected, “HMV”, as the gobby fac totum is also known, appears to spend much of his day trying to burnish his boss’s reputation, often issuing tweets from his boss’s Twitter account, and handling his other digital media activity, with varying degrees of success – and some failure. It’s a tough task, and probably takes up the majority of the parliamentary gofer’s time.

Today, on arriving at the House of Commons, and perhaps after his all-important first task of the day – making the teas – it appears that Creatura set about censoring his boss’s Wikipedia entry, to eradicate any possibility of objectivity about it by removing what might be regarded as a critical reference. Continue reading →

Posted in 2015 General Election, Chris Philp MP, Coulsdon Town, Croydon Central, Croydon South, Gavin Barwell, Mario Creatura | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

Opportunity fails to knock for Commission volunteers

Posted on February 18, 2015 by insidecroydon

It’s beginning to appear as if the Croydon Opportunity and Fairness Commission is not being regarded as much of an opportunity at all.

An email has flooded into Inside Croydon’s inbox this afternoon.

Fairness commission logoIts subject? “One Week to make a Difference for Croydon”. Has someone been watching too many melodramatic trailers for EastEnders?

Somewhat impersonally, the email is signed by the faceless Opportunity and Fairness Commission. Didn’t the commission chairman, the Bishop of Croydon, Jonathan Clark, want to put his name to this missive? Has he given up Croydon Council emails for Lent?

The email states that, “We’re writing to let you know that the deadline for Resident Commissioner Nominations has been extended by one week. The new deadline is Friday 27th February”.

No one extends application deadlines when they have received enough entries, or applications of sufficient calibre. So it may be fair to assume that they Fairness Commission is a bit of a hard sell.

“The Commission has extended the deadline for one week to make sure everyone has a chance to join them,” they say. How kind.

Continue reading →

Posted in Bishop of Croydon, Croydon Council, Fairness Commission, Tony Newman | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

Part B agenda, but no Plan B, at councils’ incinerator meeting

Posted on February 18, 2015 by insidecroydon

WALTER CRONXITE, our man with the Army surplus gas mask and an anologue stopwatch, was at a controversial Town Hall meeting last night. But not for long…

Stuart Collins, the deputy leader of Croydon Council and cabinet member in charge of slogans and T-shirts, last night called for the South London Waste Partnership to have a a Plan B ready, as an alternative to the Viridor incinerator that is proposed to be built in Beddington, not far from Croydon town centre.

Stuart Collins: the South London Waste Partnership has no Plan B

Stuart Collins: the South London Waste Partnership has no Plan B

The SLWP had moved its regular meeting to Croydon Town Hall, ostensibly to hold it in public and to take questions from the floor. The entire public part of the meeting lasted no more than 25 minutes, of which only 10 minutes was given over to public questions, and only one person was allowed to ask anything. And even then, the questioner was strictly restricted to exclude any mention of the leaked confidential report published yesterday, in which Viridor is demanding a bigger incinerator plant at Beddington than their planning permission allows.

Collins is a Labour councillor for central Croydon’s Broad Green ward, whose residents are downwind of Viridor’s proposed facility. He has a seat on the SLWP, a partnership made up of the four boroughs paying for the scheme, and he made the call for the Plan B during the short public part of the meeting. Once the committee got to its own secret, or Part B, part of the agenda, the public were cleared from the room and the vast majority of the meeting was held in private. Continue reading →

Posted in "Hammersfield", Andrew Pelling, Broad Green, Business, Croydon Greens, Environment, Joy Prince, Planning, Refuse collection, Robert Canning, Shasha Khan, Stuart Collins, Sutton Council, Waddon, Waste incinerator | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 4 Comments

Don’t let life go flat after Pancake Day; use the 6-46 Lent plan

Posted on February 18, 2015 by insidecroydon

Local parish vicar WEALANDS BELL on how, even in this modern 21st century, a little Lenten abstinence really can make the heart grow stronger

If I asked whether you kept Wednesdays and Fridays as “days of fasting and abstinence”, in line with ancient religious practice, you would be forgiven for looking at me as if I had taken leave of my senses. No one lives like that in this highly sophisticated 21st century.

pancakesBut if we went on to talk about your approach to food and drink, it’s quite likely you’d tell me you had certain nights of the week when you stayed “dry”. You might even be one of the many people who regulate their calorie-intake by following a “5-2 diet”: on five days of the week you allow yourself a normal intake of food, but on two days each week you limit yourself to a few hundred calories in a bid to increase self-control while decreasing your weight. And a very good plan it is, too – brought to you by the people who gave you Christmas and Easter.

For many of these apparently brand-new ideas for a better life have their roots deep in religious tradition: whether it’s the cycle of feasting and fasting, the use of candles for relaxation, or perhaps the whole business of rejuvenation and restoration through the use of expensive lotions and potions, it is all borrowed from the Church, and although it’s fair to say that the Church first borrowed much of it from the cultures of antiquity, nonetheless our own secular insights owe more to Christianity than we might imagine.

Which brings us to Lent. Continue reading →

Posted in Activities, Church and religions, Community associations, Waddon, Wealands Bell | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Incinerator deal could collapse as Viridor get greedy

Posted on February 17, 2015 by insidecroydon

There has been an extraordinary development in the saga of the Beddington Lane incinerator, with the Sutton Guardian newspaper reporting that the £1 billion local authority contract is under threat because developers Viridor want the incinerator to be bigger, busier, and therefore potentially even more polluting, than they have been given permission to build.

Viridor cartoon by Gordon RossAnd they say that industrialists are often greedy…

The revelatory discovery, contained in confidential papers which were published in error on the official website of Kingston Council, comes just hours before the South London Waste Partnership is due to hold a meeting at Croydon Town Hall this evening.

The South London Waste Partnership represents four boroughs: Croydon, Kingston, Merton and Sutton. Sutton is the planning authority for the Beddington Lane site, which is close to the borough boundary with Croydon. Because of prevailing weather conditions, most of the exhaust from any incinerator is expected to be blown across northern Croydon, while much of the fleet of HGVs which will be bringing the waste from across south-east England to fuel the incinerator is expected to drive through parts of Croydon.

A recent Inside Croydon poll showed that 84 per cent of our readers want Croydon Council to pull out of the incinerator agreement.

Viridor was granted planning permission last year for what the company and its supporters euphemistically call an “energy recovery facility” at the landfill and recycling site at Beddington. The SLWP had signed the contract before the planning permission was granted. Although the company did not voice publicly such reservations at the time of the planning application, “Viridor has been of the view that certain conditions of the approval could render it ‘unsatisfactory’ under the terms of the Project Agreement,” the official report states. In simple English, if Viridor don’t get their own way, they could throw their rattle out of the pram. Continue reading →

Posted in Andrew Pelling, Broad Green, Business, Croydon Council, Croydon Greens, Environment, Planning, Refuse collection, Shasha Khan, Stuart Collins, Sutton Council, Waddon, Waste incinerator | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Underwood leads opposition to Waddon’s flyover to Flyover

Posted on February 17, 2015 by insidecroydon

Peter Underwood, the Green Party’s parliamentary candidate for Croydon South, has launched a petition against the plans to build urban motorways through Waddon.

Peter Underwood at the site where TfL wants to build an urban motorway in Waddon

Peter Underwood at the site where TfL wants to build an urban motorway in Waddon

Transport for London has announced a proposal to build a multi-lane flyover – with possibly five or six lanes of traffic – from Croydon Road towards Duppas Hill and the Croydon Flyover. It seems inevitable that this will require demolishing some houses and building over Duppas Hill Park, something of which the MP for the Whitgift Foundation thoroughly approves.

TfL’s consultation offers an alternative of building a four-lane route along Epsom Road, through a gap which is half that size.

“They are in effect planning to build motorway-sized roads through an urban area,” Underwood said.

Continue reading →

Posted in 2015 General Election, Boris Johnson, London-wide issues, Mayor of London, Peter Underwood, Transport, Waddon | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | 4 Comments

Date set for Winston McKenzie to fight for his UKIP future

Posted on February 16, 2015 by insidecroydon

A showdown over the future of UKIP as an organised political party in Croydon will take place next week, with an extraordinary general meeting (another one) of the shambolic Lambeth and Croydon North branch.

Winston McKenzie, right, with a member of his "team" at the infamous "Croydon Carnival" last year

Winston McKenzie, right, with a member of his “team” at the infamous “Croydon Carnival” last year

The Lambeth and Croydon North branch of the Nigel Farage party has been suspended since last year, as national party officials investigated the handling of a cash donation by two officers, Winston “Chump from the Dump” McKenzie and former Tory Marianne Bowness.

McKenzie, UKIP’s eccentric choice of candidate to stand in the Croydon North constituency at the General Election, has recently stood down as branch chairman.

The reason for a Lambeth and Croydon North branch of UKIP, separate from the Kipper organisation in the rest of Croydon, is because of a clash between McKenzie and Peter Staveley, the chairman for the rest of Croydon and parliamentary candidate in Croydon Central. Continue reading →

Posted in 2015 General Election, Croydon North, Peter Staveley, Selhurst, Winston McKenzie | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

Return of the Croydon Pancake Race, Oval Road, Feb 17

Posted on February 15, 2015 by insidecroydon

Pancake race Continue reading →

Posted in Activities, Addiscombe West, Pubs | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

Mayor’s new road schemes ‘will leave motorists worse off’

Posted on February 15, 2015 by insidecroydon

One of the people who wants to replace Boris Johnson as Mayor of London has described his road-building proposals across the city – which include the £87 million Waddon flyover to the Croydon Flyover – as “laughable”, “fanciful” and “damaging”.

Fiveways on the Purley Way: £87m of new roads will not solve the problems

Fiveways on the Purley Way: £87m of new roads will not solve the problems

Christian Wolmar is the renowned transport journalist who was the first to declare himself as a candidate for selection by the Labour Party to stand for election as the London Mayor in 2016.

Wolmar was responding to the latest Boris Johnson grandstanding earlier this week, when the Mayor was visiting the United States and announcing proposals to build a series of tunnels under London to accommodate main roads. The words “vanity project” never seem far away when discussing Mayor Johnson’s pronouncements, and in an article for politics.co.uk, Wolmar described the tunneling schemes as “just the latest in a series of fanciful futuristic concepts that do not contribute meaningfully to the transport debate”.

Continue reading →

Posted in "Hammersfield", Boris Johnson, Business, Christian Wolmar, CPO, Environment, London-wide issues, Mayor of London, Parking, Planning, Purley Way, Waddon, Whitgift Centre | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Twitter witnesses Croydon’s St Valentine’s Day massacre

Posted on February 15, 2015 by insidecroydon

Conservative Party activists in London have recently been in receipt of a guide on how to use social media in election campaigns. The guide offers glowing praise for the way that Croydon MP, Gavin Barwell, and his office tea boy, Mario Creatura (who has risen without trace to become a Coulsdon councillor), make use of tools such as Twitter.

Sarah Jones: akeshott's donation could mean she has half the budget of Tory rival Barwell

Sarah Jones: MP Barwell may avoid engaging with her on Twitter in future

There is some suggestion that the author of the guide is the self-same Councillor Creatura. Presumably, he will have found some spare time in his very busy schedule, because of course he would never dream of undertaking such party political work when “on the clock” with his publicly funded job working for the MP or receiving his over-generous councillor’s allowance.

The guide is already due for an update, however. It needs a new chapter: “How To Have Your Arse Handed To You On Twitter”.

Croydon’s Twitterati yesterday witnessed a 2015 equivalent of the St Valentine’s Day massacre, as Sarah Jones, the Labour candidate for Croydon Central, proceeded to rip into her Tory rival in a manner which exposed Barwell’s cant and hypocrisy. Continue reading →

Posted in 2015 General Election, Croydon Central, Gavin Barwell, Mario Creatura, Sarah Jones MP, Tony Newman | Tagged , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Upper Norwood cookery writer offers Five ways to health

Posted on February 14, 2015 by insidecroydon

We all want tasty food that’s good for us. Key to that is ensuring we eat our daily intake of fruit and vegetables. Yet most of us aren’t even getting half the fruit and veg we need in a day.

Author Rachel de Thample at the launch of her book Five in Upper Norwood this week

Author Rachel de Thample at the launch of her book Five in Upper Norwood this week

Now, local author and cookery writer Rachel de Thample has written Five, offering 150 easy, flavoursome recipes that will boost your daily intake of fruit and vegetables.

The book was launched on Thursday at Book Seller Crow on Westow Street in Upper Norwood.

De Thample is one of the founders of Crystal Palace Transition Town’s food market on Haynes Lane, and with friends and neighbours she also instigated the Edible Garden in Westow Park.

Continue reading →

Posted in Activities, Crystal Palace and Upper Norwood, Education, Environment, Gardening, Health, Transition Town | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

VIDEO: Power of protest sees public questions on agenda

Posted on February 14, 2015 by insidecroydon

Burning documentThe South London Waste Partnership, the joint committee of four boroughs – Croydon, Sutton, Merton and Kingston – that wants to start industrial-scale waste incineration in the midst of a high-density residential area, is to hold its next meeting in Croydon on Tuesday night.

Since taking up their positions on the SLWP, Croydon’s Labour council, having been elected last year pledging to oppose the development of the incinerator at Beddington Lane, have now tamely gone along with the scheme.

A recent Inside Croydon poll showed that 84 per cent of our readers want Croydon Council to pull out of the incinerator agreement.

Elected last May on a stated ambition to make Croydon the greenest borough in London, by going along timidly with the incinerator project, the Labour-run council is burning a hole in its manifesto pledges.  Continue reading →

Posted in 2015 General Election, Broad Green, Business, Croydon Council, Croydon Greens, Environment, Joy Prince, Refuse collection, Robert Canning, Shasha Khan, Stuart Collins, Tony Newman, Waddon, Waste incinerator | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 6 Comments

Crystal Palace Overground Festival announces its 2015 dates

Posted on February 14, 2015 by insidecroydon

Crystal Palace festivalThe Crystal Palace Overground Festival returns to Crystal Palace from Wednesday June 24 to Sunday June 28, offering fun for all.

Festival fringe events will take place on June 24 to 26, with the Westow Park main event on Sunday June 28. Continue reading →

Posted in Activities, Art, Cinema, Comedy, Community associations, Crystal Palace and Upper Norwood, Crystal Palace Community Association, Dance, Music, Theatre | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Poster propaganda prompts Barwell into another costly error

Posted on February 13, 2015 by insidecroydon
Getting their excuses in early? Should Council Tax pay for political propaganda, such as this?

Orwellian: Four legs good, two legs bad. But public money ought not be spent to tell us that

The Croydon Labour brains trust (ha!) that is running the Town Hall has managed to score yet another political own-goal, handing a gilt-edged opportunity for Gavin Barwell, the MP for the Whitgift Foundation, to boost his flagging credibility.

From the same people that brought you the shambles over whether or not they were going to sell-off school playing fields, and from the same top team that promised not to close Purley Pool, then announced plans to close the pool just before the General Election, only then to do a double back flip with pike off the top board to reverse the closure decision, we now bring you: Political Propaganda on the Rates.

Let us be clear: at any time in an economic cycle, but especially when ever-deeper cuts in services are being made, it is wrong to spend Council Tax money for what amounts to political messaging.

Continue reading →

Posted in 2015 General Election, Croydon Central, Croydon Council, Croydon South, Emily Benn, Gavin Barwell, Nathan Elvery, Sarah Jones MP, Simon Hall, Tony Newman, Whitgift Foundation | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | 7 Comments

Serious Whitgift CPO objections could end up in law courts

Posted on February 12, 2015 by insidecroydon

CROYDON COMMENTARY: The complaints to the Whitgift Centre CPO have been raised by some of the country’s biggest businesses, and DAVID CALLAM says that their public opposition could end up in the law courts

Like Susan Oliver and commenter David Fell, I, too, have been looking at the objections raised to the Compulsory Purchase Order on the Whitgift Centre. They offer an interesting insight into the kind of arguments being deployed.

John Lewis is not the panacea many have suggested for the future of Croydon town centre

The long-awaited John Lewis store is not the panacea many have suggested for the future of Croydon town centre

There’s a lot of jockeying for position among the larger players, of course. Minerva’s presentation of itself as a company always ready to support the development of central Croydon takes a good deal of swallowing when you consider the amount of unproductive land on which it has been sitting for years, not least the Allders site.

Notably, Minerva’s objections include a carp that the Whitgift Foundation being treated more favourably by Westfield than other leaseholders.

The Foundation will certainly be trying to retain as much control as possible. But the Whitgift Foundation is not a major property professional. Property deals change from day to day: the Foundation, like the Catholic Church, thinks in centuries.

Continue reading →

Posted in "Hammersfield", Allders, Business, Centrale, CPO, Croydon Council, David Callam, Gavin Barwell, Housing, Jo Negrini, London-wide issues, Planning, Property, Whitgift Centre, Whitgift Foundation | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

TfL’s £87m scheme for Purley Way really is a bridge too far

Posted on February 12, 2015 by insidecroydon

WALTER CRONXITE took his copy of the A to Z and Boys’ Book of Bridges to Waddon Leisure Centre yesterday for the public consultation session about road schemes along the Purley Way. He might have saved himself the bother

The thing that strikes you about Transport for London’s public “consultation” sessions over a £87 million road building programme around the A23 at Waddon (the last session is being staged at Croydon Clocktower at lunchtime today), is the absolute dearth of any real information.

A couple of tables, a couple of pull-up banners, and that's your typical public consultation, 2015 style

A couple of tables, a couple of pull-up banners, and that’s your typical public consultation, 2015 style

The second thing which strikes you is how badly informed the TfL officials, and the people behind the schemes, appear to be. Everything is so utterly vague.

And the third thing? That despite the title of the TfL exercise – “Have your say” – that whatever the public response to the two options presented might be, this is already a fait accompli, and that the London transport authority, in cahoots with Croydon Council, will be conducting a major road-building scheme, using millions of pounds of our money, threatening dozens of homes and destroying large chunks of a public park.

We know that TfL and Croydon Council have been working up these proposals for more than a year. After all, Inside Croydon revealed a major element of the road schemes on offer, the Boris Flyover to the Croydon Flyover, months ago.

Since the neat, but short-on-detail, consultation booklets dropped through people’s doors at the beginning of the month, we’ve been struck by the response of readers, who had either not received the booklet or had no idea that their local council was planning to bulldoze its way from the Sutton borough boundary to the centre of town, with very little apparent consideration for the consequences.

Continue reading →

Posted in "Hammersfield", Andrew Pelling, Boris Johnson, Business, Croydon South, Environment, Jo Negrini, Joy Prince, London-wide issues, Mayor of London, Parking, Planning, Purley Way, Robert Canning, Sutton Council, Tramlink, Transport, Waddon, Whitgift Centre, Whitgift Foundation | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | 6 Comments

Pitch Up and Play rugby for girls at Warlingham, Mar 1

Posted on February 12, 2015 by insidecroydon

Warlingham rugby club’s growing women’s section is hosting a huge “Girls Rugby Pitch Up and Play” event at Hamsey Green on Sunday March 1.

England wing Kay Wilson: began her rugby career playing at Hamsey Green

England wing Kay Wilson: began her rugby career playing at Hamsey Green

More than 140 girls are due to attend the event, which is backed by both the Rugby Union and Surrey Rugby.

Girls aged 11 to 18 are invited to attend at 1pm for an introduction to rugby and to try a training session from qualified rugby coaches. There are free refreshments and hot food available after the rugby.

In the past, up to the age of 11, girls have played mini-rugby in mixed sessions at Warlingham, with Kay Wilson, a member of England’s women’s World Cup-winning team, among those who have enjoyed playing rugby at Hamsey Green.

And with women’s Rugby 7s making its Olympic debut at Rio de Janeiro next year, when Britain’s team, possibly including Wilson, will be among the favourites for gold, there’s an increasing demand to provide teams and training at all age groups for girls and women. Continue reading →

Posted in Croydon RFC, Kay Wilson, Old Mid-Whitgiftians/Trinity RFC, Old Walcountians, Old Whitgiftians, Purley-John Fisher, Rugby Union, Sport, Streatham-Croydon RFC, Warlingham RFC | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

David Lean Cinema’s March movie list defies arthouse image

Posted on February 12, 2015 by insidecroydon

It may be that, in being described as an “arthouse cinema”, the David Lean Cinema conjures up notions for those who have not yet visited, of screening nothing other than deeply meaningful documentaries, or impenetrable black and white Swedish movies with sub-titles.

SelmaWhile the March 2015 programme arranged by the volunteers of the Save the David Lean Campaign does, indeed, include documentaries (including an opener to mark Fairtrade Fortnight) and foreign films with sub-titles, the growing monthly screening programme is notable for including a selection of recent releases and some of the most acclaimed movies of the Bafta and Oscar awards season.

Though, true to the Cinema’s “arthouse” mission, none of these might be described as blockbusters, the likes of Birdman, Into the Woods, Foxcatcher and the awards-lite Selma are all the kind of films which you might expect to see screened at a local mutliplex.

It is just that you won’t catch them, perhaps, at such convenient screening times, and never at such a reasonable price. Continue reading →

Posted in Activities, Art, Cinema, David Lean Cinema Campaign | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Boris aides ‘stunned’ by response to Palace consultation

Posted on February 11, 2015 by insidecroydon

Boris Johnson’s Greater London Authority was “stunned” by the depth and hostility of the response, from the public, sports bodies and from Bromley Council, to its consultation conducted last autumn on the future of the National Sports Centre at Crystal Palace.

Lord Olympics: Coe's CSM company is proposing the demolition of Crystal Palace stadium

Lord Olympics: Seb Coe’s CSM company ran consultation on demolition of NSC stadium

According to sources at a meeting of the Crystal Palace Park Executive Board this week, the wholesale rejection of the options offered under the Conservative Mayor’s consultation – which proposed the demolition of the athletics stadium, to be replaced by a free school in the middle of the public park – may yet cause a complete re-think. The report from the consultation was due to be published “early” in 2015. The possibility that the Chinese developers, the ZhongRong Group, may not pursue their £500 million replica Crystal Palace project elsewhere in Crystal Palace Park could also force a new look at the future for the NSC.

As was first reported by Inside Croydon, the consultation on the National Sports Centre was run on behalf of the GLA by a consultancy which has as its executive chairman Sebastian Coe, the Tory peer and former head of the London Olympic organising committee, now the chairman of the British Olympic Association.

Continue reading →

Posted in Athletics, Boris Johnson, Bromley Council, Crystal Palace and Upper Norwood, Crystal Palace Park, Environment, London-wide issues, Mayor of London, Planning, Property, Sport, Stephen Carr | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

How the Whitgift CPO is proving bad for Croydon’s business

Posted on February 10, 2015 by insidecroydon

Susan Oliver Susan DavisCROYDON COMMENTARY: As the inquiry into Croydon Council’s Compulsory Purchase Order for the Westfield and Hammerson development of the Whitgift Centre enters its second week at Fisher’s Folly, SUSAN OLIVER, left, asks what it may be doing to the town’s reputation for doing business

More than 150 businesses are affected by Croydon’s Compulsory Purchase Order, or CPO, which entered its second week of hearings at Bernard Weatherill House today. There have been 141 objections lodged against the CPO, under which our local council is endeavouring to buy up properties to enable a development scheme to go ahead.

If you read the objections – and I encourage you to do so – it becomes clear that this is not a joyous happening in our town.

Continue reading →

Posted in "Hammersfield", Allders, Business, Centrale, CPO, Croydon Council, Environment, Fairfield, Gavin Barwell, Jo Negrini, Planning, Whitgift Centre | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

Lakes Playground Action Group annual meeting, Feb 17

Posted on February 10, 2015 by insidecroydon

The Lakes Playground Action Group was formed in 2013 with the aim of providing a better play experience for children who visit South Norwood Lake and Grounds. The existing play area was last upgraded many years ago.

Lakes Norwood picnicThey say, “Join us for our annual meeting on Tuesday February 17, at 8pm at the Waterside Centre, Avenue Road, SE25 4DX (at the lake entrance to the park) to find out how we’re progressing towards the goal of a rejuvenated, inspiring and inclusive play space and what our plans are for the coming year.

“We have begun raising money through grant funding including our first award from the Lloyds Bank Community Fund and we’re well on our way. We will have playground designs to review and plans for upcoming community events to discuss. Continue reading →

Posted in Community associations, Lakes Playground Action Group, South Norwood | Tagged , | Leave a comment

ZhongRong given another two weeks to save £500m deal

Posted on February 10, 2015 by insidecroydon

Yesterday’s meeting of the Crystal Palace Park Executive Board was due to have been held at City Hall and to be chaired by none other than the Grand High Master Mayor of London himself.

London Mayor Boris Johnson in Boston yesterday: spouting "What time is my flight due" in Greek doesn't help him there, much, either

London Mayor Boris Johnson in Boston yesterday: spouting “What time is my flight due” in Greek doesn’t help him there, much, either

It is surely a measure of how unimportant the £500 million ZhongRong Group’s proposal for “the exciting Crystal Palace glass-house” has become for Boris Johnson, as the Tory London Mayor increasingly pursues his own career ambitions, that in the event, a minion was sent south from the Greater London Authority and the meeting was held at the park itself.

With the deal with the Chinese industrialists all but collapsed, Boris was nowhere to be seen. Well, not on this side of the Atlantic, anyway.

ZhongRong’s exclusivity deal with Bromley Council, the planning authority for the park, expired at the end of January.

The press release issued after yesterday’s meeting came under the heading “Long term future of Crystal Palace Park critically important” – a masterful example of the statement of the bleedin’ obvious.

In the release, Stephen Carr, the Conservative leader of Bromley Council who has been left holding this cold turd of a deal by the Mayor of London, announced that ZhongRong has now been given another fortnight (from a letter sent on February 6) to let him know of their intentions.

ZhongRong, who despite having had 18 months under the exclusivity deal which everyone knew was due to expire on February 1, 2015, has now been given until February 20 “to agree to a number of financial and business planning-related conditions prior to the Council considering the renewal of an Exclusivity Agreement,” the statement said.

Continue reading →

Posted in "Hammersfield", Bromley Council, Business, Crystal Palace and Upper Norwood, Crystal Palace Park, Outside Croydon, Planning, Stephen Carr, Upper Norwood Library Trust, Whitgift Centre | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Wandle Park community garden volunteer work day, Feb 22

Posted on February 9, 2015 by insidecroydon

edible hedge poster Continue reading →

Posted in Activities, Broad Green, Environment, Friends of Wandle Park, Gardening, Transition Town, Wandle Park | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment