I set this site up in January 2004, and have for many years highlighted areas/issues in Croydon that were shit.
It is no exaggeration to say that in all the years that this site has been running, this is without doubt an all-time low for Croydon!
Are these the worst council housing conditions in Britain?
These are some of the appalling conditions ITV News found people living in at a London tower block. Residents' repeated calls to the council for repairs were ignored.
The two men and a woman are being sought in connection with
the attack on the 17-year-old Kurdish Iranian who waiting at a bus stop
with two friends outside The Goat pub in Croydon, south-east London.
The local MP, Gavin Barwell, has described the attackers as "scum".
Eight
people are being held on suspicion of attempted murder following a
series of arrests over the weekend and five have been charged over
the attack, Scotland Yard said.
The Metropolitan Police
said they know "approximately 20" were involved the incident that left
the boy with a fractured skull and a blood clot on his brain.
On Monday police renewed their appeal for witnesses and
information as the victim remained in hospital in a serious but stable
condition.
Andrew Pelling talks on Sunday 20th with Hammerson and Lloyd's chairman
John Nelson of his love for Croydon and views on past Croydon planners'
failures as Hammerson agree with Westfield to work jointly on
transforming Croydon town centre.
The Croydon Guardian reports that Croydon Council chief executive, Jon Rouse, banned the press from a public meeting last night, lest he be subjected to scrutiny.
The ban is somewhat "ironic" given that the press had been invited by the deputy chairman of the forum to attend
what it had described as a public meeting at Croydon Voluntary Action
resource centre in London Road, where the council chief was answering
questions about the regeneration of West Croydon.
Now you know why Croydon continues to decay; the council have absolutely no intention of regenerating it, and don't want the press to report as such!
Courtesy of Andrew Pelling, here is the sound of the wind atop Altitude 25.
As he notes, high rise buildings are not the answer to Croydon's housing needs. Additionally aside from being windy at the top, these high rise buildings actually exacerbate the wind at street level.
Those of you who care about the centre of Croydon and want to see the rot stopped, would be well advised to participate in the council's consultation over Lansdowne Road & Dingwall Road Roundabout Improvements:
"From July 2013 with the opening of the new northern entrance to East
Croydon Station, Lansdowne Road will be the vital pedestrian and cycle
connection between East Croydon Station, the major south London public
transport Interchange and Croydon's retail core (the Whitgift Centre,
North End and Centrale). The proposed improvement works will provide a
safer more attractive route to handle the predicted 30% of the people
who currently use East Croydon Station to access these parts of the
town.
These works are part of the wider Connected Croydon programme of public
realm enhancements. The project will deliver a lasting legacy for
Croydon Metropolitan Centre over the next three years.
The works will also connect to a proposed new surface level pedestrian
crossing on Wellesley Road that will connect Lansdowne Road and the main
eastern entrance of the Whitgift Centre by 2014. This will further
strengthen the role of Lansdowne Road as a direct pedestrian link
between the new East Croydon footbridge and Croydon’s major commercial
and retail core.
The main objectives of these works are as follows:
To transform Lansdowne Road between Wellesley Road and Dingwall
Road (including Dingwall Road roundabout) into a pedestrian friendly
space that still accommodates vehicles
To strengthen the sense of arrival to an important London destination by creating an inviting public space
To set a high quality benchmark for public realm improvements in Croydon Metropolitan Centre
To improve connectivity and increase capacity for pedestrians and
cyclists between Lansdowne Road and the new East Croydon footbridge via
Lansdowne Walk whilst maintaining its role as a vehicular route
To preserve existing bus movement and timing, and allow for future increase in capacity
Improve public transport interchange in the vicinity of the western
entrance to the new East Croydon Footbridge including a new taxi rank."
Despite whatever comes of this plan, it is a pity that Dingwall Road will remain a barren wasteland that looks both hideous and dangerous until other issues are addressed.
"Allders, once Croydon's flagship store, is due to go into administration in the next 24 hours.
That is bad news for the staff and pensioners as, aside from the
jobs that may be lost, there is a rumour in the City of a £17M black
hole in the pension fund.
The Standard reports that the company that owns the Allders chain,
Minerva, only acquired Allders to get its hands on the flagship Croydon
site.
What does this mean for the centre of Croydon I wonder?
"
Some five and half years later, and Allders is yet again in administration.
"The department store, the third biggest in the UK, today appointed Duff &
Phelps as administrator, blaming a sales decline on “the well-publicised
economic difficulties facing the UK”. 300 jobs have been put on the line.
The collapse comes in the year that the department store was celebrating its
150th anniversary. It remains open for trading."
Oh dear, on top of the creeping decay and blight eroding the centre of Croydon, it seems that the reputation of Croydon will be further sullied if this project ever gets airtime.
PropertyWeek reports that Hammerson has signed an exclusivity agreement
which will enable it to buy a stake
in the Whitgift Centre in Croydon.
This of course places a question mark over
Westfield’s plans for the centre, and adds to the confusion as to what exactly is going on with the shopping centre.
In November 2011 Westfield announced that it had secured an exclusive
agreement with the shopping centre’s freeholder, the Whitgift Trust, to
explore options to redevelop the mall. However, the shopping centre’s other stakeholders had not been consulted and agreed to sell a
share of their stake to Hammerson.
"Plans" for the redevelopment of the Whitgift shopping centre have been argued about for years, eg I wrote this in February 2005:
"Minerva is funding Croydon Council's fight against the Whitgift shopping
centre expansion plans proposed by Minerva's rivals, who own the
Whitgift.
Minerva is paying the six figure costs of legal fees
incurred by the council, at a planning inquiry into the expansion of the
Whitgift shopping centre.
The owners of Whitgift are appealing
against the council's decision not to approve plans to extend the
shopping centre. The extension is called Bishops Court 2.
The council is reported to back the rival project called Park Place, which is proposed by Minerva."
Frankly, based on the failures of previous schemes, I don't think there will be an redevelopment of the Whitgift anytime soon.
Nestle has announced that it will move its UK headquarters, housing 840 staff, from Croydon to Gatwick by the end of 2012.
Nestle has been based in Croydon for over 40 years.
It had been seeking a new head office in Croydon for "several years", but it had proved "very difficult". Croydon Council said that Nestle had chosen a type of office
accommodation that it could not match, this is ironic given how much empty office space there appears to be in Croydon.
Kudos to the Reeves family, the staff of Reeves and the people of Croydon for showing what can be done in the face of adversity.
"Today, however, thanks to a combination of steely determination, black humour
and the remarkable kindness of strangers – including donations amounting to
more than £10,000, a handwritten letter from Prince William, and a tapestry
stitched by a customer in her eighties – the store is in better shape than
the family could ever have hoped. “I am absolutely staggered by the
support,” says Reeves"
"Tara Walton volunteers for All Inclusive, an organisation that offers financial training to young people, based in the centre.
The 24-year-old said: 'It is good they have come and are actually paying attention to Croydon for once, but it shouldn't have taken the riots to do that.'"
I am truly sorry to see that Reeves the family run furniture store was torched by scum last night, 140 years of history up in smoke, along with numerous other businesses, shops and homes.
The law abiding citizens of Croydon deserve better than this.
On Twitter East Croydon Station, 10am #riotcleanup
Sad to see when walking along Dingwall Road the other day, on a visit to see my mother, that the decay and dereliction along Dingwall Road has become worse.
Why are there so many empty, decaying buildings and derelict sites there?
It is absolutely hideous, and a lousy advertisement for Croydon; most especially as it is the first thing that people see when they leave East Croydon Station.
