Councillors’ January 2025 Update on local issues

Bridge to Nowhere:  January 2025 Campaign update!

We ended last year where we started, campaigning! On the proposals from Network Rail, to deny access to East Croydon Station from the eastern (Addiscombe) end of the new pedestrian bridge, forcing residents to walk to the far end of the bridge and come back on themselves to access platforms.  Thanks to leafleting at the station and on local streets, and questions in the House of Commons, from our New Labour MP Natasha Irons, we are clearly having an impact!

In the summer of 2024, Network Rail submitted a planning discharge application for the pedestrian bridge link from Cherry Orchard Road, which will allow them to open the bridge without installing a ticket line on its Cherry Orchard Road entrance, resulting in Addiscombe residents having to walk across the full length of the bridge to get access to a ticket gate. At the time of writing, 630 comments/objections have been received by the Croydon Planning Department. Discharge of Condition Notice .

See December 2024: Campaign to get residents to object to the 24/03590/DISC planning application: Previous Article on how to object.

In the Summer of 2024, Network Road publicly stated for the first time that they had no plans to install a ticket gate. Network Rail had never mentioned this in any previous correspondence. Providing commuter access from Cherry Orchard Road into the station was a key reason Croydon Council granted planning permission for the pedestrian bridge and Menta’s new housing development.

London Reconnections has a good overview of the history of this proposal. A pedestrian bridge between Cherry Orchard Road and Lansdowne Road was first proposed in the mid-2000s to increase the connectivity between Addiscombe and Croydon Town Centre. The idea was incorporated into the 2011 East Croydon Masterplan and was predicated on funding from Network Rail, Croydon Council (£6m) and developers’ contributions of land and budget. The bridge has a dual-track, one for access to the station and its platforms. The second (not currently used) is for a separate pedestrian link from Cherry Orchard Road to Lansdowne Road. This part of the bridge needs repairs before it can be opened to pedestrians. Network Rail said it was seeking funding to carry out these repairs.

Save the Glamorgan Campaign

The long-standing campaign to save the Glamorgan will be reaching a planning climax sometime in the early new year.  The most recent application to demolish the pub and create a cleared site, together with the earlier application to build an eight-story block of flats with only limited scope to retain ground-floor pub function, will be taken together at a future Planning Committee.

24/03463/FUL: Application to demolish the Glamorgan Public House

23/04106/FUL | Demolition of existing Public House building, construction of a new 8-storey building with roof terrace level and basement to re-provide a public house (A4) together with 24 flats with associated access, amenity space, and landscaping works. | The Glamorgan 81 Cherry Orchard Road Croydon CR0 6BE

The developers submitted a planning application in October 2023. See the article on the Addiscombe West website

During the five years, some may claim that the owner has encouraged the dilapidation of this building. This may have reduced the selling price but substantially increased the renovation costs for Glamorgan’s reincarnation. The campaign group is not in a position to purchase this valued asset.

Safer Neighbourhood Police Ward Panel Update Jan 2025

As Councillors, much of our time is taken up with anti-social behaviour and ensuring that our local neighbourhood is as safe as possible.  In addition to individual case work, we regularly attend the Safer Neighbourhood Team Panel with residents and the Police.

The latest Panel was on Thursday, 9 January.  There was good and bad news!

The good news is that the Police had some notable success in recent months, in busting a Cannabis Farm in Oval Road, and in street drug dealing arrests. Further, officers stressed their good working relationship with the Council and other agencies.

The bad news is that recorded crime went up in 2024, but over the last few months, it has been declining again.

You can review the data on the Addiscombe West page on the Met Police page Addiscombe West | Your area | Metropolitan Police

Further, for several internal reasons, the Safer Neighbour team covering Addiscombe has been temporarily reduced to just a local Neighbourhood Sergeant and one Police Support Officer.  Plans are in place to recruit two new Police Constables back into the team to restore its establishment strength.

Youth Service Cuts – Letting Our Community Down

For a borough like Croydon, with the largest youth population in London, it is disappointing, but not unexpected, that the Tory Mayor seeks to ignore the needs of young people by cutting funding to the Youth Engagement Team.

For minimal savings, despite a recently published Croydon Youth Justice Report, Croydon is turning its back on our young people and their future, further widening the generational divide in Croydon.

It was not always this way. The Sir Phillip Game Centre, the youth centre in our ward,  is named after a post-World War II Metropolitan Police Commissioner who established the trust that runs the centre to this day. The Sir Phillip Game Centre on Morland Avenue was rebuilt with funding from a Labour-controlled Council in the 2000s.

If politics is about choices, Croydon Tories are making the wrong ones.

Croydon Council Finance’s Jan 2025 update

At the start of the current financial year, the Council’s finances were dire, having to make targeted savings of £27 million, while borrowing £38 million per annum to balance the revenue budget.

As the year has gone on, things have got worse with a projected overspend of £17.6 million reported in December, after use of reserves of (£18 million).

The primary increases are in:

• Adult Social Care increased needs,
• Placement of Children and Young Adults with Special Needs
• Temporary Accommodation costs

The first national Labour Government budget in a decade and a half has rightly given some hope in increasing Local Government funding overall.  However, in London, the increases certainly do not keep up with demand.

It is often overlooked that locally run and delivered services by Local Councils are key in the delivery of good public services.  In the future, our national Labour Government needs to be generous in its settlements to Local Government, as it is the NHS. Only then will we turn around local services.

Lastly – Some good News on Private Housing

As of 23 December 2024, our new Labour Government removed the requirement for Councils to obtain Central Government approval to introduce a Private Landlord licensing scheme of any size.

Effectively, this allows boroughs like Croydon to reintroduce a boroughwide approach to private landlord licencing, enabling more effective intervention with bad landlords and the ability to raise money through the licensing fee to deal with issues around anti-social behaviour and dumping of furniture by unscrupulous landlords when tenants move out.