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Anti knife crime fun run – Sunday 22nd May 10.30am
Fund raising fun run for the Zaian Centre The Oasis Trust are organising a charity fun run on Sunday 22nd May 2022 at 10.30 am. All proceeds will be going towards opening the Zaian Centre in Ashburton Park in memory of Oasis Academy student Zaian Aimable-Lina who was killed in a unprovoked knife attack in the park on December 30th last year.
The fun run will start from North End (by Marks and Spencer) and participants will run/jog/walk over to Ashburton Park, where there will be food and music until 13.30.
It costs £10.00 for adults to take place and £5.00 for children – all participants get a free t shirt and a wrist band as a souvenir of the day.
If the launch of the Zaian Centre appeal in March where Oasis students and local people joined Mr Motivator for a workout in Ashburton Park is anything to go by , this promises to be a good event which will raise awareness of the Zaian Centre project.
The Oasis Trust have a fundraising page where you can make an online donation to the Zaian Centre, or even better, come along on the day. No need to pre-book.
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Letter to Jason Perry, Mayor of Croydon
Firstly congratulations on getting yourself elected, it was a close run thing.
Secondly, The CRO hears that you are an affable kind of bloke which is a good thing. The last thing Croydon needs at the moment is a zealot. Hopefully your good nature will make sure that all residents of Croydon are represented at the Town Hall. After all, that is what residents were promised in the mayoral referendum.
What Croydon was sold in the referendum – will Jason Perry deliver? The Mayoral election was very close with only 500 votes in that 2nd round run off. And you don’t need us to remind you that the Council itself is for the first time in Croydon’s history under no overall control with the Labour Party as the largest party. All of the elements in our local authority need to work together, with councillors from all parties being part of Council policy making and monitoring its implementation.
Croydon, along with the rest of country is facing a social emergency. Many Croydon residents will be suffering severe financial hardship as we head into next winter and Croydon has been starved of funding since 2012. Maybe you might have a little bit more luck persuading Boris Johnson’s government that Croydon needs more funding now, in fact Croydon has needed more funding for decades. Croydon, has seen changes to our demographics as lower paid people move out of the inner London boroughs which are getting more gentrified daily. Croydon has more people needing assistance from the council, yet the government refuse to consider changing Croydon’s funding level. Croydon gets around £200 per head less funding than our neighbours in Lambeth. So that’s 200 x 350,000 residents – that’s £70million. A year.
The CRO hopes that you are going to be able to lobby for this extra funding and any levelling up funding that may be available. We also hope that Boris Johnson and his government aren’t going to let you down.
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Still waiting to see who’s in Croydon’s new cabinet
Seats at the cabinet table – still empty? Still no word on who is going to be in Mayor Jason Perry’s cabinet despite nearly 5 working days having gone by since he was elected in a very close contest against Labour’s Val Shawcross.
As there is nothing concrete to go on, council-watchers are having to try to read the political tealeaves in order to figure out which councillors are going to be working closely with Croydon’s new Mayor.
The Mayor is able to choose a cabinet of 9 from among the elected councillors, each of which will have a particular portfolio. It is, however, far from clear how this cabinet should be made up. The Council itself is under no overall control and Labour councillors make up the largest group on the Council being just one seat short of having a majority. If the Greens, Liberal Democrats and Labour cooperate on the Council even if the Tories manage to hold on to South Croydon ward (which has one vacancy as Jason Perry is now Mayor) they would still only have 33 votes to Labour, Lib Dems and the Greens on 37. The CRO would suggest that the balance of the cabinet should at least reflect this breakdown.
Jason Perry at Purley Pool today along with Chris Philp MP, Deputy Mayor Lynne Hale and Councillor Jason Cummings So far, it has been announced that Councillor Lynne Hale has been chosen as Jason Perry’s deputy mayor. Other than that, no word. However, looking at a picture of Jason Perry at Purley Pool today, he is accompanied by the Deputy Mayor, Chris Philp MP and Councillor Jason Cummings. Councillor Cummings represents Shirley South which is a long way from Purley, so is this appearance due to a new cabinet post coming his way?
Looking forward to hearing from the Mayor which other appointments he is going to be making and looking forward to seeing if his choice reflects the breakdown of representatives that the people of Croydon have chosen.
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So..it’s No Overall Control?
For the first time ever, Croydon is under No Overall Control. Croydon has a Conservative executive Mayor Jason Perry who will be wielding a tremendous amount of power. However, we think that Jason Perry is very aware of the narrowness of his majority and knows that is an unwise mayor who doesn’t at least try to get the full council on side with his or her plans.
Mr Mayor, may I have a word? Lots of people will want to talk to Jason Perry Being the mayor of a borough the size of Croydon with its nearly 400,000 residents means that Croydon’s new mayor is going to be getting a lot of lobbying over the next four years, not just from the elected councillors, but also from residents, businesses and pressure groups.
Having a council with no one party holding a majority means that with numerous interests in competing for what promises to be very tight resources Croydon as a town is going to have to learn how to sort out problems and make decisions without resorting to unpleasantness which has been the case the past few years. Despite what we read in the papers, it may be the first time that this has happened in Croydon, but No Overall Control is a fairly normal way to run a council and many do, for years on end. What is now needed from Croydon councillors is professionalism, discipline and a some good will and as was said by Fr. Sam Dennis from St Lukes a couple of weeks back The CRO agrees that our new Council needs to ‘hear testimony, look for common self-interest, assume good faith whilst still applying tension’.
In the past few days we have ample evidence of candidates and councillors with genuine respect and even affection for each other that crosses the party lines. Maybe Croydon can draw from the shared experience of a truly gruelling count progress to work together over the coming months.
The CRO also hopes that Mayor Jason will be choosing his cabinet with an eye to the political makeup of the Council and is looking forward to hearing announcements on that..
There is a lot of work to be done and seeing how Croydon copes with this unprecedented situation of the new Mayor and a Council where interests and coalitions may shift will be very telling. But the goal must be thoughtful co-operation.
Don’t be cruel, play it cool! The CRO is willing to do its best. As an observer and commentators on all thing Croydon, we want to play it cool and stay positive. It’s tempting sometimes to jump online and let off a bit of steam, maybe write some things that are unkind or cynical. The CRO will be reminding itself that there is often two sides to a story and counting to 10 before hitting the send button.
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Out for the Count – Day 4
Another day at the count – pic from Your Croydon It’s Sunday morning and before the count gets started again for what will (hopefully) be its final session here is a quick update.
Last night the Council count got going with the intent of dealing with 12 wards. Sadly, this did not happen as we have two wards that are, to use old fashioned election parlance – too close to call. These wards, Crystal Palace and Upper Norwood in Croydon North constituency and Waddon ward in Croydon South constituency. The Returning Officer has ordered a bundle check, where bundles of votes are checked quickly to ensure that no votes have been put into the wrong pile. If that doesn’t clarify things, full recounts could be ordered in both wards.
Click on this pic of the Council chamber for up to date detailed results Politics geeks at the CRO like facts, figures, turnouts etc and there is lots of information to be found on the Council’s website, which is being updated as results come in.
It’s going to be busy at the count today, the CRO hears that there is a korfball match at Trinity School today as well as the count. It’s going to be busy.
….and it was, and we got into all sorts of problems trying to work with some seriously hi tech graphics provided by one of the political parties which caused the blog to fall over 😦 we are governance geeks here at the CRO so it all got a bit much for us. We traced the progress of the day on our Twitter account and if you click on the picture of a CRO below, that will take you straight there.
And the big news is that Labour have lost control of the Council and it is now No Overall Control. More tomorrow.
Click on the CRO to go to our Twitter -
CRO@TheCount – Night 2..or is it 3….?
Back at the long delayed Croydon count of votes. Tonight it’s for 12 seats on the Council with the remainder being counted tomorrow from 1pm onwards.
The popular local news blog Inside Croydon has dubbed the Croydon count as ‘the land that time forgot’. Maybe it’s Groundhog Day as the CRO was convinced it was Night 2, until it was pointed out to us by follower CronxCliff that it is in fact Night 3.
So we are back at Trinity School, hopefully conditions in the count will be less scrum like tonight – I am sure quite a lot of Trinity’s First XV would have felt quite at home here on night 1.
Huddle (or scrum?) at the Addiscombe East table Counting started at 6pm and a result is looking imminent in Addiscombe East, a two seat split ward in Croydon Central. Returning Officers has ordered a check of the bundles and there is quite a crowd of (mainly Conservative) workers at the table. Keeping an eye out for a result.
Will be attempting to update as often as we can. There is a lot at stake tonight to see just who will be holding the new mayor, Jason Perry to account over the next four years.
Former Mayor Maddie Henson and husband Mark Henson Phew! Addiscombe East was a close finish and after bundle checks Jeet Bains (Conservative) and former Mayor Maddie Henson (Labour) hold on in the split ward in Croydon Central constituency. No change.
Sadly for both their running mates, Tom Bowell (Labour) and Kyle Knight (Conservative) it wasn’t going to be their night.
More news soon.
Tories hold Coulsdon Town 10.22pm – Councillors Mario Creatura and Ian Parker safely re-elected in Coulsdon Town with first time Councillor Luke Shortland making up the Conservative team in Coulsdon Town.
Interesting story of the night was seeing the Liberal Democrats moving back into contention. Coulsdon has always been good territory for them having returned Liberal Democrat councillors in the past.
More news to come soon.
No big surprises in Addiscombe West 10.45pm No big surprises in Addiscombe West when long term local councillors Sean Fitzsimons (Labour) and former Mayor Patricia Hay-Justice(Labour) re-elected.
Another long serving councillor Clive Fraser (Labour) elected for the first time in Addiscombe West.
Nearest challengers were the Conservatives but Labour hung on despite a small swing to the Tories.
More news to follow
Three former Mayors, Sherwan Chowdhury, Manju Shah-Hameed and Stuart Collins re-elected in Broad Green Three former Mayors re-elected in Broad Green. Stuart Collins (Labour), Manju Shahul-Hameed (Labour) and Sherwan Chowdhury (Labour) survive a 12% swing Labour to Conservative still with good majorities in Broad Green ward in Croydon North constituency.
11.30pm – Bit of an hiatus now, I hear that some more wards are close to declaring, but the story of the night is that there is no story to tell other than the obvious one about the organisational problems. It is a terrible shame that this process has been dragged out to such an extent. Not only is this drawn out count hard on candidates, supporters and the council officers, but it can also have knock on effects for people with other needs like people with young families or caring responsibilities. These people cannot just stay out all night for several nights on the go. Next time the count must be better organised because the confusion of the past few days is very off-putting to potential candidates and party workers, not to mention the people who sign up to actually do the counting.
Another group whose needs have to be taken into consideration is people with mobility problems. The lack of seating and wheelchair accessible space effectively excludes a very large group of people.
The CRO will be taking this up with the Council.
The CRO is now signing off for the night.
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Perry Elected and now for another long night
Croydon’s new Mayor – Jason Perry Just in case you missed it, Jason Perry was elected as the directly elected Mayor of Croydon in the small hours of this morning.
Candidates, party workers and supporters, are gathering at Trinity School for the count for the Council election where the makeup of the Croydon 2022 Council will be determined.
It’s going to be an important evening that will shape the political process in Croydon for the next four years. Perry as Mayor will have some very wide ranging powers, but some issues like approving the Council’s budget and some other hot issues like planning will still be in the hands of Croydon’s councillors. Councillors will also be carefully scrutinising Jason Perry’s work as executive mayor and it is a very unwise mayor who ignores the views of his or her scrutiny committees.
There are a number of ways that this evening could go. Will Perry get a Conservative council who would be more inclined to rubber stamp his ideas or even a Labour council who are likely to be far more critical? After last night’s strong showing for the Liberal Democrats and the Greens will the Council itself go to No Overall Control? For politics watchers who have been highly critical of Croydon’s political duopoly that will be the most interesting as Perry will have to balance the interests of a lot of people to put his policy promises into practice. The word is that the Lib Dems and the Greens may have a few surprises up their sleeve.
Things are going to be very different at Croydon Council after this and whether or not this is a good thing only remains to be seen.
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Election count chaos CRO@theCount
Croydon’s election count at Trinity School 4.52am – after a long and fraught night and and a couple of recounts, we finally have a result. Conservative Jason Perry has been elected as the first directly elected Mayor of Croydon, beating Val Shawcross by a margin of just short of 600 votes. Time to get home for all the candidates and workers – we are back here at 6pm tonight for the full Council count. We suspect that this is going to be another long night.
2.48am – the Mayoral count has still not concluded and the Council count has not been postponed until 6pm on Saturday, reconvening at 1pm on Sunday if necessary.
It’s a very tense night with Jason Perry going into the 2nd preference ballot 2000 votes ahead of Valerie Shawcross. The distribution of the second preferences has now taken place and the word is that Val Shawcross has closed the gap and there is now less than 200 votes in it. Sounds like recount territory to the CRO.
1.45am – Croydon’s delayed election count looks set to continue into tomorrow as rumours grow of a recount after severe delays caused by errors in the counting of the votes for the first preferences in the ballot for the new directly elected Mayor.
Candidates, their party workers and supporters, Council officers, count venue staff and of course, the press are preparing for a long night ahead as the Council election count hasn’t started as yet and is unlikely to before the mayoral result is declared. The mayoral count is now running 4 hours behind.
The second preference votes are now being distributed in a run off between Conservative Jason Perry and Labour’s Val Shawcross.
Follow The CRO on Twitter for CRO@thecount updates.
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Election Update 27th April 2022 – one week to go
Only a week to go now until Polling Day and the CRO has been keeping a careful eye on some of the comings and goings on on the campaign trail. Looking at some of the coverage of the election, somebody who didn’t know Croydon very well may be forgiven for thinking that aggression and unpleasantness was how we do things here in Croydon.
So the CRO has decided to keep an eye out for stories that show Croydon as it the great place it actually is. Here are two of them.
Thoughtful debate at St Luke’s
Thoughtful assembly at St Luke’s The candidates from the two biggest parties, Jason Perry and Valerie Shawcross were invited to a mayoral assembly last week at St Lukes’ Church, Woodside, SE25 which had been organised by Croydon Citizens. As a departure from the more usual cut and thrust of hustings meetings, Croydon Citizens chose this thoughtful assembly format. Speaking after the assembly host Fr. Sam Dennis from St Luke’s Church, Woodside, SE25 said that the assembly format had worked out very well and had been ‘hearing testimony, looking for common self-interest, assuming good faith whilst still applying tension’. The candidates had in the course of the meeting made some election commitments. Val Shawcross pledged to introduce a scheme of compensation for council tenants who had suffered holdups and errors with repairs, which came from a suggestion from council tenants representative Mr Les Parry. Both candidates also committed to ensure that the Council remains a living wage employer and expand the living wage in Croydon as well as extra assistance for GPs to support people with mental health difficulties. Mr. Parry commented after the meeting that ‘good things happen when politicians listen to the people’.
‘hearing testimony, looking for common self interest, assuming good faith while still applying tension’.
Fr Sam Dennis, Vicar, St Luke’s Church, SE25Reactionary told to ‘jog on’ in Purley
Racists ‘can jog on’ – Samir Dwesar Meanwhile in Purley, first time Conservative candidate Samir Dwesar was minding his own business posting on Twitter about the Purley Pool. Unfortunately as is sometimes the case of Twitter he was hassled by a nasty little racist who seemed to think that diversity in representation on the council was somehow a bad thing. Councillor Stuart King, the deputy leader of the Council spotted this and posted in support of Mr. Dwesar, who he said ‘would prove to be a diligent, hardworking and committed local Councillor’.
Mr Dwesar posted shortly afterwards, thanking Councillor King for his intervention. He agreed that this unpleasant character ‘can jog on’.
These two candidates showed one of the great things about Croydon. It has always been a place where people from any part of the world or any walk of life can find a welcome. The CRO wishes them both the very best with the rest of their campaigns.
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Croydon Night of Dance is back (with bells on)
Croydon cultural fixture the Croydon Night of Dance is back from its Covid-enforced. break and has just announced the date for their annual Morris dancing event in Addiscombe. The event attracts Morris dancing teams from all over the south-east for an evening of dancing, music and fun in August. The event will be featuring Croydon’s three Morris sides North Wood Morris, Old Palace Clog and the Wild Hunt Bedlam Morris.
Putting the Wild in Wild Hunt Bedlam Morris 
Croydon’s Lords of the Dance, North Wood Morris 
Old Palace Clog, North West Clog Dance – South East London Croydon Night of Dance has grown over 15 years from an informal get together of Morris sides to the big event it is now, requiring road closures. The event is now run in conjunction with the Rotary Club of Croydon to raise funds for local causes.
The event will take place on the 16th August 2022 from 7pm onwards. More details to follow.
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