Author: Editor SPRA

Members are invited to check the following link recieved today …

Police search for man missing from Beckenham health facility

Posted on July 23, 2024 by insidecroydon

There’s a police manhunt in south London after a patient at what Scotland Yard describes as “a mental health facility in Beckenham” escaped while on an accompanied walk on Sunday morning.

Do not approach: the police ask the public to call 999 if they see Abderrahmane Ariba

“Extensive enquiries are ongoing”, the Met says, to locate Abderrahmane Ariba, 30, who was last seen at about 9.30am on Sunday.

Police say that Ariba may have travelled to Croydon since he was last seen.

They are also looking for Ariba around Marble Arch.

“He is described as 5ft 5in tall and of large build,” the Met says.

“When last seen, he was wearing a blue polka dot T-shirt, black tracksuit trousers and black trainers.

“Members of the public are advised not to approach him. For an immediate sighting call 999.”

Otherwise, the police ask the public with information to call 101 quoting reference CAD 441/22Jul.

The following letter is being selectively circulated by the Council …

As you may be aware, the council’s ‘pay and display machines’ are reaching the end of their useful life with the ongoing shutdown of 3G connectivity across the country and increasing maintenance costs, meaning that any remaining machines will be removed.

The removal programme will mean that from Saturday 13 July in on-street chargeable locations the machines will be switched off and customers will need to use RingGo.

Following this the Council will rollout mobile parking in Council car parks and in free parking locations in district and local centres. The RingGo parking app is a convenient way for most residents and visitors to pay for their parking. The app is free to use on both Apple and Android devices. Where free parking tariffs apply these will still be available through the app.

Other than the name of the person parking and the vehicle registration, personal information such as card details do not need to be stored on the app.

Whilst the Council does not charge for using RingGo, some default settings may mean that you pay a small charge to RingGo for reminders. These notifications can be easily disabled in the app settings.

The use of RingGo will also reduce the ability to meter feed and may provide a
discount on parking charges, dependant on vehicle emissions. For those that do not have a smartphone, parking sessions can also be secured by phone, by calling 020 3046 0010.

We understand that change can be difficult but please be reassured that we are
making every effort to ensure that the transition to mobile payment parking is as smooth as possible.

We have listened to the issues raised through pilot schemes and are looking to
mitigate the impact of change wherever possible. As a result, a PayPoint option for those who prefer to make cash or card payments, may be available at any shop that offers PayPoint. When using PayPoint, there is no need to return to the vehicle as the session will be automatically logged.

We appreciate your ongoing support, patience, and cooperation.
Yours faithfully,

The recent proposed planning application for a 5g mast in Bridle Road has been refused. This was not unexpected as a similar recent proposed location for a mast was also refused in Wickham Road. The main reason given for both cases were that the mast locations were considered ‘dominant and prominent’.

Recent local comments have been that this type of structure is dangerous because of the radiation used. The fact is that there is no mention in the refusal document of any danger to the public from the low radiation used. This confirms the views put forward by SPRA.

We are advised that Devonshire Way, Bewteen no. 159 and Bridle Road, will be resurfaced on 1 & 2 August between 8 am and 5 pm, with parking restrictions on 3 August also.

Croydon Council have sent us the following …

Thank you for your response to the consultation on Croydon’s Libraries and for registering your interest to be kept informed on the next steps.

We received a great response to the consultation with over 3,600 responses to the survey and over 1000 people joining us at meetings and events around the borough.  Since the consultation closed on 19 April, the library team has been reviewing all the feedback received.

 We had originally planned to bring a report on the consultation findings and revised proposals for the library service to a Croydon Cabinet meeting in June or July, however,  following the calling of the general election, the council entered a pre-election period, which limits aspects of the Council’s work until after the general election. This has impacted Cabinet meeting timetables and the libraries review has now been rescheduled to be discussed at a meeting on 24 September.

Papers for the 24 September Cabinet will be published online one week before the meeting. We will email you to let you know when they are available.

Thank you again for your support for Croydon’s library service.

Kind regards
Croydon Libraries

Members may be aware that a proposal has been made that a new communications mast, 20 metres high, be installed in Bridle Road outside Forest Academy. Concern has been expressed about the health implications of such masts, ranging from “is there a danger?” to “we’ll all be fried in our beds!!”.

SPRA believes that the former is a perfectly reasonable question to raise while the latter is (we regret to say) perhaps typical of the instant over-reaction for which today’s social media might have been designed. Having investigated this some time ago, and with someone on the EC whose professional life was spent in this area of physics, we are happy to answer the first reaction with “no, we believe not, and if members wish to see what the health professional say, the following link will be, we hope, reassuring.

Please visit https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/5f49038dd3bf7f0a2c9679d5/5G_mobile_technology_a_guide.pdf

to see what HM Government says … yes, we know not everyone trusts everything said by every politician, but we are convinced that the alarmist views – we are tempted to say “the views of conspiracy theorists” – are wrong.

As a result of this and other information received, SPRA will not be making any objection to the proposed mast.

Members may not have seen the statement which Mayor Perry issued recently. We reproduce it below

Statement on Addington Golf Club

 Many local people have been concerned by reports of The Addington Golf Club’s aspiration to manage parts of Shirley Heath and Addington Hills and to build a driving range on Council land there. I share those concerns and want to reassure residents that whilst the golf club are entitled to their aspirations, that does not mean that the Council had or has any intention of selling, leasing, or handing the land over.

Transparency and honesty have been a key guiding principle throughout my Administration, and I would like to directly address all concerns raised; many of which have been inaccurate and have caused unnecessary upset in the community.

As Executive Mayor, I hold regular developer sessions which is a normal part of my role. This type of engagement is a common practice that Leaders and Mayors in other authorities also undertake as part of good practice to promote inward investment into the Borough.

These developer sessions are usually held every six weeks with local and national partners, who have ideas or plans to develop or improve Croydon. These are confidential meetings by design, to provide an opportunity for anyone who has such ideas to share them in a safe space and receive feedback. No decisions or commitments are made at these meetings.

Any proposals which advance from this stage must then go through formal and public decision-making processes, including planning if relevant. Senior Council officers from relevant departments have been and will continue to be present at all of these meetings, where we simply listen to projects and provide feedback from both myself as Mayor and officers of the Local Planning Authority.

As part of these developer sessions, I met the golf club owner to discuss their proposals on the 18th of May 2023 and had a site visit on the 17th of August 2023. These meetings were not an endorsement or agreement of the golf club’s plans.

No discussions have taken place since and I have no intention, and never have, of selling, leasing or entering into any other agreement which would give control or use of this Green Belt land to the golf club. These meetings were also not attended by any representatives from the Council’s asset disposal team.

For the avoidance of doubt, I am not a member of this or any golf club. I regularly update the Register of Interests which include an annual update of my Disclosable Pecuniary Interests and routinely update gifts and hospitality I have received. These can be found on the Council’s website.

For further clarity, I have received no gifts or hospitality from any golf club.

We are London’s greenest borough, and I will always fight to protect our precious green spaces. Since I was elected Executive Mayor, I have proudly overseen the investment in our green and open spaces. Only last week we opened two new children’s playgrounds in the borough’s parks, we have partnered with sporting bodies to upgrade Croydon’s tennis and cricket facilities, invested in improving path infrastructure and restored a Park Ranger to South Norwood Country Park.

I want to reassure residents that the golf club’s aspiration to manage parts of Shirley Heath and Addington Hills and to build a driving range is not happening, and will not happen as long as I am Executive Mayor, as I know how important these spaces are to all of us as Croydon residents.

Mayor Jason Perry, Executive Mayor of Croydon

SPRA was approached in March about the Golf Club’s plans to expand its facilities by taking over an area of Shirley Heath and Addington Hills.  To enable full and widespread consultation with the Club, SPRA arranged a meeting of nine Residents’ Associations local to Shirley at a joint meeting with Ryan Noades the club’s MD.  Following the presentation of the outline plan, the RAs were unanimous in requesting a much more detailed proposal before submitting to their members, to obtain their views.

That remains the position as at 5 April. As soon as more detail is received from the Club, and as soon as this has been studied by SPRA Committee members, a further note will appear on the website.  We are only at the moment at the start of a process of consultation, which the Golf Club is aware could be a lengthy one.

In the meantime we urge members not to believe everything carried on social media – for example, one message referred to the sale of the land by the Council; the Council has made clear what we understood from the start, that no sale has ever been suggested and that it was only ever contemplated that the Club take a lease over part of Shirley Heath.

Are you interested in helping to retain Shirley Library?

SPRA’s Executive Committee decided at its February meeting to adopt a non-partisan approach in respect of the proposal to close Shirley Library.  It wished to encourage all members of the community, including SPRA members, to participate in the Council’s consultation, so that all voices are heard.  Finally the Committee resolved to act in an enabling role, to facilitate the co-operative working of those in the community who wish to keep the Library.

If you would like to be involved in this effort, SPRA would be happy to pass on your details to other interested individuals who may wish to form an Action Group.

Please email your name, email address, and telephone number to spra.comms@hotmail.com.  By so doing, you agree to your details being passed to others similarly interested.

We have received the following from Croydon Voluntary Action, and have been asked to draw attention specifically to the 24 April date ofthe next meeting.

Thank you to Celestina and Lynda for Co-chairing the meeting and to Oasis Academy in Shirley for being such good hosts. It’s good to see a variety of community spaces that are open to hire for events and to familiarise ourselves with their activities. For more information on Oasis Academy here.

Last November’s LCP Partnership Showcase event was a well-attended, informative celebration of the organisations that were successful in their applications for funding from the new Localities Commissioning Fund. Their exciting plans were outlined and Commissioners voiced their commitment to these new ways of community-led commissioning.

For this locality, the local priorities identified are: Transport, Digital Inclusion, Mental Health and ‘Heating/Eating’. These key elements of the Central East Locality’s Community Plan will be linked in with public health data and will also inform Croydon’s new Health and Wellbeing Strategy 2024-29. With the general election coming-up this year, a Community Manifesto based on the six LCP’s Community Plans will give residents a stronger voice, identify the most important local issues and will help highlight the excellent partnership working that is taking place in Croydon.

It was good that we were able to secure some ‘Ageing well’ funding that has been used to sustain some of the good work that is already happening in this locality through Addiscombe Neighbourhood Care Association.

Community Hubs in the Central East Locality

·      Ashburton Park Hub – Oasis Academy schools have a commitment that, wherever there is a cluster of schools, they need to set up a Community Hub. Andrew Gill is the Lead for the Shirley Park site. Andrew helpfully told LCP members that the school tragically lost two of their students to knife crime in a short space of time. Part of the work to change and positively impact the community around this is to redesign the nearby Ashburton Park through a Heritage grant and to work closely with the community in the process. The work will focus on developing the currently vacant Lodge in the park and also look to set up at a food growing project with Voluntary and Community Sector (VCS) partners such as South Norwood Community Kitchen and Reaching Higher, together with racing driver, Lewis Hamilton’s mentoring project ‘Mission 44’ to provide an initiative with 360 wrap-around support. This area has also been selected as one of the sites that will benefit from a new Multi-Use Games Area (MUGA), as part of the play zone funding that has been made available through the council.

ACTION: To be connected to this exciting work and explore potential partnership opportunities please contact: andrew.gill@oasisuk.org / 07917 243 665

·     Woodside Community Hub – part of Croydon East Wellness Support Network- ‘CrESNT’– The winning bid for this locality last year was CrESENT an alliance that is made up of five partners in the locality: Floating Counselling, ‘Welderlies’, Woodside Community Pop-In, Clear Community Web and ‘Mandem Medley’, who are supporting 120 men. The Hub has been running for a month in November last year and has started again in the last two weeks. It is being held at Woodside Baptist Church on Spring Lane from 1.30- 3.30

ACTION: LCP members to help publicize the Hub to maximize engagement. For more information, please see the flyer attached and the website link.

ACTION: Nasreen and Mariah, (Community Facilitator), Celestina and Lynda to keep LCP members informed of progress, sharing Change Stories whenever possible.

Strengthening Community Plans: Befriending (as part of the work on Mental Health) and Communication. With the extensive knowledge and expertise of those LCP members in attendance, it was also agreed that the area of Youth-related opportunities would be discussed.

Befriending– Lynda our Co-chair and Social Prescribing Link Worker has highlighted the need for face-to-face befriending schemes to tackle loneliness and isolation. We were reminded of the Street Champions network which discussed in previous meetings and that there was an outstanding need for training for potential Champions before they go door-to-door and do informal welfare checks with light signposting. This could be a way of befriending and supporting residents to make initial connections with new community-based activities.

It was also mentioned that activities should have a ‘Welcome’ person to assist new residents with engagement. CNCA have a befriending and home service. We heard a wonderful story about a gentleman who had been very nervous and isolated, but through meeting with his befriender he was now going with them to a lunch club for the first time. CNCA are taking referrals for this service and they even support with transport to get the resident engaging with community. For more information please email: Amanda@cnca.org.uk

The need for more Volunteers was raised. We have looked at promoting this opportunity through Ross at Emmaus SOC and the Croydon Cares initiative. We spoke about collecting and promoting stories of volunteers to show it as an opportunity.  The concept of a Timebank was mentioned, if we could pledge an hour of our time each, we could collectively help cover the volunteering needs in the area. This would need to be effectively coordinated to work.

ACTION: A Befriending Action Group of Celestina, Amanda Esparon from Croydon Neighbourhood Care Association (CNCA), Norman Till from Addiscombe Neighbourhood Care Association (ANCA) and Andrew Slegg, with the support of the Volunteer via Lynda Graham, will meet to discuss and plan these issues more fully. They will feed back to LCP members at the next meeting.

ACTION: Andrew to contact Ben Taylor and Paul Voden about training for Community Champions

ACTION: LCP members to contact Amanda Esperon at CNCA about potential befriending support for local residents – Amanda@cnca.org.uk

Communication: £5000 is available from the King’s Fund’s ‘Healthy Communities Together’ budget to increase engagement by improving the promotion and publicity of LCP meetings and Community Hubs. Avenues for such communication mentioned were, residents’ associations, Link Workers, hubs, the excellent CNCA fortnightly bulletin, faith forums and church networks, as well as school networks. A localized Facebook page was mentioned and a website specific to this locality

ACTION: An Action Group for Communication was set up, with Celestina and Neil Chamaroo from See way Youth being the initial members. The group will explore these ideas in more detail and update LCP members at our next meeting.

Youth – The importance of engaging parents of young people to reach / support young people was raised. How do we effectively do this? What are the issues that young people are facing in this locality? We need to hear from them on this. Neil shared with us the success of providing value-driven activities as a possibility to be explored. Parental Army, an initiative that has been successful in the South-East LCP, where there is a booklet of listed services that support parents accessible to them. This has been a great help. Could this work in this locality? Connecting with Reaching Higher, Addiscombe Boys and Girls and Sir Phillip Gain club were suggested.

Floating Counselling have a holiday camp that supports young people during the school holidays. For more information on that holiday camp here.

ACTION: An Action Group for Youth was set up, with Celestina, Neil, Andrew Gill, Norman and Arlene being the initial members. The group will explore these ideas in more detail and update LCP members at our next meeting.

THE ACTION GROUPS WILL ALWAYS BENEFIT FROM HAVING A SOLID MEMBERSHIP, SO IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO JOIN THE BEFRIENDING, YOUTH OR COMMUNUICATION ACTION GROUPS THEN PLEASE CONTACT THE CO-CHAIRS, CELESTINA AND LYNDA, OR SARAH OR ANDREW. THANK YOU.

Croydon’s Health and Wellbeing strategy 2024-29 – Your views on the new Health and Wellbeing draft strategy were much appreciated.

Acting upon suggestions from LCP members about how to reach new participants, the next Central East LCP meeting will be take place on Wednesday 24^th April, in the EVENING, between 6-8 pm. Please promote this far and wide so we can get as many new voices joining the conversation as possible. Please book your place here.

To see previous meeting notes OR the Community Plans for your locality here.

Thank you for your continued support and engagement in this great work

Warm wishes,

Lynda, Celestina., Sarah and Andrew

With thanks to Chloe Smith for the notes.

C/O Sarah Burns

Director of Communities

Mob: 07540 720106

Email: sarah.burns@cvalive.org.uk

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