We welcome the adoption of our suggestion for district centres of 1-hour free parking and a second hour paid for at a sensible price. We also welcome that this will be standardised across the Borough. This should enable the district centres to remain viable against district centres in adjacent Boroughs.
For further detail on ECRA’s response to Croydon Council, click here to read.
You may remember that it was published here and elsewhere (including Inside Croydon) in February 2024 that the Council had put the Calat Centre site up for sale on the open market after 8 years of struggling by Residents’ Associations, Coulsdon businesses etc. and 2 years by Chris Philp MP’s attempts in discussions with CEX of NHS South West London and Ministers to get a Health Centre for Coulsdon, only to have disappointment following disappointment. The south of the Borough only has 7 medical facilities (reduced from 9) as opposed to the 49 in the rest of the Borough, acknowledged as only 7 in the presentation from the NHS. That publicity of the sale resulted in hastily issued press releases by the Council and Chris to says that agreement has been reached by the Council and the NHS to sell the site to the NHS, including trying to blame ‘local activists’ for delaying the process.
Residents’ Association representatives met with Mathew Kershaw, CEO of Croydon NHS on the 18th March 2024 to discuss the Coulsdon Medical centre on the Calat site. Mathew assured us that the NHS had now purchased the site, NHS England had now released the funding and they were pressing ahead with the design. We asked when we could share the news. He said it should be by the end of the month – March 2024.
We received the PowerPoint presentation that also includes the design this morning. Chris Philp MP seems to have it received yesterday.
The important issues are:
The PowerPoint presentation by NHS South West London can be viewed here.
Not bad for a bunch of activists.
At the November meeting the ECRA committee welcomed Cllr Scott Roche to provide us with some updates. Cllr Roche is the Cabinet member for Streets and Environment on Croydon council.
We raised the issues of parks maintenance, refuse disposal and the proposals for parking.
Cllr Roche has a lot of priorities for parks maintenance. We were particularly concerned about grass cutting in Marlpit Lane park, the maintenance of the putting green, the need to reinstate the junior football pitch and the failure to maintain Chaldon Way Gardens. We continue to seek a meeting with him and his officers to improve this situation.
At the January meeting we raised the problem of the water logged area outside Pistachio’s café and some cracking on the new perimeter path. We have asked for a meeting for the friends of Grange Park with the officers and contractors.
The consultation on parking proposals closed recently and the results are being evaluated. Cllr Roche expects that the changes will be implemented next year after further trials in some local areas. It appears that a mobile phone will be essential although some local shops may be designated as Pay Points. ECRA committee continue to press for 1 hour free and 1 hour paid parking.
We raised further concerns about the parking trial in January in Addiscombe, New Addington and Purley which reduces the one hour free parking to 30 minutes and the need to use an app or phone RingGo. We feel that this will lead to a reduction in people shopping locally.
Croydon council are reviewing the bin collection arrangements and the “failure rate” of bins and the timescale for replacement.
Cllr Roche did not have any further information on Red Clover Gardens/Lion Green Road.
We raised this again at the January meeting as they have now been empty for 10 months. We also asked who is responsible for snagging when people do move in.
Croydon Council is introducing cashless parking in three District centres – Purley, Addiscombe and New Addington – from today (Tuesday 2nd January 2024). This is despite hundreds of objections raised during and after a previous trial in South Croydon.
This reduces the free period from 1 hour to 30 minutes. You will no longer be able to obtain a ticket from a parking meter as these will be turned off. To park you will have to use the Parking app RingGo (https://ringgo.co.uk) or phone RingGo (020 3046 0010) quoting the RingGo location code, which are indicated on signs and pay by Bank card.
The alternatives are:
You can phone Ringo in advance from home, but there is no guarantee that there will be a free parking bay when you arrive.
You can pay at a shop that operates PayPoint in Purley. The PayPoint location in Purley can be found at the Londis store at the Shell Foxley Garage on the corner of Godstone Road and Foxley Hill Road (which is not exactly convenient for Purley Town centre).
Croydon council welcomes any comments on this trial via an online survey, available at:
https://www.croydon.gov.uk/NewAddingtonCPSurvey – for any questions please phone 020 8726 6000.
The survey will close on Monday 22 January 2024. It is noted that the Mayor failed to mention this in his Christmas News Message.
It is expected that these changes and charges will come to Coulsdon and other district centres in the near future.
The letter from Croydon Council advising of the changes can be downloaded from Hartley and District Residents’ Association website https://hadra.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/Purley-Cashless-Parking-Letter.pdf.
In our area all booking offices would be closed and replaced by a ticket assistant who would be based at the station. It is not clear if they would be able to sell all tickets including those that you can’t buy from the ticket machines such as Boundary zone, CIV Eurostar tickets, Plusbus tickets etc.
Would the ticket assistant take cash? Where would they be positioned? Special arrangements would be in place at large stations such as Victoria and East Croydon.
East Surrey Transport Committee have listed 24 questions/issues that need to be resolved before they could consider supporting the closures. These can be seen on the Transport page.
Please send you objection to . There is also an online petition which we are asking you to support www.change.org/p/save-our-railway-ticket-offices.
Please find below the joint submission of Coulsdon RA’s to the Croydon Local Plan, submitted in February 2022.
The submission was jointly agreed by: East Coulsdon RA (ECRA), Old Coulsdon RA (OCRA), Hartley and District RA (HADRA) and Coulsdon West RA (CWRA).
If you want to find out more about planning in Croydon and about the local plan, visit the Council’s Croydon Local Plan Review page Croydon Local Plan review page.