Incinerator links page – for and against

The council has decided – along with three other boroughs – that an incinerator/energy from waste/energy recovery facility, call it what you will, is to be built (in Sutton).

That means that in the future all the rubbish that is left over after recycling is taken out will be burned instead of being put into a big, smelly hole in the ground called landfill. Electricity will generated from this and fed back into the network. Somewhere.

These things are already up and running in other parts of the country and in Europe some people quite like them. But they are contentious and have divided opinions.

We don’t know a lot about them, other than that they divide opinions, so we’re not going to pretend that we do.

But we though it might be a good idea to put some links together in once place so that people could look for themselves. We’ll add to this page as the issue develops further, all suggestions welcome.

Wikipedia. Not an academic source, but it’s a starting point.

The South London Waste Partnership (the fancy name for the four councils)

Green Party, against.

SITA, runs three sites (for).

Health Protection Agency (neutral).

Friends of the Earth (against).

Infrastructure Planning Commission

Veolia (for, another contractor)

SELCHP (for, it’s the website for a similar facility already up and running in Deptford)

No Incinerator for Croydon (against)

Croydon Green Party incinerator blog (against)

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Is growth the only answer for Croydon?

Shopping is our new zeitgeist, someone with more O levels than me once said.

He was right as well. Up to the mid to late 20th century it had been conflict – the two World Wars and the other battles like Korea and Vietnam that followed.

Consumerism, though, replaced the canons after someone worked out that we were all happier shuffling round the shops than we were being sent to slaughter.

Which brings us to Croydon, earmarked as the south east’s future shopping destination of choice.

The past four weeks have been – tram rant aside – positive for Croydon, with the announcement of major post-riot funding for regeneration, a Centrale upgrade and interest from Westfield.

Things appear, at last, to be happening.

The regeneration work the council has planned could act as a catalyst for further private sector investment. The sort that could lead to more jobs and the desperately needed removal of the redundant office blocks that blight parts of the town centre.

Interest from organisations like Westfield show that despite the stereotypes that surround Croydon there are very good reasons for doing business here.

But is growth the only answer?

Why can’t we make what we have already work? Is there anything to stop those redundant office blocks being replaced with new parks and open spaces, instead of retail space? It’s true that begonias and benches do not generate as many jobs and create as much wealth. It might, though, make Croydon a better place to live.

There are warning signs from elsewhere.

The Roman Empire collapsed under the strain of its insatiable appetite for expansion and there are more contemporary parallels closer to home.

Corby became the repossession capital of England earlier this year. After years of rapid growth things began to wobble and the bubble eventually burst.

There were 155 repossession orders made by the courts in the last financial year, or 7.6 out of every 1,000 privately owned homes.

See this Guardian story from July for more

And the local council’s solution to the local housing market collapse? To build more housing, of course. To expand its way out of trouble.

“Our strategy is based on increasing the population to generate wealth to increase prosperity,” Chris Mallender, chief executive of the borough council said. “We’re now the fastest growing borough in the country.”

Admittedly comparing Croydon with ancient Rome and Corby is a bit like comparing Jeremy Clarkson with a serious social commentator.

But why is growth the only way? We’d be interested to know if alternatives have been considered, and if they have what those alternatives were.

What happens when we get bored of shops? Will the redundant office blocks be replaced by redundant shopping centres? Answers on a postcard please.

Tram rant proves there is a lot of love in Croydon

When Love Croydon eventually got round to viewing the tram rant video on YouTube it was with a healthy sense of trepidation.

We knew this was likely to be another sorry tale that confirmed several of the stereotypes about our town.

A quick glance at the video – we couldn’t face watching the whole thing – filled us with a gloomy sense of foreboding, that soon Croydon was about to be the butt of a new raft of distasteful jokes that for once were not about Kate Moss’s slapped back hair.

The world’s appetite for a butcher’s at our new film noir made us think that the work of anyone with a desire to make people see the real Croydon was going to get a whole lot harder.

But then a thought occurred. Hadn’t this been brought to light because of people in Croydon? Wasn’t this a fine example of people in Croydon expertly exploiting social media to help bring someone to justice?

On the whole, we think it was. It will be interesting to see if this side of the story is ever reported.

From Love Croydon, though, a big pat on the back to those who helped bring this to the world’s attention. You know who you are.

Park Hill water tower gallery

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These pictures were recently taken of the water tower in Park Hill. The tower, built in 1867, is now of course not in use but it remains a focal point for the area and an attractive piece of local architecture. It was designed by Baldwin Latham, who was the then borough engineer, in a brick Norman style. The 75 foot diameter structure was built to contain 950,000 gallons of water, its dome being entirely constructed from intricate brickwork. The tower was opened to the public as a viewing platform in 1889.
During the First World War the tower’s lofty heights were an excellent vantage point for the observation of approaching hostile Zeppelins, fires, excessive lighting, and weather. The building was listed Grade 2 in 1970 but has had the tanks and timber removed. It still stands as a landmark for the people of Croydon and the surrounding area. Although most of us have seen the outside of the structure many times, how many of us have actually had a look inside? Well now, thanks to lovecroydon you can. Pics courtesy of Your Croydon flickr

Croydon’s Slumdog Millionaire…

…is how the latest British film making a buzz is being spun.
It was directed by Nick Moran, the star of Guy Ritchie’s Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels who now prefers to be on the other side of the camera.
The film is called The Kid and it’s an autobiographical tale from Kevin Lewis, who was brought up in New Addington.
We haven’t seen it yet but it’s said to be an unflinching account of life on a tough estate in the 1980s so it’s not going to show the best parts of Croydon that’s for sure.
Moran has picked up some positive press, for a change, after years of being portrayed as an awkward sod whose only crime as far as we can tell was that he didn’t like the paparazzi much or hanging out with Guy Ritchie and his former missus Madonna. Who can blame him?
He says the violence in the film is not explicit and that that’s a trick he’s borrowed from David Lean’s Oliver Twist. A film directed by one of Croydon’s most famous sons who went on to direct Peter O’Toole in Lawrence of Arabia and a number of other notable films. There’s also a cinema named after him in the town centre, in case you hadn’t noticed.
lovecroydon doesn’t imagine for one minute that The Kid will show the best side of Croydon, In fact, it’s probably only likely to reinforce the popular myth the Croydon is an awful rubbish dump for the worst of human kind.
But it’s another notable flick that is linked to our borough, and the second one (there may be more) released this year after Dagenham Girls starring Bob Hoskins and a host of other big names.
Enjoy the film, which is released on 17 September!

Advertiser confirms it’s going free

Weeks after we told you that the Advertiser was going to be given away for free, the newspaper has confirmed the move.
A small piece on page two of today’s edition of the weekly newspaper confirms that from next week it will be delivered free to 70,000 home. Why not shout it from the front page? It’s nothing to be ashamed of, chaps.
The paper will still be on sale at newsagents, so it will be interesting to see how the dual pricing mode affects paid-for sales.
We suspect, and have been told, that homes in the south of the borough will be the beneficiaries of the free deliveries.
Makes sense, really, when advertisers tell you they want more readers, you get your product to the people with the wonga to spend on what is being advertised. Make sense?
It will also be interesting to see how the Croydon Guardian reacts. That rival paper has long been Croydon’s main free weekly newspaper (no one counts the Post or the Midweek Advertiser or whatever it’s called now).
The Guardian’s verified distribution figure (according to the latest edition) is just over 77,000, which means the two will now have very similar audiences.
Advertiser bosses will hope the move leads to, proportionately, the same kind of profit increases enjoyed by the Evening Standard after its decision to go free last year.

You can read lovecroydon’s

It’s enough to make you sick

It’s not likely to trouble the pages of lovecroydon’s filofax (ask your dad) anytime soon but our fair borough is now said to be home to the UK’s largest restaurant.
Capturing perfectly public revulsion at the obesity epidemic that is clogging Britain’s health services, Cosmo has decided to open a new cheap-eating venue that can serve more diners than any other restaurant in Britain.
The buffet behemoth in Valley Leisure Park off Purley Way can get through 800 munchers in one sitting – enough to turn the stomach of any maitre d’.
If an intimate dinner for two and 798 others doesn’t whet your appetite then perhaps the gargantuan menu will.
The people behind the enormous eaterie say they will offer more than 300 ‘pan Asian’ dishes.
The chubby-chasing Croydon Guardian equates sizes with beauty, calling it a ‘food lovers’ delight’.
That’s clearly a matter of opinion.
There’s something not quite right about the thought of 800 people tucking into the same buffet, in our humble opinion, and we think we’ll stick to more intimate venues – perhaps those with only enough seating for just the one Jumbo Jet.
But it’s another first for Croydon and we salute Cosmo for choosing us as the venue for its biggest swill bin, sorry, we mean fine dining experience, of course.
Happy noshing Croydon!