In response to the current Covid-19 pandemic, new temporary schemes that further reduce traffic, allowing residents to make better use of quieter roads are to be introduced across Croydon.

The temporary schemes, some of which are being implemented this week, aim to reduce rat running in residential roads, improve road safety and better facilitate social distancing.

As part of the new initiative, temporary road closures will be put in place to stop through traffic on certain routes across the borough, to help make it safer for those walking and cycling.

From today, notices will be going up on selected roads, warning motorist and residents of the temporary road closures, which will last for 21 days. Road markings will be used to create a turning circle at the bottom of affected roads, enabling access to be maintained for residents and for any essential journeys.

The first closures will be introduced on the following roads on Sunday 3 May:

• Holmesdale Road at the junction with Park Road (stadium side)
• Dalmally Road at the junction with Blackhorse Lane
• Elmers Road at the junction with Blackhorse Lane
• Lancaster Road at the junction with Southern Avenue
• Woodvale Avenue at the junction with Avenue Road

A second scheme to be trialled as part of the initiative will see residents living on quiet residential roads able to apply for a section of their road to temporarily close for an hour or two a day, to create a safe space to exercise in. From Monday 4 May, residents will be able to put forward their road to be considered for the Exercise Street pilot by emailing the council’s highways team.

If approved, volunteer residents would become responsible for closing their section of road for a couple of hours a day to give neighbours a chance to use the space safe from traffic during lockdown.

To further aid residents in social distancing during lockdown, parking is set to be suspended outside some shops in the borough’s district centres to enable barriers to be installed to increase space for queuing shoppers and pedestrians.

The first barriers are being installed outside Tesco Express on Portland Road, South Norwood, and between numbers 61 and 87 and 243 and 257 on London Road, Broad Green.

“We are responding to growing concern that since lockdown began vehicle speeds have increased on certain routes around Croydon and these temporary low traffic initiatives will help create safer spaces for residents walking and cycling near their homes.

“The Exercise Street pilot will provide residents with a new space to safely exercise in, whilst the measures in our district centres will make social distancing easier by reallocating parking spaces to create more space for pedestrians.”

Councillor Stuart King, cabinet lead for environment and transport

The final initiative within the pilot will see a 20mph speed limit introduced on London Road and a new temporary cycle lane installed to improve road safety and encourage more essential journeys to be made by bicycle.

Councillor King, added: “At this challenging time, residents must continue to follow social distancing guidelines and temporarily widening footpaths will make it easier for pedestrians and shoppers to safely share the space outside shops.

“Although only essential journeys can be made during this time, it’s important we maintain road safety for those who have to travel and the reduced speed limit and new cycle lane on London Road will, we hope, contribute to this.”

The schemes will be reviewed and monitored for the duration of lockdown and any that prove particularly successful may be considered for permanent implementation once the coronavirus restrictions are lifted.

Go online for more information or email highwayimprovements@croydon.gov.uk to suggest your road as an Exercise Street.

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Reports from  to mylondon

Croydon, ‘the home of talent’ will be London’s borough of culture in 2023.

It was announced this morning by the Mayor of London Sadiq Khan that the borough’s bid was successful.

It means that Croydon will get £1.35 million of funding for a year-long programme of activities.

Council leader Tony Newman said: “This is fantastic news – this award is for all of Croydon and everyone who has worked so hard in our bid.

“From Stormzy to our very own Shaniqua, Croydon is the home of talent, with a rich musical heritage as the birthplace of punk, grime and more, with an exciting future ahead.

“We are going to make 2023 a celebration of our town’s wonderful diversity, make everyone proud and repay the Mayor’s belief in us. This is Croydon – and we are incredibly proud.”

Croydon went up against Greenwich, Hounslow, Lewisham, Haringey, Hammersmith & Fulham, and Sutton.

The London Borough of Culture award, was launched by in June 2017, inspired by the UK City and European Capital of Culture programmes.

Croydon’s bid, This is Croydon, has sustainability at its heart.

In 2023 thousands of Croydon residents will enjoy a series of events along the themes of progress, nature, inclusion and growth.

This is set to include art commissions with local communities, a music festival, a ‘reuse and recycle’ fashion show and new employment opportunities for young people.

It is expected to involve 20,000 participants, every school, 300 volunteers, audiences of over 250,000 and over 1,500 artists.

It was also announced that Lewisham won the accolade for 2021.

Sadiq Khan, said: “Lewisham and Croydon have set out bold and exciting plans that will use culture to deliver real change in their boroughs, and I’m already looking forward to seeing their plans come to life.”

Young croydon its that time of year again where you get the opportunity to make an impact on your community.

below is all the information you need to know from the croydon government website

Source from croydongov

Young people who want to raise their voice and have a say in Croydon’s future can now apply to be the borough’s next Young Mayor.

Working with their deputy to champion young people, Croydon’s next Young Mayor will ensure the borough’s youngest voices are heard and help to shape their communities.

Home to more young people than any other borough in the capital, the Young Mayor will represent more than 93,000 young people from Croydon.

The formal elections for the new Young Mayor will take place in spring at schools across Croydon, as well as at community polling stations.

Any young person who lives in Croydon and is aged between 12 and 17 inclusive on 31 August 2020, can apply to be a candidate and nominations are open until Saturday 29 February. Details of the full application process are available online. Email youngmayor@croydon.gov.uk or contact the team on Twitter or Instagram for more information.

There will be four information events for prospective candidates, their parents and teachers. There will be two drop in sessions, one at Legacy Youth Zone on Saturday 8 February from 1.30pm to 6pm and one at Fairfield Halls on Saturday 15 February from 11am to 3pm. Two other information events will be held at Bernard Weatherill House on Wednesday 22 January and Wednesday 29 January, both from 6pm to 8pm.

If you are unable to attend on these dates you can still apply to be a candidate, just contact the youth services team via the Young Mayor email address above for more information.

Once nominated, candidates will have the chance to campaign for support from young people aged between 11 and 18 who live, work or study in the borough.

Croydon’s first Young Mayor, William Awomoyi, and his deputy, Shea Williams, used their mayoralty to launch a fund to help other young people achieve their ambitions. They also organised a jobs fair and represented Croydon at community meetings and the UK Youth Parliament’s Annual Conference; as well as attending the Houses of Parliament and meeting community leaders including Croydon’s Mayor and the borough’s police commander.

“We’re looking for passionate young people who can inspire their peers.

“Croydon’s Young Mayor will keep young people at the heart of the borough’s decision making, giving a voice to young residents and making sure their priorities are heard loud and clear across the borough.”

Councillor Alisa Flemming, cabinet member for children, young people and learning

Source from croydongov

Tuesday,December 24,

Wednesday December 25,

Thursday December 26,

Friday December 27,

Tuesday December 31

Wednesday January 1.

Councillor Stuart King, cabinet lead for environment and transport, said:

“Relaxed parking restrictions around the holiday season will hopefully make it easier for people to visit friends and family across Croydon.

“However, we’d ask drivers to still be considerate and park sensibly as they would throughout the rest of the year, during these dates.”

In the bid to win London Borough of culture 2023,  this is what Councillor Oliver Lewis, cabinet member for culture, leisure and sport had to say:

This is Croydon is the name we have given to our bid to be the London Borough of Culture in 2023.

Croydon is a borough on the rise. Once dubbed ‘Edge City’ with its brutalist architecture, our town is growing and transforming more rapidly than ever before.

And as we regenerate we are proud to be known not for only concrete towers, but for an ever-changing skyline – and as a place of energy, creativity and pride.

Culture has been absolutely at the forefront of our regeneration. I announced our Borough of Culture bid as we reopened Croydon’s iconic Fairfield Halls, following a multi-million pound heritage restoration of this magnificent venue, which has attracted new theatre companies like Talawa and SAVVY joining London Mozart Players, the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and Chineke! Orchestra to offer a diverse programme that is truly inclusive and reflective of our community.

But Fairfield reopening is only the beginning of our cultural ambitions.

We have been working with a huge range of artists, organisations and venues, locally and nationally, to create new performance spaces and partnerships across our borough.

Our cultural network has flourished as we have helped dozens of grassroots arts groups to grow, with council match-funding to help them leverage grants from organisations like Arts Council England.

As one of the Mayor of London’s Creative Enterprise Zones, we have seen an increase in new studio spaces and creative businesses in our town.

Central Croydon now has six visual arts galleries, while The Croydon Collection of street art is one of the largest in Europe, free and available to everyone 24/7. It was great to see Banksy choose us as the home for his recent installation – one of his largest ever in the UK.

We are Croydon Music City. This is the borough where punk, dubstep and drill were all born, and as we celebrate this rich heritage and develop as a centre for music making and music production, we are experiencing a renaissance in live music, with a surge in major events this year.

From the sell-out Cro Cro Land, bringing guitar bands back to the borough with women equally represented in the line-up and crew, to The Ends at Lloyd Park (nominated under three categories in the UK Festival Awards), our festival scene is flourishing. The record turnouts at Croydon Pridefest and Croydon Mela 2019 -attended by 22,000 people this summer – demonstrate that Croydon’s great strength lies in its diversity and its inclusivity.

This applies not only to music but right across the arts scene. We are proud to be one of only five Youth Performance Partnerships in England, we are creating thousands of new opportunities in theatre, particularly for young people from our most deprived neighbourhoods and BAME backgrounds.

This is Croydon is our plan to build on all of our successes but also put forward a programme that meets some of the challenges we still face. Through ground-breaking cultural events and experiences, we will address important issues such as climate change, inequality and mental health – issues where Croydon has already been leading the way through innovation.

This is Croydon will show the rest of London and the world how the arts can lead system change through and with local communities in order to empower our citizens to write their own futures and to tell their own stories.

BEENIE MAN has called out Croydon council for hosting the Ends festival at Lloyd Park, after a similar idea was created and proposed to them by a local black-owned organisation.

The inaugural Ends Festival, organised by Live Nation took place over the weekend (May 31-June 2) in Croydon which featured a selection of artists including Nas, Wizkid and Damian Marley. The three-day event which saw thousands descend to Lloyd Park seemed to be a huge success – however, the history of how it came to be has resulted in a two minute video from Beenie Man calling out the council.

In 2016, Beenie Man was asked to do a charity festival in England, which was being organised by Shezal, the founder of Slavery Remembrance, an organisation which hosts Sankofa Day, and My Tribe.

According to Shezal, she approached Tony Newman, her local councillor for Croydon council that year and presented a proposal to host a black excellence charity music and culture festival in Lloyd Park.

Shezal claims the purpose of the festival was to celebrate ‘black excellence’, help to tackle racism by challenging views on racist stereotypes, use all of the profits from the festival to fund black businesses and to support the Sankofa Day memorial in Trafalgar Square.

The concept of the festival was allegedly laid out in the proposal, which also featured the key acts that Shezal wanted to perform – Stormzy, Fuse ODG and Beenie Man, who has now shared his support for Shezal’s initial idea in a new video.

In the video clip which was posted on YouTube on Saturday (Jun 1), Beenie Man says: “In 2016 I was asked to do a charity festival in England. This festival was special to me because it was going to act as family reunion by joining our family which was separated by slavery and with artists from Africa, the Caribbean and Latin America and artists from the UK.

“We were going to share one stage to celebrate black excellence through our art and culture, music and achievement and to support the national annual memorial in England for our ancestors.”

The dancehall artist continued, saying that the people putting on this festival were in talks with Croydon council to see if it could be held in one of their parks.

“They met to see if they could hold it one of their parks but they [council] planned to keep their own festival in the same park with another company and the line-up was kind of the same thing – artists from Africa, the Caribbean, and whole heap more.”

PICTURED: Shezal

DETAILS

In a detailed blog post, Shezal sheds further light on the subsequent meetings which took place with Croydon council following her initial proposal in 2016. She writes: “The entire concept was laid out in my proposal and was further discussed in the several meetings which took place with my team and I, Tony Newman, councillor Hamida Ali and later on Paula Murray (creative director for Croydon Council).

“I already had a key headline artist, Beenie Man, confirmed and committed to appear. Two other acts that I had discussed having was Stormzy and Fuse ODG which would have brought together the Caribbean, Africa and the UK leaving only the Latin American element to fulfil.”

Shezal adds that during her second meeting with Mr. Newman, one thing stood out. “Tony wanted to change the name of the festival from Unity Splash with the acronym ‘Us’ to Urban Edge. I explained to Tony why the name was important and that black people didn’t tend to describe our music as ‘urban’ and that it was more a term used by others to describe black music in order to avoid using the word ‘black’,” she writes.

“Skip to 2017, Croydon Council decided to enter the Mayor of London’s Borough of Culture Bid. This competition was open to all of the London boroughs, with the winning entry receiving £1m to put on cultural activities in their borough throughout 2019.

“Paula asked me to participate in this competition and partner with the Croydon Museum to help them creatively bring their archives to life. As a member of the Croydon Borough of Culture team, I was sent the programme summary of all the projects taking place as part of their bid.”

According Shezal, Croydon council incorporated her idea for the festival into the proposal – much to her surprise.

“Obviously I was excited to see Croydon council had seen enough value in MY IDEA that they chose to include it in their proposal. I emailed Paula with excitement to tell her that we were looking forward to working on the event with them, only to be informed that they already had a partner for the event.

“I thought that perhaps maybe this was a different type of festival with a variety of music genres and a multicultural line-up, so I said nothing more. That was until I received the final programme summary which included the following:

‘Lloyd Park will also host Metropolis – a new music festival from Metropolis Music and Live Nation – featuring Fuse ODG, Damian Marley, Carlos Santana and Croydon’s own Stormzy…’

“They literally stole the festival we had proposed to them, stripped it of its entire ethos and integrity and repackaged it as a new cool ‘urban’ festival happening in Croydon,” writes Shezal. “I was absolutely devastated, but what hurt me most of all is not that my intellectual property was stolen, but that they knew that this was a charity festival for the black community, with all profits going to support underfunded black businesses and entrepreneurs and the memorial for our ancestors.”

In the video, Beenie Man further agreed that he didn’t believe that the launch of the Ends Festival was a coincidence. “I believe Croydon council teef the festival and its no longer about celebrating black people and their achievements – now it’s about making money for themselves.”

Croydon council were approached for a comment. A council spokesperson said: “We were delighted to welcome The Ends Festival, a Metropolis Music (Livenation) event, to Croydon this weekend as the latest new major music event to come to our borough.

“The Ends is not a Croydon council event; however as part of our Music City plans, we were proud to support the Future stage giving young local aspiring artists a platform.”

Written by Leah Sinclar from the voice-online.co.uk