Croydon Information
The name Croydon was derived from the Saxons in the 8th Century when they settled here, derived originally from the Anglo-Saxon croh, meaning “crocus” and denu ‘valley’, indicating that, it was a centre for the aggregation of saffron used for dyeing and medicinal purposes.
The London Borough of Croydon is a London borough to the south London, England. It covers an area of 34 square miles (87 km) and it’s the largest London borough by population. Croydon from which the borough acquires its name, is also the civic centre of Croydon and houses the biggest office and retail centre in the south-east of England other than in the center of London. The Borough of Croydon was conceived in 1965 from Coulsdon and Purley Urban District and the County Borough of Croydon. It’s now organised by a cabinet-style council created in 2001.
The name Croydon was derived from the Saxons in the 8th Century when they settled here, derived originally from the Anglo-Saxon croh, meaning “crocus” and denu ‘valley’, indicating that, it was a centre for the aggregation of saffron used for dyeing and medicinal purposes. Named by some ‘The Yellow Valley’.. The area had been colonised since the Bronze Age and remnants of a Bronze Age settlement can still be found up on Croham Hurst today. By the time of the Norman invasion Croydon had a church,mill and around 368 inhabitants as commemorated in the Doomsday Book. The Archbishop of Canterbury, Archbishop Lanfranc lived at Croydon Palace which still stands today. Visitors included Thomas Beckett (another Archbishop), and royal figures such as King Henry VIII and Queen Elizabeth I. Even in times past, Croydon was a haunt of the rich and famous!
Croydon persisted through the ages as a prosperous market town, they produced charcoal, tanned leather, and even embarked on brewing. Croydon saw the first railway (horse drawn) in the world in 1803, and later became an indispensable link in the London to Brighton rail link in the mid-1800s, availing Croydon to become the biggest town in Surrey, which cuases confusion to this day as the correct postal address is still Croydon, Surrey (according to the post office, however Croydon actually now falls under ‘The London Bourough of Croydon. The confusion persists.
Into the 1900’s, Croydon became known for its manufactureing such as metal working, car manufacture and its aerodrome, Croydon Airport. It was partly due to having the aerodrome that Croydon suffered heavy bomb damage during World War Two. I have also listend to elderly people that claimed Croydon took heavy hits also because of the now demolished (1997) Gillet & Johnson clock that could be found at their steam clock factory in Union Rd. Local swore that German bomber pilots mistook it for Big Ben when they got lost and chose to drop their payloads in the area they thought was central London. How true is this? No one can be certain.
In the late 50s and through the sixties the Council commercialised the centre of Croydon with a monumental development of office blocks and the Whitgift Shopping Centre. The original Whitgift School there had to move to its current site today. Many of the buildings were hideous and nothing matched or was in keeping, which lead to the term ‘Croydonisation’ being born, meaning mishmash, unplanned little thought out buildings of concrete hell, and council maladministration. It is noted that one planning officer is said to have taken bribes to allow certain monstrosities and buildings to be erected.
There are also many former constituencies in the Borough, which include Croydon East, Croydon South, Croydon North East, Croydon North West, Croydon West and Croydon.
Croydon unsuccessfully applied for city status in 2000 and once more in 2002. If it had been productive it would have been the third local authority in Greater London to hold that status, the others being the City of London and the City of Westminster. The London Borough of Croydon is also the second most populous Local government zone of England without city status; Kirklees being the other. It’s said to be on the cards for Croydon again to aply for city status, but I very much doubt it will be granted.
Croydon is currently carrying out a robust regeneration plan, called Croydon Vision 2020. This will alter the town planning of Central Croydon altogether. Its main aim is to make Croydon ‘London’s Third City’ and a hub of retail, business enterprise, culture and living in South London and South East. The plan was showcased in a series of events called Croydon Expo. It was aimed at business and occupants in the London Borough of Croydon to demonstrate the 3.5bn development projects the Council wishes to see in Croydon in the next ten years. It included the renovation of New Addington, Central Croydon (Park Place and Croydon Gateway sites) plus leisure facilities across the entire borough.
The borough sits on the boundary of London, with the M25 motorway just south of it, adjoining Tandridge. In Croydon North the borough mainly borders the London Borough of Bromley to the east and the Lambeth to the north. The boroughs of Sutton and Merton are immediately to the west.
The town is located at the head of the River Wandle, just to the north of a substantial gap in the North Downs. It lies ten miles south of London, and the earliest settlement may have been a Roman staging post on the London-Portslade road, though absolute evidence hasn’t yet been determined.
Croydon’s main town centre houses a great variety of well-known stores at the North End as well as two shopping centres in the town. It was pedestrianized in 1989 to attract people back to the town centre. Another shopping centre called Park Place, is planned to be built by 2012. The old C&A has been levelled and replaced by yet another shopping cluster known as The Drummond Center.
The centre of Croydon is also very congested and in places and at times gridlocked, and the town planning has become outdated and rather inadequate, due to the expansion of Croydon’s main shopping area and yet more office blocks. Wellesley Road, is an urban thruway that cuts through the centre of the town, and makes it hard to transpose between the civic centres two railway stations. A plan has been drawn out for a more pedestrian cordial road that will supersede the current main street in the Croydon Vision 2020 book.
Construction of the Croydon Underpass below the junction of George Street and Wellesley Road/Park Lane during the early 60s started, with the main aim to prevent traffic congestion on Park Lane, situated above the underpass. The Croydon overpass on the other hand is located near to the underpass and next to Taberner House. It primarily leads traffic on to Duppas Hill, towards Purley Way with the aim of leisurely links with Sutton and Kingston upon Thames further afield. The major junction on the flyover is for Old Town, which is in addition a large three-lane road.
Brighton Road is also an important road that connects South Croydon with Purley and continues on the A23. Purley Way, is also among the busiest roads in the borough, being on the main A23 road and for being a major retail destination. It still Sports the famous London to Brighton Vintage car run yearly.
Croydon covers an area of 86.52 km, making it ranked as the 256th biggest district in England. Croydon’s corporeal features consist of many hills and rivers that are spread out across the borough and into the North Downs, Surrey and the rest of South London. Addington Hills is a major flood plain in London for the Thames Valley and is acknowledged as a significant obstacle to the growth of London from its roots as a port on the north side of the river, to a large circular city. The Great North Wood is a former natural oak forest that covered the Sydenham Ridge and the southern reaches of the River Effra and its tributaries. The most notable tree, called Vicar’s Oak, marked the bounds of four ancient parishes; Lambeth, Camberwell, Croydon and Bromley. John Aubrey referred to this “ancient remarkable tree” in the past tense as early as 1718, but according to JB Wilson,the Vicar’s Oak survived until 1825. The River Wandle is also a major tributary of the River Thames, where it elongates from Wandsworth and Putney for 9 miles (14 km) until it reaches its main terminus point of Waddon.
Croydon has a moderate climate in common with most areas of the United Kingdom, it is akin to that of Greenwich in Inner London. Rainfall is considerably below England’s average (1971 ‘2000′) level of 838 mm, and monthly is drier overall than the England median. There is a weather station is at Gatwick Airport.
The skyline of Croydon has significantly altered over the past fifty years. Multi-storey buildings, mainly office blocks, now reign the skyline. The most notable of these buildings being Croydon Council’s own headquarters Taberner House which I personally feel is one of the most hideous buildings in Croydon, closely followed by the exterior of Fairfield Halls, Lunar House and Croydon College.
In recent years, the development of tall buildings has been encouraged in the London Plan, which will lead to the erection of new skyscrapers over the next few years as London experiences a high-rise bonanza once more.
Britan’s 88th tallest tower is the NLA Tower, close to East Croydon station, is an example of original 1970’s architecture. The tower has been nicknamed as the 50 pence piece building, (older folk call it the threepenny bit tower) as it is thought to resemble many 50p pieces in a stack tumbled over one another. Lunar House is another multi-storey building in Croydon, which as with other government office buildings on Wellesley Road, such as Apollo House, the name of the building was inspired by the US moon landings (In the Croydon suburb of New Addington there is a public house, built during the same period of time, called The Man on the Moon).
A new genesis of buildings are being deliberated by the council so that Croydon doesn’t recede its title of having the “largest office space in the south east”, excluding Central London. Projects such as Wellesley Square, which will be a mix of residential and retail with an attention-getting colour design and 100 George Street a suggested modern office building are incorporated in this vision.
Renowned events that have happened to Croydon’s horizon include the Millennium project to create the largest single urban lighting project ever. It was created for the buildings of Croydon to illumine them for the third millennium. Not only did this project give new lighting to the buildings, but it provided an opportunity to project onto them images and words, mixing art and poetry with coloured light, and also displaying public information after dark. Apart from increasing night time activity in Croydon and thereby reducing the fear of crime, it helped to promote the sustainable use of older buildings by displaying them in a more favorable way. Not very green however to be burning that much electricity, maybe greater use of solar panels should be employed?
Reported in the 2001 census, Croydon has a population of around 269,100 although in 2005 this was recorded to of reared to 342,700, making Croydon the ninth most populous local authority in England out of 354 boroughs. Out of this 159,111 were recorded to be males, with the overall majority of females around 171,476. The 2001 Density census records the number of people per hectare. The rate for Croydon was 38.21, compare this to the rest of London, which is much more packed at 45.62 and the rest of England which was an median of just 3.77. The mean age of the occupants of Croydon was 33.75 and 233,748 out of 330,587 occupants described their health as ‘good’.
Ethnicity, white is the majority with over 72%, although compare this to the rest of England whereabouts 90% of the people come under the white ethnicity. Black or Black British was the second largest record ethnicity, as it made up over 13% of the authority. 11.3% is South Asian, No records as yet have been made public as to the amount of Polish residents Croydon now sports.
The most common homeowner type were owner occupied with only a small percent, compared to Inner London, rented from either the council or the Housing Association. Many new housing schemes and developments are presently coming about in Croydon, such as The Exchange and Bridge House, IYLO, Wellesley Square and Altitude 25.
In terms of crime, the Metropolitan Police have recorded a 10% drop in the number of crimes charged in Croydon, better than the rate which crime in London in general is decreasing by, in 2006. Croydon has had the highest fall in the number of events of violence against the individual in South London, and, in terms of overall law-breaking figures, it is one of the top 10 safest local authorities in London. Croydon currently accommodates five different police stations which stretch across the borough. Croydon police station is on Park Lane in the centre of the town and is in close proximity to the Fairfield Halls. South Norwood police station is a newly renovated building just of the High Street, Norbury police station is on London Road, Kenley station is on Godstone Road and New Addington police station is on Addington Village road. Im not sure if Kenly police station is still open at time of writing. It’s been proposed that, Kenley, Norbury and Addington police stations close but this has been delayed becuase of fierce public protestation, and quite rightly so in my humble opinion.
The council currently consists of 70 councillors elected in 24 wards. From 1994 to 2006 the Labour Party controlled the Council. Thirty-seven Labour and 31 Conservative councillors were elected in 2002, plus a lone Liberal Democrat padded by a subsequent defection of a councillor who had originally been elected as a Conservative, defected to Labour, reverted back to the Conservatives and spent some time as an independent.
At the 2006 local elections the Conservatives recovered control of the Council after gaining 12 seats, taking ten seats from Labour in Addiscombe, Waddon and Norwood and the single Liberal Democrat seat in Coulsdon.They had seen 6% swings from Labour to Conservative in the two preceding by-elections, all won by the incumbent party. Since the 2006 elections, a by-election in February 2007 saw a large swing back to Labour from the Conservatives. The next election is due in May 2010.
From February 2005 until May 2006, the Leader of Croydon Council was Labour Co-operative Councillor Tony Newman, succeeding Hugh Malyan. Mike Fisher, Tory group leader since May 2005, was named as Council Leader following the Conservative victory. Croydon is a cabinet-style council, and the Leader heads a ten-person cabinet, its members answerable for areas such as education or planning. There’s a Shadow Cabinet drawn from the principal opposition party. A backbench cross-party examination and overview committee is in place to hold the executive cabinet to account.
This year the council has selected Councillor Jonathan Driver to serve as Mayor of Croydon, with Councillor Robert Askey serving as Deputy Mayor. The Mayor is the borough’s first citizen and represents Croydon at some 600 civic, ceremonial occasion and societal engagements during the year.
The borough is covered by three democratic constituencies for the Westminster Parliament, these are: Croydon North, Croydon Central, Croydon South.
There are 24 wards which represent Croydon Council. All Croydon Council seats were up for re-election for the first time since the 2002 elections, during the election on May 4, 2006. Previously Labour held control of the council. In the election, the Conservatives acquired 10 seats from Labour and 1 from the Liberal Democrats.
Some 10,000 people work direct or indirectly for the council, in its headquarters in Taberner House or in its schools, care homes, housing agencies or works depots. The council is broadly speaking well-regarded, having purportedly made significant improvements in education and welfare work in recent years. Notwithstanding, there have been worries over benefit levels, leisure services and refuse collections. Though the council is among London’s lower rates of council tax, there are predictable claims that it’s too high and that resources are wasted.
For some time, Croydon Council was controlled by the Conservative Party or conservative-leaning independents. Former Croydon councillors include current MP Andrew Pelling, former MPs Vivian Bendall, David Congdon, Geraint Davies and Reg Prentice. The first Mayor of the newly-created County Borough was Jabez Balfour, later a dishonored Member of Parliament. Former Conservative Director of Campaigning, Gavin Barwell, has been a Croydon councillor since 1998.
The Borough of Croydon is twinned with Arnhem in the Netherlands. Postcode areas that cover the London Borough of Croydon include SE25, that mainly South Norwood, SE19, that covers Upper Norwood, SE27, that covers West Norwood and SW16, with Streatham as the main area. The other postcodes include CR0, CR2, CR3, CR5, CR7, CR8 and CR9 are all in Croydon.
