Waddon October Update

Fighting Litter in Purley Way Playing Fields

Litter, fly-tipping and junk food packets are littering one of our most precious green spaces, causing a hazard to local residents and wildlife. Partnering with local community champion and regular litter picker Saffron Gloyne, we met the Colonnades site manager with the council estate manager on site to figure out what we could do to help. They agreed to investigate improved signage and to reach out to all of the big corporations in the Colonnades to share the responsibility and get extra litter picking to help keep our park greener and safer. We also agreed to hold a community litter pick on Saturday October 29th from 3-5pm.

Please do come and join us for the community litter pick! Longer term, we want to investigate setting up a Friends Group for Purley Way Playing Fields so let us know if you want to be part of that too!

New volunteer opportunities at the Garwood Foundation

The Garwood Foundation is a centre for adults with learning disabilities at the top of Bramley Hill. Few people know about this treasure, but it is an absolutely heart-warming and inspiring service full of happy, creative adults doing quizzes, swimming, art classes and more. Ellily and Rowenna were very grateful to staff for showing us around and for the guests who were so welcoming.

The Foundation is looking for more volunteers to help with basic maths and literacy as well as basic cooking skills – do see the attachment for more information!

Helping the homeless at Waddon Ponds

Residents may have seen that sadly we have a homeless couple sleeping on the wooden platform on the east side of the ponds. We have reported this as an urgent case to the rough sleeping team at Croydon and to the local Safer Neighbourhood Team. We are waiting for a full update on their case from both of these authorities but we will let you know what is being done to help them into fit and decent accommodation that will be better for them and local residents.

Please do reach out to us if you have any concerns about the homeless.

Purley Way Car Racing

We were made aware that car racing was taking place along Valley Park and Purley Way on Thursday nights by videos on social media. This is obviously completely illegal, unsafe and inappropriate and must be dealt with urgently. We have reached out to council and local police officers to ask what is being done. The local police team provided this response:

Just so you are aware, we are actively targeting this and have been for a few weeks. Along with our traffic colleagues, we are stopping vehicles, issuing warnings, dispersals and dealing with any offences that are apparent.

We are still waiting for the council to respond but will keep you posted.

If anyone has any more information or evidence about this illegal and dangerous activity, please do pass it to the local police team at [email protected] or reach out to Rowenna or Ellily.

Improving Wandle Park Café

We are meeting tomorrow (Friday 7th November) at 1pm with council officers and residents to talk about the opportunities to improve the café now that its lease is being renewed. We know that longer, more reliable opening hours and toilet access are real priorities for residents and we will be pushing for that.

If you would like to join the meeting, please do come along. We meet at the café itself. If you can’t make it but would like to feed in to the process, do just drop us an email!

Waddon Christmas Lights

If it’s not too early to mention the “C” word, we wanted to let you know that we have met with the installers of the Christmas lights that usually run through the heart of the estate on Denning Avenue. We were told we have eleven decorations, but that one of them has been broken. All of your local councillors have reached into their own pockets to fix that one, but it seems very expensive to buy any more (particularly at this time of year when they are in huge demand) and it’s a difficult time to ask the council to pay for anything other than the most urgent needs . Still, we have asked for the lights to be put up on 1st December and we hope you enjoy those we do have!

Any thoughts on Waddon’s Christmas decorations or any other ways we can celebrate the festive season together as a community? Drop us a line.

Selsdon Vale and Forestdale By-election

Following the sad death of councillor Badsha Quadir, there is a local by-election in Selsdon Vale and Forestdale where we have a dynamic and passionate candidate in Tom Bowell. Please do reach out if you’d like to help. Lots of volunteers are motivated to come out and canvass given this shambles of a budget and Tory government, so come and join the energy!

There are multiple canvass sessions organised each week so let us know if you want to join! Ellily and Rowenna are hoping to go this Friday at 5pm if you’d like to come with us.

A Very Sad Goodbye

It’s with heartfelt sadness that we say goodbye to Jack Buckley, a vivacious, creative and intelligent Labour member who lived at Whitgift House. Jack had always been a huge champion of the community, helping his 101-year-old neighbour with their shopping and leading our campaign for a safer crossing on Brighton Road. We will continue this work in his honour and make sure he is not forgotten.

Tributes to Jack will be led to him at the next Constituency Labour Party meeting on Tuesday 25^th October at Ruskin House from 8pm and all Labour members are welcome.

And finally…

We are pleased our surgeries are back on track for the first Saturday of every month 10am-11:30am at St George’s Church on Barrow Road. Please do come along if you want to meet in person.

We also wanted to wish Sam Attwater, one of our brilliant and active Labour members, a wonderful time at Manchester University after some fantastic A-Level results. Thanks Sam for all of your support and don’t forget us (or how to canvass) in your holidays!

Best wishes to all,

Ellily and Rowenna