Croydon - nightlife, accommodation, things to do and general chat

[Puddy_Tat]

A mayor is just a figure head and has little power. It's the CEO and councillors who hold the power. I knew someone who was an alderman in Croydon. Not sure what this is or was and even if the post still exists.

Not when they are directly elected. Directly elected mayors take on the role of leader of the Council and can be pretty powerful/influential.

^ that

in most councils, the mayor is mostly a ceremonial role - it's usually a senior councillor from any party on the council who gets to wear a fancy bog chain arrangement round their neck and go round declaring things open. they might get an official car (although a lot of councils abolished that some time ago - Reading council did in 1991, and registration MRD 1 has since been carried on a few generations of the newest bus in the Reading Buses fleet) - although on a hung council, the mayor can get a casting vote (the limp dems managed to run wokingham on 'mayor's casting vote' for a few years a while back) - the majority party's leader of the council tends to be more powerful.

a directly elected mayor does have more executive powers, although i've not really noticed a lot of difference in Lewisham, other than the mayor getting in to the local paper more. you can get situations where mayor is different party to the council or an independent (like the monkey mascot bloke in Hartlepool) - again, i'm not sure how it works if mayor is of different political flavour to council majority party - whether one can over-rule the other, or if it ends up with each one blocking whatever the other is trying to do.

It is possible to have a referendum on abolishing the post of directly elected mayor - Hartlepool has, and there is or was a (thinly disguised local tories) organisation that occasionally surfaces and calls for that in Lewisham.

it's a thing that the major government had been contemplating and the blair government implemented enthusiastically, along with the 'leader + cabinet' system rather than council committees (more here) - I think the general idea was to improve accountability by having a high profile and directly elected mayor, along with a more visible cabinet, rather than a council leader elected by the majority party (or after horse trading among parties if there was no overall control) and a complicated collection of committee / sub-committee chairs. in practice, it can place power in the hands of a small collection of people and shut out the 'back bench' councillors of even the majority party.

i'm not sure i like it...

as for aldermen, they haven't existed in a meaningful form since 1978 in England (they were a bit like the house of lords, as in not elected by the public but by existing councillors) - although councils can still if they want give 'alderman' status (usually to senior councillors - and not sure many do) but they don't have any voting rights unless they continue to be an elected councillor.

 

[ATOMIC SUPLEX]

Gun murder at a silent disco on Saturday night in South Croydon. Just south of Lloyd Park.
Guy from out of town with a gun came along and caused some agro and shot someone apparently.
Police are going door to door for witness statements.

 

[D'wards]

Brightened up the town centre a bit

 

[Guineveretoo]

What are those about?

 

[D'wards]

I think just to add a bit of colour to the town centre (that isn't claret) and encourage people to vist

 

[hash tag]

Thats horrendous. Talk about trying to polish a turd!

 

[D'wards]

Oh I like them. Especially Squid Attack at the Town Hall

 

[ATOMIC SUPLEX]

Yeah I like them.

 

[hash tag]

They look totally out of place, which I guess could be part of the attraction, but they look cheap, nasty and tacky. They look like a way of trying to brighten the place up without doing or spending much. They look like they are trying to stop Croydon becoming the new Slough but for me they are having the opposite effect. Dreamt up by a 10 year old

 

[Callie]

I like them too 10 year olds have the best fun

 

[TopCat]

I think just to add a bit of colour to the town centre (that isn't claret) and encourage people to vist

Ffs.

 

[Maggot]

I like them too.

They look totally out of place, which I guess could be part of the attraction, but they look cheap, nasty and tacky. They look like a way of trying to brighten the place up without doing or spending much.

Croydon Council hasn't got any money, so it's good that they're not spending much.

 

[hash tag]

I like them too.

Croydon Council hasn't got any money, so it's good that they're not spending much.

They are like a cheap thing out of a cracker trying to copy Jeff Koons.
As they don't have much money, why waste it on this?

 

[Callie]

I'm going to sound silly now but I think it's an art installation. Do you have to pay for those?

 

[D'wards]

'Monsters' takeover Croydon in new display to encourage people back to town centre

'If you’re not expecting it, it can really take you by surprise.'

www.inyourarea.co.uk

 

[hash tag]

Nope. Still missing something, or maybe not. Monsters for just a few days , stops, thinks Halloween is just around the corner.

 

[Maggot]

'Monsters' takeover Croydon in new display to encourage people back to town centre

'If you’re not expecting it, it can really take you by surprise.'

www.inyourarea.co.uk

Says it was only on till the 3rd. So they've already gone?

 

[ATOMIC SUPLEX]

Has everyone voted?

I reckon this referendum is going to go a bit Brexit.
The only people who care and are going to vote are the tories who want to win back some control. People are pissed off with the council which is obviously currently Labour. MASSIVE corruption problems with previous labour councillors obviously, but it was the tories that ran up the Croydon dept, then the tory government who cut council funding the year after, then a year after that made councils invest in various schemes. Croydon did not choose wisely and lost everything.
A mayoral roll sitting on the council is not going to fix anything, it's only going to create conflict.

But people will want change, of course they want change from the current shit show, and that's what they will vote for. . . unfortunately, very much like brexit, that is not what they will get. Nobody knows what they are actually voting for, but it will almost certainly cause more cost and bureaucracy within the council.

Going to be a poor turn out with only people wanting to oust the labour council voting in droves. The wording on the ballot didn't really help. "Do you want to change things? - put an X here. Do you want to keep things the way they are now? - put an X here" (I paraphrase of course).

 

[AmateurAgitator]

Croydon Council – not a friend of the working class - Anarchist Communist Group

The Labour Council of Croydon, in south west London has long waged a war against its own working class. In summer 2020 it planned to make 15% of its workers redundant, which would be up to 400 workers. They justified this by saying that their budget was in deficit by over £60 million, citing...

www.anarchistcommunism.org

 

[ATOMIC SUPLEX]

. . . . and do you have anything to say on that or is it just cut and paste time?

I'm not standing up for labour, but that's some pretty lazy arse posting. BOOM anarchism post!

 

[pbsmooth]

mayor confirmed, very low turnuot as expected.

"Of a 21% turnout, four out of five voters opted for the mayoral model rather than the current leader and cabinet system"

Croydon referendum: Residents vote for directly elected mayor

Voters decided to use a mayoral system in the future, similar those used in Hackney and Tower Hamlets.

www.bbc.co.uk

 

[ATOMIC SUPLEX]

mayor confirmed, very low turnuot as expected.

"Of a 21% turnout, four out of five voters opted for the mayoral model rather than the current leader and cabinet system"

Croydon referendum: Residents vote for directly elected mayor

Voters decided to use a mayoral system in the future, similar those used in Hackney and Tower Hamlets.

www.bbc.co.uk

Kind of what I expected. Very brexitish. For an advisory referendum to stick I kind of feel there should be a rule about clarity of what is being proposed and turnout before anything is implemented. Fuck all croydon residents voted for a mayor.

Hopefully the mayoral elections will take place at exactly the same time as the council elections and everyone who votes one party will vote for the corresponding mayoral candidate . . . and nothing will change.

 

[ouirdeaux]

Hello Croydon. I have a simple question, so don't laugh too hard, but is Croydon southeast or southwest London? I had never regarded it as an issue, as I thought of it as being due south to where I am, which is southeast. But then I realised it wasn't quite as due south as I'd thought, and there were others who thought of it is as southwest. We live in a divided world.

 

[brogdale]

Hello Croydon. I have a simple question, so don't laugh too hard, but is Croydon southeast or southwest London? I had never regarded it as an issue, as I thought of it as being due south to where I am, which is southeast. But then I realised it wasn't quite as due south as I'd thought, and there were others who thought of it is as southwest. We live in a divided world.

Due South of the centre/City of London, but functionally it has tended to be defined as part of the SW GL sub-region:

List of sub-regions used in the London Plan - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Personally, I feel that SE GL starts at the old Goat House pub, just East of Norwood junction.

 

[hash tag]

But Croydon post codes are CR, going right up through Thornton Heath to Mitcham and South to Purley and Coulsdon. Croydon is just Croydon, in Surrey.

 

[ouirdeaux]

functionally it has tended to be defined as part of the SW GL sub-region

Good Lord. I have been an idiot all my life. It's because it's due south of Penge, which is indubitably southeast. Blame it on Penge. Blame everything on Penge.

 

[Miss-Shelf]

Personally, I feel that SE GL starts at the old Goat House pub, just East of Norwood junction.

Agree

 

[brogdale]

Good Lord. I have been an idiot all my life. It's because it's due south of Penge, which is indubitably southeast. Blame it on Penge. Blame everything on Penge.

Yeah, but Croydon is actually SW of Penge.
No doubting Penge is properly SE GL, though...& was, of course, in Kent until 1965.

 

[pbsmooth]

But parts of Croydon borough are SE postcode too, i.e South Norwood and (parts of) Crystal Palace...

 

[brogdale]

But parts of Croydon borough are SE postcode too, i.e South Norwood and (parts of) Crystal Palace...

True, and some of that relates to older, historic delineations like the old county boundaries ( the Westernmost point of historic, pre GLC, Kent went right up to and including the Alma, opposite the White Hart on Church rd.)

And the postal administrative boundaries go back even further than 1965, hence why parts of GL are postally still in their old historic counties.