As I review the past year of life in the SPRA community, there are positive developments to welcome – a still difficult but improving financial situation of our Council, the return of our bus shelters, the refurbishment of the children’s playground and tennis courts at the Rec, and a still strong and loyal support for SPRA and the work it does. More of this later in the report.
Alongside the Committee’s day-to-day support for the community two issues in the last 12 months dominated its discussions and work, the status of Shirley Library and the possible expansion of The Addington Golf Club.
The library has been an issue intermittently for SPRA for many years, as successive Croydon administrations have sought savings which have been targeted at local branch libraries. In the past SPRA has been able to help prevent its complete closure or, as it did in 2021, advocate on behalf of its members for a regime which retained library opening on a reduced number of days. In 2023 however, the Council presented what the Committee believed to be a compelling case for closure of the Shirley library along with three others. Aware of the financial constraints of the Council the Committee believed that it could not give its backing to fight the closure. Notwithstanding, it was aware of a measure of support amongst SPRA members for retaining the Library. It was therefore decided to adopt a position of neutrality on the issue. Within the limits of the Committee’s available resources, support was given to help form a Friends of Shirley Library group, which very soon thrived and took on its own momentum. It also acted to provide pro-bono legal comment from a third party on the thorny issue of the covenants covering the building.
Through the pages of SPAN and via our website, SPRA has continued to offer widespread publicity to the Friends’ activities and views and ultimately the Committee has publicly voiced its support for the Friends’ efforts. Despite the unstinting work of the Friends, the Library closed as a Council facility in November 2024. Since then SPRA has sought to support the Council’s efforts to retain the building as a community hub, and with the Friends, has played its part in helping the Council in the process to find an appropriate organisation to lease the library.
Earlier in the year, SPRA was instrumental in dealing with The Addington Golf Club’s long-term aspiration to expand into the neighbouring Council-owned land on Shirley Heath. We convened a meeting of representatives of Residents’ Associations to hear a presentation outlining in broad brush the Club’s plans. Attendees had many reservations and questions that could not immediately be answered. They therefore asked the Club Chairman to provide answers and more concrete plans before the RAs would consider communicating with their members about the proposal. However this request was rapidly overtaken by events. After the Club’s tentative initial plan was leaked, a public petition was mounted, amassing large support, resulting in the withdrawal of the plan from wider public scrutiny.
Turning now to the ongoing health of the Association, the financial position of SPRA in its ninth decade remains strong, as will be evidenced in our Treasurer Kirti Thakrar’s report to be presented at the AGM, which shows a prudent reserve of funds. Kirti continues to maintain a steady hand on the tiller of our finances Member numbers are slightly declining year on year but still remain at a solid level, which means our income is reasonably steady. The small attrition of members is due to a wide number of factors: members moving away or dying; properties being rented and certain demographic factors in households, which all have an effect. We are not complacent about this and continuously try to increase membership. Compared with other local areas we have high level of membership (around 60% of eligible households), but the Association is aware that it must continue to sell the benefits of SPRA membership.
For many members the main “visible” benefit is to receive the monthly SPAN magazine. This hard copy magazine only reaches people’s doors through the monumental effort of a network of Zone and Road Stewards. Finding people to become a Road Steward is becoming harder. In addition to the current hard-copy version, we are exploring once again the possibility of an online version of SPAN for those who might prefer it, as so much information is now delivered digitally. Meanwhile, the small team producing SPAN every month, led so ably and energetically by Liz Bebington, will continue to make it one of the best community publications around.
So what exactly has SPRA done for the area in the last year? Our constant interaction with our Councillors means we keep your interests at the forefront of the Council’s thinking. Quarterly face to face meetings have covered a variety of topics, resulting in for example the re-instatement of the bus shelters, the refurbishment of the tennis courts and children’s playground. Problematic planning applications are always a subject of conversation, though this year (the Golf Club plans aside) there has been little of note. We have met our new MP and have started a good working relationship.
Highways and the Green Environment are key elements of SPRA’s work. This year a new bus route, the SL5 has started, which has met with approval. Less so the fact that it has entailed more of us having to negotiate the tricky crossing to Monks Orchard Road from Bridle Road. Your committee fears a serious accident will be required for TfL to implement some form of safe crossing. Despite repeated contact with our Member of the London Authority, unfortunately we are no further forward. We must maintain pressure to achieve a positive outcome.
Our Christmas lights paid for from SPRA funds re-appeared along the Wickham Road in 2024 after a ‘dark’ year previously – we still don’t fully understand the reason for TfL’s ruling last year about stress testing of the lamp-posts. Huge thanks are due to Mike Roberts for his work on this.
Our parks and green spaces, which make our community so special, continue to receive SPRA’s oversight, though of course all the hands-on effort is done by volunteers. The monthly clean-up team (a disparate group totalling around 20-25) is led by Michael Wilson on behalf of SPRA. The two Friends Groups who look after Millers Pond and Spring Park are led respectively by Eric Molkenthin and Allan Booth. We hope the publicity provided in SPAN does justice to their efforts.
The Association has not budgeted to make donations to local groups for the year 2025-26. This year however donations were made to Shirley Neighbourhood Care to help pay for the Christmas bags, to Friends of Spring Park Wood to buy equipment and to the Foodbank to support their work. Our annual support for the British Legion Poppies Appeal with lamp-post displays on the length of the Wickham Road continues, with Winsome Thomas organising the materials and volunteers.
All the above is achieved with a small committee which could always do with more recruits. As Vice-Chair Mike Roberts and I step down from the Committee at the coming AGM we look back on a roller coaster ride in the last 3-4 years. When we took up acting positions in our roles in the autumn of 2020, the country had already been through the first lockdown of the pandemic. SPRA’s Committee had already decided to meet via Zoom and we needed to work out how the Association would operate in a new and very strange environment. The 2021 AGM was cancelled and that of 2022 conducted by Zoom. Meanwhile SPAN continued to be published throughout, with the exception of two months in the first lockdown. But somehow with the SPRA and SPAN teams all pulling together we came through and hopefully, as has been demonstrated above, SPRA is still strong, despite the difficulties caused this year by the library closure. I am pleased to announce we have co-opted three excellent recruits to our number: Bob Archibald who looks after Communications and Technical Support. Graham Wharton, Highways and Green Environment, and Julian Roberts. Milton Moore has temporarily stepped down from the Committee, the Donations Working Group and as our Hon. Secretary.
In conclusion I must finish by paying particular thanks to my Vice Chair, Mike Roberts, who has done so much to improve and bring up to date our procedures and systems, particularly relating to membership and subscription payments (take a bow also Lawrie Rendle, our Membership Secretary and Mandy Hopkins, Zone and Road Stewards Secretary) and the AGM. He has enhanced the website, making it more of a focus for news through the alert system (from which only a small proportion of our members benefit; see our website www.springparkra.co.uk as to how you can receive these alerts). From a personal point of view he has acted as my sounding board, right-hand man and any small successes of my time in office should be shared equally with Mike. I am also grateful to President Trevor Ashby who has been an ever-present source of wise advice, and SPRA’s Trustees Andy Bebington and Bev Tanner who have had careful oversight of the governance of SPRA. To all of you on the Committee and the membership, thank you for your support. I believe the Association, through its Committee, will be in capable hands following the AGM and I trust you will continue to give it your full backing.
Geoff Flook
Chair, SPRA