Author: Editor SPRA

Donations of musical instruments for charitable use are sought. We have been asked to draw the following to members’ attentions …

Andrew Moore, recently-appointed Musical Director of Croydon Male Voice Choir, has issued this call for donations of musical instruments:

I am looking to collect any old, unused instruments that people may have. I am building up a collection for my music therapy work. In particular, any handheld percussion instruments. If you may have old instruments looking for a new home please do pass them to me if you are happy to donate!

*Andrew Moore is also an HCPC registered Music Therapist and Assistant Director of Music at St. Anselm’s Church, Kennington. If you have an instrument you would like to donate, please contact Philip Talmage at 33 Wickham Avenue, tel 8656 1886, philiptalmage@gmail.com.

Starting on 11 November and running every Thursday, a new service will be available as follows

Following the closure of Shirley Library, SPRA members may be interested to know that the Council has announced a bus service to run from Shirley to the Ashburton Library, to enable access to that facility. It only runs on one day per week. Details as published by the Council are shown below:

Free bus service from 11 November 2024
Thursdays
Shirley: Departing from Wickham Road/Hartland Way, outside the library
building, at 10.30am
Return journey departing from Ashburton Library at 12.00pm

We are invited to attend either of two sessions in the playground at the Rec, as ibelow

I am pleased to inform you that due to the upcoming redevelopment of the playground, the council will be holding engagement sessions inside the playground on the below dates.

Monday 21^st of October 14:00 – 16:00

Friday 25^th of October 14:00– 16:00

The engagement sessions will be held in conjunction with HAGS who have designed the new playground, these sessions give everyone the chance to raise any questions they may have and provide feedback regarding the designs.

***Designs are NOT final and are subject to change***

All enquiries to parks@croydon.gov.uk

The following letter is being selectively circulated by the Council …

As you may be aware, the council’s ‘pay and display machines’ are reaching the end of their useful life with the ongoing shutdown of 3G connectivity across the country and increasing maintenance costs, meaning that any remaining machines will be removed.

The removal programme will mean that from Saturday 13 July in on-street chargeable locations the machines will be switched off and customers will need to use RingGo.

Following this the Council will rollout mobile parking in Council car parks and in free parking locations in district and local centres. The RingGo parking app is a convenient way for most residents and visitors to pay for their parking. The app is free to use on both Apple and Android devices. Where free parking tariffs apply these will still be available through the app.

Other than the name of the person parking and the vehicle registration, personal information such as card details do not need to be stored on the app.

Whilst the Council does not charge for using RingGo, some default settings may mean that you pay a small charge to RingGo for reminders. These notifications can be easily disabled in the app settings.

The use of RingGo will also reduce the ability to meter feed and may provide a
discount on parking charges, dependant on vehicle emissions. For those that do not have a smartphone, parking sessions can also be secured by phone, by calling 020 3046 0010.

We understand that change can be difficult but please be reassured that we are
making every effort to ensure that the transition to mobile payment parking is as smooth as possible.

We have listened to the issues raised through pilot schemes and are looking to
mitigate the impact of change wherever possible. As a result, a PayPoint option for those who prefer to make cash or card payments, may be available at any shop that offers PayPoint. When using PayPoint, there is no need to return to the vehicle as the session will be automatically logged.

We appreciate your ongoing support, patience, and cooperation.
Yours faithfully,

Recent talks between our local politicians, local headteachers and the Borough’s police have yielded good results in reducing the amount of crime affecting young people travelling through central Croydon on their way to and from school.  Theft of mobile phones has been a particular problem.  Police have recently intensified their activity against this crime type, tracking down and targeting perpetrators. This resulted in 11 arrests being made and a substantial decline in offending afterwards. Police Officers analysed crime patterns which enabled them to target hot-spots where the perpetrators were likely to be.  They concentrated on several known suspects and cleared the area of further robberies through persistent high-vis patrolling.

In addition, Schools officers attended school assemblies to provide crime prevention advice, while uniformed officers spoke to students on how to keep themselves and their possessions safe.

We have lifted this article about a new “tool” available to our Police, from an MP’s website. SPRA is a non-(party) political body and has no association with the MP in question

I am delighted to report that multiple arrests were made in Croydon town centre [in late January] following the experimental deployment of Live Facial Recognition (LFR).  This is something I am pushing for nationally in my role as Policing Minister, and I am glad that the Met accepted my suggestion to further trial LFR in Croydon

LFR starts with a “watchlist” of images of people who are wanted for serious offences or who are wanted by the Court for failing to attend a criminal hearing.  A camera is then set up by Police in a location with high footfall, and advanced facial recognition software is used to see if anyone walking past matches one of the images on the watchlist.  Is there is a match, the officers running the system are alerted and they intervene to see if the person is indeed the one wanted.  The matching software is now incredibly accurate and advanced.

This has been deployed in Croydon town centre several times recently, on London Road and North End, and on the junction with Church Street. Arrests for the following offences were made in a matter of just a few hours:

• Possession of firearm
• GBH
• Failure to appear in court for theft
• Failure to appear in court for GBH
• Failure to appear in court for assault on an emergency worker
• Possession of a weapon with point or blade, drugs and burglary
• Breach of non-molestation order
• Failure to appear in court for ABH on police and drugs offences
• Failure to appear in court for ABH
• Fraud by misrepresentation
• Failure to appear in court for theft
• Failure to appear in court for GBH
• Failure to appear in court for assault on an emergency worker
• Possession of a weapon with point or blade, drugs and burglary
• Breach of non-molestation order
• Failure to appear in court for ABH on police and drugs offences
• Failure to appear in court for ABH
• Fraud by misrepresentation
• Failure to appear in court for theft
• Failure to appear in court for assault on an emergency worker
• Failure to appear in court for drunk and disorderly behaviour
• Breach of tag conditions by a convicted drug supplier

This deployment took 14 potentially dangerous people off the streets (SPRA note – as there are more than 14 offences listed, it is clear that at least one of the 14 persons had committed more than one of these offences).  The identity of the people stopped was verified separately from the facial recognition system, and no false alerts were generated.
 
There are safeguards around privacy and accuracy.  Any passer-by who is scanned and who is not on the watchlist is immediately and automatically deleted. The system is governed by detailed rules set out by the College of Policing, and there is case law setting out the legal requirements of the system.  This includes accuracy and no bias. The system has been tested by the National Physical Laboratory and at the setting used meets the legal requirements (it delivers no bias and a 1/6000 accuracy rate). There are also signs displayed that LFR is being used.
 
I am delighted that these potentially dangerous people have been taken off the street.  There are further LFR deployments planned in Croydon in the near future and I am pushing for this technology to be rolled out nationally, within the rules and guidelines to safeguard privacy. This technology has the potential to ensure that huge numbers of wanted criminals are caught.

We are grateful to “Inside Croydon” for bringing to our attention the opportunity being offered at Croydon Libraries.

See their article at https://insidecroydon.com/2023/08/09/libraries-to-offer-computer-training-to-tackle-digital-exclusion/

Malcolm Bell, Croydon Council’s Energy Projects Manager, has written a warning as follows …

Unfortunately I am writing to inform you, a resident has informed me a company called UK ECO solutions (or someone on their behalf) is doing door knocking in the borough about grants for solid wall insulation, claiming they are working with Croydon Council.  I have recently seen Facebook adverts from them hinting they work with and/or the funding is from the Council.

I can confirm Croydon Council not working with this company, nor are they a sub-contractor for one of our partner companies, nor has the team had any discussions with them.   The sub-contractor working with our partner AgilityEco currently installing solid-wall insulation for home owners is called Simple Green Energy, and they will only be contacting residents who have applied, or been referred into the scheme with their consent.     None of the companies we are working with are doing any cold calling/door knocking promotions.

All the private sector grant providers/schemes we work with are listed on our Energy Advice webpage   www.croydon.gov.uk/energyadvice     Although residents can apply directly for these schemes (as opposed to a referral through Croydon Healthy Homes), we do recommend residents use one of our partner organisations to access grant funding if they are eligible.  For some schemes eligibility/grant may be dependent upon a signed declaration from Croydon Council, and we only do this with companies we have an agreements in place with.

I would strongly advise residents to check the web page to ensure any company claiming to work with the Croydon Council is genuinely working with us.  Alternatively they can email healthyhomes@croydon.gov.uk or call the Healthy Homes Freephone number to check 08002922529 (the number currently diverts to an answerphone, but we aim to call back all residents as quickly as possible, and all within a week).

May I also take this opportunity to notify you the Croydon Heathy Homes team will be hand delivering leaflets about our services to homes in areas with high-levels of fuel poverty, especially older properties.  This week we delivered leaflets in the Waddon area.  The letter we delivered was in the name of our Healthy Homes Advisor, Jayesh Patel.