Good news. After a long campaign by Conservatives and residents, the council is no longer planning to build a new football pitch at the end of Woodmere Avenue.
The new scheme would have included floodlighting, a car park and possibly, a café. The council was proposing to construct the scheme on the section of Ashburton Playing Fields which border Woodmere Avenue.
The bankrupt council has now announced that the scheme is “paused.” In other words, it isn’t going to happen.
Gareth Streeter, one of the three Conservative councillors for Shirley North, says: “Croydon could do with some state of the art football facilities. I was never against the scheme coming to Croydon or to Shirley. I wasn’t necessarily even against it being located on Ashburton Playing Fields. But there’s no way I could ever support it being built a stone’s throw from the tranquil environment of Woodmere Avenue.
“However, the reason the scheme has been scrapped has nothing to do with the council starting to listen to residents. They haven’t. Croydon Labour has bankrupted the borough. This is bad news for residents and businesses who are already seeing car parking charges going up and a host of cuts to services. But at least it has meant that they are now banned from spending money on schemes like this.”
