It was a privilege to attend the This is Croydon Gospel event held at The Front Room last night, featuring local talents Roger Samuels and Jason Nicholson-Porter. Sadly, our year as London Borough of Culture is drawing to a close later this month, but there are still some fantastic events and activities to mark the end of what has been a really special year for Croydon. From an all-day family friendly hip hop jam to live music from the Sandilands Shanty Crew, there’s a great range of entertainment. The closing weekend on 22-24 March is jam-packed with things to do. So, if you haven’t been to a London Borough of Culture event yet, don’t miss this opportunity to get involved. Find out more at www.culturecroydon.com
Croydon Council has been working to transform its planning service and make it a more modern, responsive service that is easier to use and better for residents and customers. So it’s great news that we have secured £180k from the government to support this work. Of this funding, £80,000 from the Planning Skills Delivery Fund will help reduce planning application backlogs and boost skills in our planning teams. A further £100,000 from the government’s Digital Planning Improvement Fund will help us to adopt modern, data-led planning practices. Croydon will also be joining the Open Digital Planning community – a network of councils who are innovating and building new software for planning authorities to use.
I would like to invite residents to come along to my Mayor’s Question Time at Harris Academy, South Norwood at 6.30pm on Monday 18 March. This is an opportunity for all Croydon residents to ask their questions and learn about what the council is doing in your area – you can book a free ticket here.
Finally, it was a great honour to join the Palace for Life iftar event at Selhurst Park this week, highlighting their Get Involved programme – which aims to increase weekly engagement in physical activity specifically for the Muslim and Asian communities.
Ramadan Mubarak and best wishes to those celebrating St Patrick’s Day.
Have a great weekend everyone.
Jason Perry, Executive Mayor of Croydon
