Inside Croydon

There’s a very special match being played tomorrow, between a parliamentary team made up of footballer MPs and peers, against the England Parkinson’s walking football team.

One of the players in the England team is Croydon resident Seth Gillman, who made his international debut on the team’s trip to Spain last October.

Tomorrow’s big match is to raise awareness amongst the nation’s lawmakers of the benefits of regular exercise and activity for People with Parkinson’s, or PwP.

After a hiatus in 2025, the Streatham Kite Day is back in 2026, this year being staged on Sunday, May 10, from 11am to 5pm.

The event is London’s only free family-friendly kite festival, and combines world-class kite displays with the opportunity to fly your own.

First staged in 1998 as “Wind Day”, thousands flock to Streatham Common to see the displays, fly a kite, enjoy the various attractions lined up for children, and also sample the delicious food and drink on offer at the stalls.

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A D V E R T I S E M E N T

For ticket bookings for The Sweet Science of Bruising and more information about Theatre Workshop Coulsdon, visit their website by clicking here

Click here to read Inside Croydon’s review of Theatre Workshop Croydon’s previous production, Animal Farm

And click here for a peek behind the scenes as TWC prepares to stage The Sweet Science of Bruising

The former DEFRA minister ignored all calls to nationalise the water industry. Now campaigners want to know why, and whether lobbying firm Global Counsel had any role in the matter

Steve Reed, the MP for Streatham (and Croydon North, when he can be bothered), who is already up to his neck in the Labour Together scandal that has engulfed the Labour Party in disgrace, is now being dragged back into the swamp of sewage that surrounds the water industry.

An Old Bailey jury yesterday heard how father-of-three Leroy Mitchell was shot in the head at point-blank range in an “act of petty revenge”.

Mitchell was 35 when he was killed at a silent disco in Birdhurst Road, South Croydon, in the early hours of October 2, 2021.

Despite a £20,000 reward offered for information that might lead to a conviction, arrests in connection with the shooting were not made until last summer.

It’s a case of Foxtrot Oscar for CLP chair Harman, as his former boss comes under increasing pressure over his role with Labour Together and his ‘deeply unprofessional and possibly unlawful’ handling of local elections. On the fifth anniversary of the hack of this website, our Political Editor, WALTER CRONXITE, reports

Six months after journalist Paul Holden revealed that he had been followed by private investigators, today the Cabinet Office said it will be “looking at the facts” around Labour Together, the organisation established by Croydon MP Steve Reed and his former Lambeth Council aide, Morgan McSweeney.

It has been reported that Prime Minister Keir Starmer has ordered the Cabinet Office probe. “It absolutely needs to be looked into,” Starmer said this morning.

The investigation comes only after McSweeney left his job at No10 as the Prime Minister’s Chief of Staff.

The Croydon MP and friend of Morgan McSweeney is ‘disingenuous’ in his claims over how his aide blocked debate about the controversial appointment of Ambassador to the United States.

Mostly, here at Inside Croydon, we report the news. But sometimes, we make the news, as was the case when ITV’s Good Morning Britain quoted from our pages as they put a cabinet minister on the spot over his part in the cover-up over the disgraced traitor Peter Mandelson.

The car park at Ikea off the Purley Way is being used as an emergency depot for those across Croydon, Mitcham and Streatham who have been without water supplies since a main burst on Mitcham Common yesterday.

As many as 18,000 properties across eight postcodes – CR0, CR2, CR4, CR7, CR8, CR9, SM6 and SW16 – in four south London boroughs were originally said to have been affected by the burst main.

Work continued through the night to dig down to the burst pipe.

Up to 18,000 households across Croydon and three other boroughs have been affected by a burst water main today “on a field” near to Watneys Road, which borders Mitcham Common.

Homes have encountered reduced water pressure, or no supply at all.

Properties, some schools and business premises in CR0, CR2, CR4, CR7, CR8, CR9, SM6 and SW16 are known to have been affected.

In its latest update, timed at just after 11am, Thames Water stated: “We are still on site working hard.