Croydon’s Cultural Growth Fund and Community Ward Budgets

Croydon Council is obliged to publish details on all payments made over £500.  The figures make interesting reading.  We’ve reviewed the spending from the Cultural Growth Fund and Councillors Community Ward Budgets for the years 2017, 2018 and Jan-Apr 2019.

You may be interested with some of the findings below.

2018 Highlights

• The Residents Association in Sanderstead one of the richest parts of the borough received £18K in council funding.
• We rouse up and paid the Rise Gallery £9,600 from one fund and a further £4,370 from another.
• Given the level of violent crime in Croydon we’re not sure the £9,500 on a Peace Festival was money well spent.
• The £5,000 spent at the Oval Tavern was an expensive round.
• Remarkably no one seems to know what the £51,000 paid to the Remarkable Productions Company Ltd got us.
• At £5 a pint and £7-8 for lunch it’s not clear how the £160,000 paid to Boxpark benefited the working class council tax payers who helped fund it.

Meanwhile, Croydon Council spends only about £200,000 a year fixing potholes.

So far this year

• Boxpark has had to struggle by on £40K.
• We all ‘Love Norbury’, and apparently we love it to the tune of £12,296.80.
• The ‘CROYDONITES FESTIVAL OF NEW THEATRE’ which puts on a number of political plays (see https://www.croydonites.com/programme-for-2019.html) has received £7.5K of our ‘netural’ taxpayers’ cash.

Cultural Growth Fund – Top 5s

Top 5 payees receiving funding from our council tax.

Vendor Name	SumOfAmount	2017
Boxpark	£160,000.00	1
Turf Projects	£38,777.01	2
Kier Highways Ltd	£28,227.73	3
Remarkable Productions Company Ltd	£22,000.00	4
Croydon Town Centre Bid	£18,500.00	5

Vendor Name	SumOfAmount	2018
Boxpark	£160,000.00	1
Remarkable Productions Company Ltd	£51,000.00	2
Croydon Pride Ltd	£35,000.00	3
We Made That	£29,996.72	4
Turf Projects	£20,000.00	5

Vendor Name	SumOfAmount	2019
Boxpark	£40,000.00	1
Croydon Pride Ltd	£30,000.00	2
Cellar Door Promotions Ltd	£22,800.00	3
Croydon with Talent Ltd	£20,000.00	4
London & Partners Ventures Ltd	£20,000.00	5

Community Ward Budgets – Top 5s

Top 5 payees receiving funding from our council tax.

Vendor Name	SumOfAmount	2017
Thornton Heath Community ActionTeam	£20,550.00	1
Redacted	£13,871.00	2
People for Portland Road	£12,570.00	3
Topcare Network	£12,000.00	4
Croydon Pride Ltd	£11,250.00	5

Vendor Name	SumOfAmount	2018
Sanderstead Residents Association	£18,167.00	1
People for Portland Road	£17,000.00	2
CROYDON BOROUGH NEIGHBOURHOOD WATCH ASSOCIATION	£10,500.00	3
Cacfo Education Centre	£10,190.73	4
Rise Gallery	£9,600.00	5

Vendor Name	SumOfAmount	2019
The Chartwell Cancer Trust Ltd	£30,192.00	1
LOVE NORBURY	£12,296.80	2
Purley Youth Project	£7,000.00	3
Stanley People’s Initiative	£6,736.01	4
SOUTH NORWOOD COMMUNITY FESTIVAL GROUP	£5,500.00	5