Rubbish

Croydon Council has launched the Waste & Street Cleansing Consultation which will run for six weeks, to collect feedback from residents about their experiences with the service and offer insight into what is most important to Croydon for a new contract.

An online survey is at https://www.getinvolved.croydon.gov.uk/waste-street-cleaning-services and will be open until midnight on 25 February.  Printed copies and a large font version are available from 020 8726 6000, 9am- 4pm Monday – Friday.

While the survey is running, 400 phone calls will be made to residents to collect a random sample, and there will be two focus groups to get more in-depth information. Feedback will be used to shape the next contract, when the current one with Veolia expires in 2025.

Gardening

The Bingham Road Gardening Group are getting their plans together for 2023.  It’s going to be another great year looking after the flower beds in the park, introducing new plants and bringing joy to all the park users.

Looking to learn more about planting and growing?  Enjoy the outdoors and want to meet new people?  Have some plants you would like to donate?  Why not get involved and meet the lovely team of gardeners on the following Saturdays in 2023 between 9.30 and 12.00

Planned dates:- 4 March; 1 April; 6 May; 3 June; 1 July; 5 August; 2 September; 7 October

If you want more information or have any questions please email gardening@aspra.uk

Vacancies

Preparations for the next issue of the ASPRA magazine are due to start soon, publication expected late March / early April after the AGM.

STILL needed are both an editor and an advertising manager.  The last issue (Winter 2002) was produced by an ad-hoc team, deliberately using standard ‘home office’ software to keep things simple.  Please do get in touch if you are interested in getting involved, even stuff like ‘collection of content’ and ‘collation of pages’ are not that scary in the context of how the previous magazine was bought together by an informal team.  Honest!  And our local printers, TD Print, are really helpful and friendly.  editor@aspra.uk or ads@aspra.uk are both actively monitored or contact@aspra.uk for more info or to sort out coffee and a chat.  Our treat!

Planning

News is that the latest ‘Blackhorse’ development was not approved last week.

When the gardening group took over maintenance of the beds in 2015, it was always our plan to fill the beds with shrubs, perennials and bulbs, for ongoing easy maintenance.   We certainly  didn’t envisage that five years later a global pandemic would prevent us having regular volunteer gardening sessions.   While we haven’t been able to have our monthly working parties this year, the beds have survived remarkably well.

Many thanks to everyone who responded to the plea to keep the flower beds weeded, pruned and watered either every time they passed by, or by spending a couple of hours doing some solitary tidying.  It is greatly appreciated. 

It is now planned to hold a ‘Getting the beds ready for Winter’ session on Saturday 10th October between 9 – 12 and we are inviting volunteers to come along for all or part of that time.  Even a half hour of weeding is of huge value.

In view of Covid-19 and social distancing we are asking volunteers to bring:

• their own tools (these could be a trowel, secateurs, hoe, spade, fork and dependent on what work you would like to do).
• hand sanitizer in case it is needed
• a mask (although we will be able to social distance and will be outdoors, sometimes park users like to stop and chat and ask about the gardens and you may feel more comfortable wearing a mask)

It would be helpful to know who plans to come along, and at what times, so that we do not exceed the ‘Rule of 6’ regulations.  Please email gardening@aspra.uk.