South Norwood Tourist Board

“Are you busy tomorrow?” If not why not meet me down the park? Just the sort of unsolicited email from a stranger that we are always warned to be on the lookout for! So you can imagine our surprise when we discovered it was from prospective parliamentary candidate Mario Creatura. The fact that this virtual junk mail was publicising a litter-pick made it all the more ironic. There are very strict laws governing the use of personal information, so the idea that Mr Creatura might be spamming his constituents personal email addresses is somewhat surprising – but apparently not altogether without precedent. We’ll be asking the Information Commissioner’s Office whether this is in keeping with data protection legislation or not.

But although the execution might have been somewhat clumsy surely it was well-intended? Well maybe… or maybe there might be an election in the offing? Who can tell? Probably the people who turn out every week to litter pick. The good people who do this week in, week out. Rain or shine. Without fanfare and without spam emails. The people who pick up the dog shit from the Sensible Garden. The people who tend the gardens at Love Lane, the garden at South Norwood Leisure Centre and the Country Park and so on. We see them every week. We don’t need spam emails to remind us that they are there.

But this begs a bigger question; should they have to do it at all? The Government’s programme of austerity has seen around 40% cut to the central government funding for local services. Councils are left with the option of either raising council tax or cutting services – in most cases they have had to do both. Still the average council spend per person has fallen by 30%. Spending on the environment has fallen by 20%. We’ve all seen the number of park keepers fall. We’ve seen our hard-working refuse collectors almost running down the street. Small wonder they end up dropping things. Last year the local hardware shops were running out of rat poison, such was the demand, in the face of the biggest rat infestation in living memory. Now we’re the South Norwood Tourist Board and we know how to spin a story – but that’s a bit of a fucking stretch, even for us! And with the best will in the world, a couple of hours with a bin bag on a Saturday afternoon is not going to fill the gap. What we’re talking about are the essentials of public health, which are being systematically denied.

It’s not the Big Society when we’re expected to go out and do the things that we pay income tax and council tax for. It’s a con. We are lucky to have a community of neighbours who all chip in to try and make South Norwood a nicer place to live. They are wonderful people and it is a pleasure to be part of such a community. That does not give government carte blanche to waltz in and cut our services while their casino-banking mates live it up in the Caymans. So don’t come to us, talking about how much you love the area when you have presided over its decimation.