We know that Thornton Heath has a good community so let’s mobilise that spirit with this call to action to the police, council and politicians to stop the rot and take back control of our steeets.

The area is being blighted by illegal activity which often appears to  happen with impunity.

Street drinking is prevalent not just in and around the High Street but men are routinely grouped on many street corners drinking from cans.

The Thornton Heath Safer Neighbour Team say they have begun evidencing which areas are most effected and their answer is to lobby the council for the removal of benches, as they are encouraging offenders to sit and drink?

Drug dealing is so blatant, that one fed up resident even put up a sign on a regular hot spot saying: ‘drug dealer stand here’.

Masked teenagers on mopeds often stolen for use in robbers can routinely be seen driving around Thornton Heath.

There are frequent reports of anti social behaviour in Thornton Heath Rec which resulted in a recent incident where dozens of police tackled a late night party resulting in arrests and seizures of knives including an axe. Knife crime is on the increase as is the latest weapon of choice – acid.

Recently Chantelle and Jeff Burland, from Thornton Heath, spoke out about the unprovoked attack on their 18-year-old son, a student with 11 GCSEs  who was knifed eight times in daylight  in Norbury park in June. The perpetrators are still to be brought to justice.

It is not just the authorities but parents who have to take an active stance and speak out to condone gang culture and youth violence.

More worryingly in  the last month there was a double shooting on Green Lane at the junction with Parchmore Road and a dispute at a BBQ in Kensington Avenue which resulted in two teenagers requiring treatment to gun shot wounds.

This gun (pictured) was seized by  Croydon Crime Squad following a stop in CR7. A man was arrested, charged and remanded for possession of a firearm.

Meanwhile the fly tipping epidemic which blights Thornton Heath continues unabated. Thornton Heath is recognised as having one of the worst problems in the borough which is aided by the transient population, fuelled by the over proliferation of HMOs and  landlord owned properties.

A three bedroom flat on Melfort Road is accommodating 13 men while a HMO on Manchester Road refused permission to become a hostel continues to operate,  housing young men, without a licence – all known to the council.

Cars double park and even park on the pavement at the High Street junction with Woodville Road but while motorists are ticketed it seems to have little impact. A coach parks on a bend on Norbury Road for weeks obscuring the vision of oncoming traffic and is an accident waiting to happen. It receives parking tickets but despite endless complaints nothing happens.

In a recent enforcement operation 13 fines were handed out in just three hours for fly tipping.  A further fine was issued in the last 10 days to a fly tipper who dumped a child’s school project along with a photo of the child in a cardboard box outside a shop – for all to see.

Cllr Stuart Collin, who is the cabinet member for Clean and Green Croydon believes it is an ongoing struggle which will ultimately be won but there needs to be  wholesale ‘behavioural change’. Along with Thornton Heath Community Action Team he  is launching a campaign directly targeting Thornton Heath: telling residents the fly tipping has ‘got to stop. ‘