A man has miraculously survived serious injury after three shots were fired in to the van he was sat in Thornton Heath.

As he drove off apparently unscathed one of the bullets lodged in the wall above the newly created mosaic on Brook Road (pictured).

The blaze of fire was caught on the council’s mobile CCTV in what has been described as a tit for tat incident  as retribution following a previous assault.The incident happened in November and neighbours mistook the sound of gun fire for innocent fireworks.

Police and the council have met with locals and have been keen to impress on residents that the shooting was not connected to any issues in Brook Road despite claims that drug dealers are operating in the vicinity with witnesses claiming to have seen individuals armed with guns and combat knives.

Croydon Council deployed temporary CCTV cameras in to streets across the borough in an attempt to “tackle anti-social behaviour”.

Brook Road received one of the cameras after residents complained to local councillors about the  persistent drug dealing, though police haven’t found evidence and there have been no arrests.

Brook Road, was nominated as one of 10 streets in Thornton Heath, requiring improvements as part of year one of the Thornton Heath Community Action Team Street Action Project because of the level of antisocial behaviour, noise disturbance and litter endemic to parts of the street.

Various attempts had previously been made to improve its appearance with planting and the mosaic created by residents and volunteers was seen as bright, positive additional improvement to the street.

In nearby Quadrant Road another mural created as part of the same project was vandalised with the letters: “tolerance, diversity, multi-cultural, accepting” crossed off. The residents have cleaned off the graffiti but some parts of the mural were damaged. 

The mural by the Job Centre painted as part of the regeneration has also been attacked with white paint thrown over it and more recently it has been tagged.

Less than a mile away a pawn shop, has taken down displays of hand guns and rifles in its front window after a campaign by MP Steve Reed.

Cash Exchange on London Road, Norbury had started advertising itself as ‘South London Airgun Centre’ telling customers it was happy to buy and sell new and used airguns, air rifles and accessories.

The MP  attacked the store for being ‘utterly irresponsible’ adding: “Advertising guns in a shop window encourages the use of guns on our streets.”

He wrote to the business, calling for them to stop selling the weapons ‘in the name of decency’ but after they failed to take action he took it up with the police, Croydon Council and wrote to the Home Secretary Sajid Javid.