We return to a location in Croydon we've visited here before: to a house directly opposite this pair of beauties (of which one remains stubbornly unsold, even at a much reduced price). For years, this fine but dilapidated edifice that they look out onto has commanded the road, twin turrets and all. The owners are the Datoo brothers, gentlemen well known to Croydon Council, who had submitted wave upon wave of planning applications, involving complete demolition, generally for large, low-rise blocks of flats. Most of these had not found favour. Their latest plan is for a 60-resident nursing home.
Ten days ago at 4 am, a large conflagration broke out, seemingly in two different parts of the house simultaneously (not that I'm a forensic scientist). The place immediately became what must surely be a crime scene, with a 24-hour police presence (!) being mounted for at least 5 days after the fire, and a regular presence there even today.
What can possibly have happened? Did a group of pyromaniac squatters move in and take against the place? We must wait patiently for an inquiry.
In any event, locals are distinctly Not Happy. "It would appear that there's been foul play here." All very odd.
ND
5 comments:
A Datoo run, run, a Datoo run.
We had a similar Curious Case of the Convenient Conflagration in Oldham when a listed Victorian era stand was blocking the converting of the rugby and greyhound stadia into a housing estate.
Many pearls were clutched and garments rendered at the casting of aspersions of arson towards those shining paragons of governance, the council.
https://insidecroydon.com/2020/10/14/croydons-planners-save-historic-addiscombe-house-twice/
I suppose sometimes people discover an accelerant for planning permission.
In the textile districts of both Lancashire and Yorkshire, mystery fires in empty (though magnificent) mill buildings are commonplace, the owners of said mills being often not native Lancastrians or Tykes. The latest, just the other day, behind Dalton Mill in Keighley, often used as a film backdrop.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dalton_Mills
It's just a history of arson
Post a Comment