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
18 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
Cui Bono. Loss of architectural salvage value, council digs its heels in a bit more. Shouldn't have though the insurers were daft enough to pay out. Question - what is Croydon for? Housing, offices, probably not industry or data centers.
TBH, just another Victorian cookie cutter house gone. Better as flats or a care home. No good as it was. We just can't decide what Croydon is for. But then we can't decide what UK is for either.
I’ve seen many reports over the years of similar events. Every time it reminds of the old joke. “John, I’m really sorry to hear about the fire!” John: “Shhh, the fire is tomorrow!”
Yet Another Chris
When I was six, from the end of my road we all gathered to watch the local country-house style hotel burn down; and very spectacular, too. It was very shabby & had been losing money. Deffo an insurance job in that case, as was later proved in the County Court.
As my former colleagues in insurance loss adjusting used to quip about such incidents:
Nefarious Person A: “So when was the fire?”
Nefarious Person B: “Shhh!!! It’s tonight!”
In NYC there was a name for it ... something lightning.
OT, 10 yr bonds 5.383%
Another example of convenient fires for the owner - https://www.sstaffs.gov.uk/planning/The-Crooked-House
In the spirit of various articles about not being able to build anything in UK as most of the poulation are rampant Nimbys or Bananas.
(Yes we want economic growth but not right here)
Perhaps we should have a ceiling on listed building %??
1% of housing stock may be each category of listed., no more.
As for the rest - time to go back to our roots when we were a successful dynamic country & allow people to do whatever they want with their own property.?
After all - that's how we got all the bits that the comfortable middle classes now want to preserve in aspic
"go back to our roots when we were a successful dynamic country"
And energy was dirt cheap? Now where will we get that from? I know where China get theirs from.
As a country we do pretty well - about No 5. However we migrated to service industries - mainly finance and legal. Notoriously difficult to improve productivity. And all those spare lawyers and accountants sitting around are just handy for objection after objection. The days of success coming from the Mathew Boltons etc are gone.
The downside comes when you try taxing big legal and accountancy firms. They hang on to their money.
Then a concrete slab (very very big), a power line and some modern machinery and you can out manufacture anyone you like. Especially if they are encumbered by lawyers and politicians playing games and you are not.
The simple-minded answer is more and more 'education'. But as recent events in that august institution Cambridge show that is easier said than done in any productive manner. In fact the UK's growth industry is 'taking the legal and regulatory piss'. Or so it seems. With AI ruling the roost you might as well not educate the lower orders at all and leave them to learn shoplifting, drug dealing and illegal baccy trading on the street.
A look at the uppermost regions of our society further indicates that expensive education does not necessarily lead to productive or useful ideas or people. But they do say ignorance is more expensive. But we could probably do with much better intelligence among fewer humans.
Re planning, we could follow the American model. Build it big, build it ugly and build it cheap. As it is we worry and quibble over tiny aesthetic details. The days when we could afford to care about Victorian Societies or newts or badgers are gone. Get big, get ugly. Come friendly bombs, fall on Slough (or Croydon).
We can build it cheap and expensive energy will still kill it. America has cheap energy.
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/energy-mix?country=%7ECHN&source=total&metric=by_source
China in 2025 produced 45TWh of energy (from all sources bar firewood), of which 39.5 came from fossil fuels, predominantly coal. While they are producing CO2 at unprecedented (at least by humans) levels, Europe is forcing car manufacturers to sell fewer fossil fuel cars, and fining manufacturers if they do. If Europe was a person, she’d be Lisa Ross.
https://www.dailymail.com/news/article-16024497/Afghan-death-British-woman-suitcase-Christian.html
Gives me an idea for new genre of crime novel - coming up with a politically acceptable explanation for a completely obvious crime
Fire does suggest a new approach. As often the French show the way. To the likes of Grenfell cladding, RAAC concrete and every half arsed regulator and police service that does not do its job. Or more clearly allows cheap and shoddy construction and dishonest administration.
Don't waste time on interminable inquiries that never root our the real causes. Or nail the truly guilty. No, deliberately burn down every shoddily clad building, every poorly built school, every rat infested tower block and the entire university campus where abuse has been hidden.
Make the cost of lousy regulation and foot dragging administration far higher than the benefits of brushing under carpet and doing nothing.
Make the administrators who so cleverly deflect inquiries very fearful that their efforts will be negated. Make the insurers and financiers bear down heavily (in their own interests) on dodgy administrators or all kinds. Sort it out now - or no more finance or insurance. Let the message be - do your job or we bring down the temple.
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