HUNDREDS of hours of preparation work paid off on Saturday with the launch of a campaign to instil more pride in Norbury.
Love Norbury is a joint venture between Scots Estate, Norbury Green, Norbury Village and Pollards Hill residents' association who have been working together over the past new months to come up with ways of improving Norbury's image.
High on the campaign's list of targets will be cleaning up the shopping centre and surrounding areas and attracting more shoppers into the area.
The official launch took place at O Cappucino in London Road at which Mayor of Croydon Councillor Manju Shahul-Hameed cut a special celebration cake.
She then joined organisers of the campaign on a meet and greet session with around 10 London Road traders.
Residents were also given the chance to talk to the campaign committee about its aims and how they could get involved.
Ian Clarke, chair of the Love Norbury committee, said: "The launch went really, really well.
"We had a tremendous turnout and that showed we have some amazing people in Norbury and if we can continue to bring them all together there is a lot we can get done."
Mr Clarke said one of the greatest problems to hit the area over the past couple of years was an increase in litter and fly-tipping on the streets.
He wanted residents to get involved in reporting incidents so that rubbish could be cleared, and it is likely their efforts will be tied in with the council's Don't Mess with Croydon: Take Pride campaign, which has parallel clean up aims.
Mr Clarke said: "We have support from local councillor, Maggie Mansell, who is hoping to arrange a meeting between us and senior council officers to discuss what can be done."
The campaign would, he said, set out to rid Norbury of the "shabby" image which is too often associated with the area.
Mr Clarke said he believed if people starting reporting incidents of fly-tipping and as a result the area became tidier, this would have the knock-on effect of making people prouder of their surroundings.
Campaign members will be meeting this week to discuss the launch and as well as pursuing clean up initiatives, ideas about attracting more shoppers will be examined. These are expected to include introducing farmers' markets and food festivals.
Mr Clarke said: "Good traders have nothing to worry about from competition because these events will increase the number of people coming into Norbury.
"We are very confident the campaign will work; too many hours have gone into organising it for it to fail."
