By contrast Nestlé have made a formal announcement with a target for completion by the end of this year. I know from recent experience that it can take a year to plan such a move (actually it can easily take a lot more than that) so this is going to happen. They must already be drawing up plans, starting staff consultations and ordering 18 miles of CAT-5 cables. So what does all this mean for the local economy of Crawley, or should that now be Crawlé?It would be easy to get swept away in a wave of hyperbole, in fact the Crawley News might already have done that. Their story talks about the company “bringing 1000 jobs to the town” though other sources like the Croydon papers, the BBC and Nestlé’s press release all refer to the move of 840 office-based staff.

Will that mean more jobs for local residents? In the short term it may not. With a move of only 22 miles between two locations joined by a straight road and an even straighter railway line in a time of recession I reckon most Croydon-based staff will make the move. Quite a few might even live here or in places closer to here than to Croydon, and for them it will be an easy choice.

Those living in Croydon have a slightly harder choice but I think they will make the move. During relocations a proportion of staff take the opportunity to take redundancy, especially if they are near retirement. With such a short move that might not even be on the table for them. My company moved a site of 200 people from London to Crawley the other year and quite a lot of them did move even though it was nowhere near as convenient. Some of them faced an extra hour or more travelling. From Croydon it is only about 15 minutes by train to Gatwick with dozens of rush hour trains.

Very few people will find the change in location a real struggle, except financially for those on low wages who would find an extra £50 a month a burden. Even then they might find it cheaper to move if they are renting in Croydon.

There will be some new jobs though. All those cleaners, security guards, and other support staff are probably contracted out and it is possible Nestlé will just enter into new contracts with local firms for the new premises. So initially there will be a slight boost for anybody local looking for lower-paid jobs.

There might be a bit of a boost for local shops, cafes, pubs and other places but nowhere near as much as the negative effect on Croydon. The current building is pretty close to lots of local places that will lose a lot of business but the new building is quite isolated up near the airport. True the staff could jump on a Fastway into town, but mostly they won’t. I work on Manor Royal and very few people from there go into the town centre at lunchtime.

In the longer term it means that anybody looking for a job in accounting, HR, IT and other areas will one more major employer they can apply to, one more chance to ply their trade without having to suffer the commute into London and that has to be good.

I don’t think the benefits will be as large or as quick as the out-and-out optimists or Crawley council’s economic development press releases will imply but it will be a positive impact. And it means that the next time they get involved in child labour controversies or buying milk from Mugabe’s wife the Crawley lefties will have a shorter distance to travel for protests. On the other hand, with so many PR disasters behind them the company may well go on a charm offensive with all sorts of local sponsorships.

The most significant impact could be on traffic around the airport, depending on how many of those 840 (or 1000) people intend to drive to work.

The big question is whether the signs at Gatwick station get changed. As any seasoned commuter knows, the station signs at East Croydon all proudly say “East Croydon – home of Nestlé”. Obviously that will have to change, but will they want to do the same here? Or will they see how it goes first?

I’d be interested to know what the staff think about it all. Are they looking forward to it? Dreading it? One word of comfort for them, it may be that the move to a modern building can offset some of the pain.

Performers from street theatre group Close Act at the Croydon festival, Aug 1st 2009

Jayne and I went up to Croydon today for the World Party day of the summer festival.  It was a tough decision because it clashed with Brighton Pride, but we ended up making the short trip North rather than the short trip South.We got to Lloyd Park in good time, before the party actually started, giving us a chance to wander round and see what stall were there.  We saw a good range of food stalls: ostrich burgers at the South African barbecue, Thai noodles, jerk chicken, curries and just about every ice cream van in South-East London.   It was a bit overcast and although the weather forecast was a 70% chance of rain we were hoping it would be wrong, or that the rain would be light.

We saw the first act – a local act called the Gospel Music Workshop Choir – before going for another wander.  Over in the Community Stage we just caught the end of a load of youngsters giving a demonstration of latin american dancing.  They were very good and so, so young.  I wish we had got there a bit earlier.  The last few must have only been about eight but they all looked so confident.

Alejandro & the Magic Tombolinos in Croydon. 1st August 2009

It started spitting with rain a bit so we went into the World Tent just in time to see Alejandro & the Magic Tombolinos.  These are a band that sound a bit like Gogol Bordello, with members from all over: Portugal, Argentina, Greece, Slovakia and Britain I think.  They were very lively and I’m sure they would have packed the tent out even if it had not been raining outside.

After that we went out and caught the end of Bishi on the main stage and then saw the dinosaurs outside the World Stage.  These were pretty cool.  Obviously not as good at a 40-foot time-travelling elephant, but the next best thing maybe.

The dinosaurs (a street theatre act by a dutch group called Close Act) attracted quite a following as they paraded around the field.   We saw them again as we were watching Kanda Bongo Man and trying to pretend that it was not persistantly drizzling.

Eventually the rain got too heavy to ignore and we bottled out and came home.  As we got to the tram stop it became torrential.  I would have like to have seen the Proclaimers, but not enough to get totally drenched.  Maybe we should have gone to the Pride parade in Brighton after all, although I hear it rained there too.

Here is a short video clip of the Saurus…

Again there is nothing so vulgar as any sort of payment involved, but I do get a free book out of it – more than likely a trade proof copy.

The reason is that, although I did not realise it, I am still one of the top 100 reviewers on Amazon. This was a real surprise. It is probably more than a year since I last reviewed anything on Amazon and I had really expected that lots or more motivated people would have overtaken me ages ago.

When I started writing reviews on Amazon it was my only real way of exercising my writing muscles and when I started up on Blogger that soon took more of my attention. I kept at it just to see if I could get in the top 100 and stopped when I reached 99.

It turns out that I have actually improved in my absence and currently occupy the position of 92. I might have to start writing a few more.

They do say that things come in threes, so I wonder if anything else will come along to complete the trifecta. Will Mercury FM ask me to fill in for Chris Oxlade? (no) or Crawley Town ask me to play in goal? (lets hope not) or the BBC ask me to appear on Never Mind The Buzzcocks in a line-up alongside a long-forgotten one-hit wonder? (even that is a bit ambitious)

Of course if you count the Brighton Evening Argus asking to interview me the other day then I have already had my three media opportunities.