Charity shop managers are forever having to advise mindless “do-gooders” never to leave bags of clean goods outside their shops – I was shocked to spot a hookah pipe outside one such shop in December!

I have to advise that the valiant souls authorised to collect sellable items left on the ground by charity bins at recycling centres are having their efforts thwarted by travellers from illegal encampments who daily steal such items intended for Barnados and Save the Children, etc.

This is particularly awful at Selhurst Park car park, where a charity collector who has regularly complained in vain to the council about dumped sellable items missed a thief on February 28 witnessed by me, by a fewminutes.

The thief raced off with a shopping trolley full of clean clothes down Clifton Road.

These thieves speak no English, and so cannot be chastised for taking goods intended to fund-raise for the worse-off, nor be advised of the Croydon Refugee Centre that might help clothe them.

The mindless do-gooders would be better off leaving clean items at the Croydon Refugee Centre by Spurgeon’s Tabernacle on a Monday or Tuesday morning, or phoning Barnado’s to collect goods from their homes.

The latest illegal encampment at Arena tram stop must have occurred due to sloppy attention by council gardening contractors to the adjacent Country Park to padlocking the yellow barriers into the park.

Before 2010 both sets of yellow gates in Albert Road were only opened to users of the sports arena.

Disabled groups use the arena three times a week, so the travellers’ excess traffic may put them at risk.

How hard is it for contractors to use a padlock, and how expensive will it be to clear up after the travellers due to one driver’s idiocy?

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