House of Reeves chairman, Maurice Reeves, 81, said he town is still bearing the scars of last year’s riots.

He said Croydon’s shopfronts needs to be improved if the town wants to put the nightmare of the riots to bed. Mr Reeves said he is still upset and angry about the events of last year.

He said: "Even one year on the memories are still very haunting, especially to my family and memories are etched on your brain and they will never go away. But you have to live with it.

"We are all trying to get on with things but we lost 50 per cent of our business. We have managed to keep going because all the support we have had from the Croydon people.

"Without that we would be lost."

He said: "I can’t see any good that has come out of what happened. I rack my brain but what is good about it, it just shows you that some people in society just don’t care. The businessman said there needs to be fresh investment in the town if it is to get back to its feet, otherwise it will always show the scars of last year’s destruction.

"If we want to improve the town’s image then I would look at the front of our shop. Lots and lots of people admire it. If only Croydon could have that standard everywhere it would help.

"We have two houses across the road from us that were destroyed by the riots and they haven’t been touched since then.

"Nobody has got any riot money for what reason we don’t know. These building need to be sorted out as they are in a terrible state. "You don’t want to come to Croydon to see these buildings all burned, you want the place sharpened up with somebody to take some action on it but there is always somebody passing the buck."