Croydon’s Conservative Mayor, who has hiked Council Tax by 33% since 2023, still needs another £119m government bail-out to make his council budget balance. By STEVEN DOWNES
Jason Perry, Croydon’s Conservative Mayor, has got his begging bowl out again to government, this time for an extra £119million for the next financial year, just to make his latest busted budget balance.
Perry, who in May is seeking re-election for a second four-year term, will have received £317.3million in Exceptional Financial Support from Westminster since 2023, increasing the cash-strapped borough’s debt burden, but while also increasing residents’ Council Tax by 33% in the same period.
Perry’s 2026-2027 budget proposals, including his latest 5% Council Tax hike, are set to be debated in the Town Hall Chamber on Wednesday night.
Tory Perry has failed to deliver a balanced budget during his entire term, although he has been given a “free pass” and not had to issue any further Section 114 notices – admission of effective bankruptcy – since November 2022.
That S114 led to Perry’s first Council Tax increase, a record 15% in April 2023. Continue reading
CROYDON CHRONICLES: A prize-winner at Croydon School of Art went on to become one of the most sought-after portrait artists in Edwardian London, and taught Evelyn Waugh and the Wizard of Oz’s Scarecrow.
It’s Victorian London, 1869. At the Angel Amphitheatre, four women are preparing for the battle of their lives.
As Tory Mayor Jason Perry prepares to deliver what could very well be his final Town Hall budget, having hiked Council Tax by 33% since 2023 and asked for a total of £250million in “exceptional financial support” for the cash-strapped council, opposition parties are accusing him of “performative political gaslighting”.
Mitchell was 35 when he was killed at a silent disco in Birdhurst Road, South Croydon, in the early hours of October 2, 2021.
