Inside Croydon

CROYDON IN CRISIS: After spending two years in a High Court battle to defend his decision to make six Low Traffic Neighbourhoods permanent, today Croydon’s Mayor tried to claim credit for their forced removal.
By STEVEN DOWNES

End of an error: council contractors were at work on Friday to cover over signage in Croydon’s six unlawful LTNs

Croydon Council will not be appealing against Wednesday’s High Court decision to quash six Low Traffic Neighbourhoods in the borough.

Inside Croydon has learned that legal advice received by Croydon Council on Friday night made it abundantly clear that, thanks to Mayor Jason Perry’s big mouth, they would certainly lose the case again.

It leaves another gaping hole in Perry’s latest budget, which is balanced this financial year only because of another £119million bail-out from government.

The cash-strapped council has so far refused to comment on the matter, or explain how it might fund the many thousands of claims for refunds of £160 fines from Penalty Charge Notices arising from Perry’s money-spinning LTNs that have been ruled “unlawful”.

After almost two years of legal arguments over whether the Judicial Review ought ever to have been heard, Mr Justice Pepperall handed down the decision that the council’s legal orders from 2024, which made six Croydon LTNs permanent, should be quashed. Continue reading →

CROYDON IN CRISIS: Council bosses were either over-confident that they would win the Low Traffic Neighbourhoods case at the High Court, or ‘completely, crassly incompetent’.
EXCLUSIVE by STEVEN DOWNES

Mayor Jason Perry, who has been claiming that he has got Croydon “back on track”, failed to include the possibility of his council losing its legal challenge over Low Traffic Neighbourhoods in the authority’s corporate risk register.

Hypocrisy: Jason Perry, Croydon’s £86,000 per year Mayor, has been caught out once again

And given that the court case was fought over whether the cash-strapped council was issuing £160 Penalty Charge Notices to help plug holes in Perry’s unbalanced budgets, there was no allowance made in the Tory Mayor’s latest budget, passed last week, for the possibility that the LTNs might have to be removed.

According to a Katharine Street source this afternoon, “It is just completely, crassly incompetent.

“How can they have not even considered the possibility that they might lose the case, and the £10million in revcenue from fines that they have budgeted to receive?”

Early estimates put the loss of the road fines revenue – which is supposed to be used only for road repairs and improvements – as costing Croydon Council around £2million this year alone. The council’s own figures, when proposing to make the LTNs permanent in 2024, was that fines would raise £10.7million over a four-year period. Continue reading →

CROYDON IN CRISIS: Following the High Court ruling quashing Croydon’s ‘unlawful’ Low Traffic Neighbourhoods, the shadowy organisation behind the legal case, Open Our Roads, issued the following statement:

Open Our Roads welcomes today’s landmark High Court judgement in Lawrence v London Borough of Croydon, which has quashed all six Low Traffic Neighbourhood Traffic Orders made permanent in March 2024.

The court concluded that Croydon Council acted for an unlawful purpose, finding that the dominant purpose behind making the schemes permanent was to safeguard revenue raised through enforcement rather than to advance statutory aims such as road safety, access and traffic flow. The Road Traffic Regulation Act 1984 is not a revenue‑raising statute.

Today’s judgment confirms that local authorities must act lawfully and for the purposes Parliament intended. Residents deserve transparency and decisions based on evidence, not financial necessity. Continue reading →

CROYDON IN CRISIS: Judge Edward Pepperall has handed down his ruling in the case brought against the borough’s Low Traffic Neighbourhoods and found that comments by Mayor Jason Perry proved that the measures were introduced to make money for the cash-strapped council

Mayor Jason Perry’s big mouth and lack of brains look to have cost cash-strapped Croydon Council tens of millions of pounds.

In a devastating ruling handed down by a High Court judge, Hon Mr Justice Pepperall, Croydon Council has been ordered to remove its six LTNs – Low Traffic Neighbourhoods – which Perry’s council made permanent in 2024.

Big mouth: it was comments made by Jason Perry himself that persuaded the High Court judge to make his ruling to quash Croydon’s LTNs

The judge’s ruling is overtly critical of Jason Perry, and his shifting position and contradictory comments, from the time when he was an opposition councillor, to after he was elected Mayor and opted to keep the schemes and the £10million-plus revenue they were expected to generate.

The council could now face having to refund all the fines it has levied on motorists, going back to when the LTNs, in Addiscombe, Broad Green and South Norwood, were introduced as covid emergency measures in 2020.

The High Court challenge was brought in the name of Karen Lawrence, a member of the Open Our Roads group, who claimed that the council misused their powers under the Road Traffic Regulation Act 1984 in respect of revenue generation. The case was heard at the Royal Courts of Justice on December 4, with the ruling only released yesterday. Continue reading →