Coulsdon flats, women boxing, tram troubles – and Council Tax

Posted on March 3, 2026 by insidecroydon

The latest episode of our Croydon Insider podcast takes a deep delve into the news behind the headlines, as the borough’s residents face another above-inflation increase to their Council Tax, just as Mayor Jason Perry awards himself and senior council staff massive pay rises.

It’s our 40th episode – and as they say, strife begins at 40…

The Croydon Insider is exclusive, premium content for our paying subscribers, and in this episode our panel of readers also discuss tram closures and the impact on New Addington, and the scandal of the £22million missed payment for three council-built blocks at Red Clover Gardens, as the curse of Brick by Brick strikes again. Continue reading →

Posted in 2026 council elections, 2026 Croydon Mayor election, Council Tax, Croydon Council, Croydon Insider, Gianella A Basile, Inside Croydon, Johnny Dobbyn, Under The Flyover | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

LibDems rocked by councillor attack on Sutton leader Lewis

Posted on March 3, 2026 by insidecroydon

INSIDE SUTTON: With local elections just weeks away, the ruling group on the council has been shocked by a devastating resignation statement, including allegations of racism, ‘deception, deceit and duplicitous behaviour’. Our Civic Centre correspondent, ROSE HILL, reports

Broadside: Wrythe councillor Patrick Ogbonna did not pull any punches in his resignation email

In an astonishing email sent to Sutton’s 54 other councillors, Patrick Ogbonna, the Liberal Democrat member for The Wrythe, this morning announced that he has resigned from the party.

Ogbonna launched a broadside at Barry “Basher” Lewis, just hours after the council leader had steered through the council’s 2026-2027 budget at Monday night’s Council Tax-setting meeting (up by the maximum allowed, 4.99%), and with the local elections now just 65 days away.

Describing Lewis as the “so-called ‘leader’,” Ogbonna detailed a litany of misgivings with the LibDems who, he says, “set ‘leafleting targets’ without consultation or regard for individual circumstances”.

Ogbonna had been placed on a “reserve” list of candidates for the elections in May – effectively sacked. Continue reading →

Posted in 2026 council elections, Barry Lewis, David Campanale, Jayne McCoy, Luke Taylor MP, Nick Mattey, Ruth Dombey, Sutton and Cheam, Sutton Council, Tom Drummond | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

The full text of Cllr Patrick Ogbonna’s resignation email

Posted on March 3, 2026 by insidecroydon

INSIDE SUTTON: Here’s the full text of Patrick Ogbonna’s email to all councillors, sent this morning, with ‘BREAKING NEWS: Standing Down… but Rising Up!’ in the subject field

Morning, members.

On the beat: residents in his ward have said that Patrick Ogbonna, right, took his duties seriously

Re: the above, I recently met with the so called “Leader” (whom I never voted for, by the way) of Sutton Council to discuss my leafleting and canvassing ratio. At the meeting I was informed I was “the worst performing candidate in the history of the Lib Dems”.

I have been called worse, but let’s put that aside. I informed Barry that as a working father and primary carer to my five-year-old daughter, family was and always will remain my priority – unlike some in the group who are unencumbered with young children and juggling childcare and work.

Mr Lewis was informed that in any open organisation people should not be treated as a homogenous mass. They set “leafleting targets” without consultation or regard for individual circumstances.

Mr Lewis told me I would be placed on a “reserve list” of candidates so they could appoint someone more prolific in leafleting who has nothing else to do. I told him to stick it.

I know my worth – my parents didn’t raise no fool. Continue reading →

Posted in 2026 council elections, Barry Lewis, Sutton Council | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

All-star concert at Palladium to raise funds for the BRIT School

Posted on March 3, 2026 by insidecroydon

The BRIT School, the country’s leading performing and creative arts state school, has entered into a partnership for The Other Songs Live, being staged at one of the world’s most famous theatres, The London Palladium, on Tuesday, May 19.

Tickets for this festival of songwriting go on sale this Friday, March 6.

The Other Songs Live spotlights a selection of the brightest songwriters and composers, offering the audience an exclusive opportunity to delve into the origins of the song with an evening packed full of performances and stories.

As well as highlighting the talent of both emerging and established songwriters, The Other Songs’ previous events have raised more than £180,000 for music charities.

The Other Songs is an independent music and entertainment company, founded in 2018 by brothers Alastair and Billy Webber.

This year, for the first time, The Other Songs will be raising funds exclusively for The BRIT School, as part of their pledge to support arts education which has been devastated by funding cuts under successive governments. Continue reading →

Posted in Art, BRIT School, Dance, Education, Music | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Two dead after fire in derelict house on Duppas Hill Terrace

Posted on March 3, 2026 by insidecroydon

On-going investigation: police were on site at Duppas Hill Terrace for much of last week following the fire, where two young men were killed

A second man has died following a fire in a derelict house on Duppas Hill Terrace last week.

Police now say that they are treating the fire as non-suspicious, despite the two fatalities and having had detectives on site in Waddon for much of the past week. The cause of the fire remains under investigation by the London Fire Brigade. Continue reading →

Posted in London Fire Brigade, Waddon | Tagged , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Smoke at dusk: Brigade health warning over Imperial Way fire

Posted on March 3, 2026 by insidecroydon

Sunset blaze: smoke billowed over Purley Way Playing Fields yesterday evening from the blaze at a disused building on Imperial Way. Photo: Charlotte Parsonson

Water tower: the Brigade used two 32-metre-tall tower ladders to tackle the blaze

Tall turntable ladders and drones were deployed by emergency crews from the London Fire Brigade yesterday evening to tackle a blaze at a disused building on Imperial Way, as residents were advised to keep their windows and doors closed overnight against the smoke which billowed out across the A23 Purley Way and towards South Croydon.

There were no reports of any injuries from the fire, which was first reported at 4.26pm and was brought under control just before 10pm.

Ten fire engines and around 70 firefighters from Croydon, Purley, Wallington, Norbury and Mitcham fire stations attended the scene, at a derelict two-storey building. Continue reading →

Posted in London Fire Brigade, Purley Way, South Croydon | Tagged , , , , , | 1 Comment

It was a bad deal for Croydon. Why did they allow it to happen?

Posted on March 2, 2026 by insidecroydon

CROYDON COMMENTARY: With Tory Mayor Jason Perry using £½million of public money as a hush fund, RICHARD HOWARD, pictured right, the LibDem mayoral candidate, lays out all the obvious flaws with the council’s Red Clover Gardens scheme

Two years ago, I wrote of Croydon Council’s sale of the residential blocks at Red Clover Gardens in Coulsdon: “Does [Jason] Cummings [the council cabinet member for finance] think that Regen are waiving their payments for two years out of the kindness of their hearts? Of course, they know the council is desperate and the Tories are eager to get this to the other side of the 2026 elections. It is Croydon’s Council Tax-payers who get shafted in the end.”

Money-spinners: someone is making a load of money out these Brick by Brick flats. Just not the people of Croydon

With the council now forced to admit that they have not been paid £22million in settlement of their opaque arrangement with Regen Capital and its subsidiary, Regen Coulsdon, my prediction has, sadly, become reality. Croydon residents have been shafted again, and this time with Mayor Jason Perry paying Regen £500,000 hush money – more, even, than Tony Newman gave as a pay-off to Jo Negrini after she did so much to crash the council’s finances.

The curse of Brick by Brick has struck again.

What now needs to happen with Red Clover Gardens goes far beyond tidying up a failed transaction. It requires clarity and transparency about political judgement, governance standards, financial stewardship and above all, candour with Croydon’s residents.

It is why I have called for an independent investigation into the whole deal. Continue reading →

Posted in 2026 council elections, 2026 Croydon Mayor election, Brick by Brick, Business, Commissioners, Conrad Hall, Coulsdon, Coulsdon East, Coulsdon Town, Croydon Council, East Coulsdon Residents' Association, Housing, Ian Parker, Jane West, Jason Cummings, Mayor Jason Perry, Richard Howard, RIPI II: Fairfield Halls, The Penn Report, Tony McArdle | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

Mayor candidates call for investigation into Red Clover Gardens

Posted on March 2, 2026 by insidecroydon

LibDems and Greens say that only a thorough, deep dive into the council’s accounts and records conducted by an outside body – such as HM Revenue and Customs – can get to the bottom of the latest multi-million-pound financial scandal at Croydon Council. By STEVEN DOWNES

Block heads: Croydon’s Tory-run council looks to have lost millions of pounds in its handling of Red Clover Gardens

Two of Jason Perry’s election rivals have made calls for a full investigation into the possibility of fraud around the collapsed property deal at Red Clover Gardens in Coulsdon which has left the council £22million out of pocket.

On Saturday, Inside Croydon revealed how the suspiciously complicated and opaque sale-and-leaseback deal with Essex-based Regen Capital had collapsed.

Using confidential council reports, we also reported how Tory Mayor Perry used public money to repossess three of the residential blocks, while gagging the company with a hush fund of £500,000 – more than Labour’s Tony Newman handed Jo Negrini when she quit the crisis-hit council in 2020. Continue reading →

Posted in Brick by Brick, Business, Coulsdon, Coulsdon East, Coulsdon Town, Croydon Council, East Coulsdon Residents' Association, Housing, Jason Cummings, Mayor Jason Perry, Peter Underwood, Rick Howard | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 4 Comments

Standing ovation for Ukrainian cast of Carmen at Fairfield Halls

Posted on March 2, 2026 by insidecroydon

Slava Ukraini!: the cast, company and the Fairfield Halls audience were on their feet at the curtain call of Friday’s performance of Carmen by Opera International Kyiv

There were knife fights in central Croydon on Friday, but no teenagers were involved. KEN TOWL reviews Ellen Kent’s passionate production of Bizet’s  Carmen by Opera International Kyiv at the Fairfield Halls

Four years after Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, the Fairfield Halls hosted an opera by a Frenchman about a murder in Seville in the south of Spain. These two events were connected by the fact that the cast of this production, and the orchestra, were Ukrainians.

Friday’s performance of Carmen featured Opera International Kyiv delivering popular, familiar arias like “Habanera”, “Seguidilla” and “Toreador”. The Observer has called this production “impassioned and sultry”, and of course it was. It is difficult for Carmen to be anything else. Continue reading →

Posted in Art, Fairfield Halls, Ken Towl, Music | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

David Lean Cinema, March 2026 listings: H Is For Hawk special

Posted on March 2, 2026 by insidecroydon

C O M M U N I T Y
A D V E R T I S E M E N T

Continue reading →

Posted in Advertisement, Advertisement features, Art, Cinema, Community associations, David Lean Cinema Campaign | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Croydon police make new arrest over killing of teen Camron

Posted on March 1, 2026 by insidecroydon

A man has been arrested on suspicion of the murder of 16-year-old Camron Smith, who was brutally killed in front of his mother in their Shrublands home in July 2021.

Murdered: Camron Smith

Six others have already been jailed for their parts in the killing. At the Old Bailey last November for the trial of one of them, the jury was told that a Thornton Heath drugs gang went out “hunting as a pack”, armed with weapons including a zombie knife, ultimately kicking down the door of a house on Bracken Avenue and pursuing the terrified teenager into a bedroom.

The Metropolitan Police said today that a 26-year-old man was arrested in Croydon on Friday and remains in custody.

“This latest arrest demonstrates our commitment to this investigation, almost five years after Camron’s death,” said Detective Chief Inspector Samantha Townsend. Continue reading →

Posted in Crime, Knife crime, Shirley North | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Cycle Carnival saw thousands lining the streets for good cause

Posted on March 1, 2026 by insidecroydon

Motoring into the future: the Ormonde Tri-Car, which ‘will climb any hill with two up’ cost more than a year’s average wages at the turn of the 19th Century

CROYDON CHRONICLES: There was a time when the town’s streets were not such a hostile environment for cyclists as they are today. They even had an annual event to celebrate, and raise large amounts for charity. DAVID MORGAN takes up the story 

Imagine Croydon full of bicycles. A bicycle boom.

Now picture them decorated in all kinds of creative ways, with their riders wearing fancy costumes.

In the 1890s and into the beginning of the 20th Century, one of the most popular events held in Croydon was the annual Cycle Carnival. Spectators turned out in their thousands to see the procession, bringing traffic and trams to a halt,

Newspaper cuttings about the Cycle Carnivals have provided a rich source of information about Croydon life. Family tree researchers have taken great interest in the large number of names of the people who won prizes at the Carnival. Continue reading →

Posted in Cycling, David Morgan, History | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Union demands action over school staff’s term-time only pay

Posted on March 1, 2026 by insidecroydon

Support staff working in schools in Croydon and across the country are losing out on millions of pounds in pay because of unfair, term-time-only contracts, research by the GMB union has found.

Small portions: school catering staff receive no pay for at least eight weeks each year

Teaching assistants, catering staff, caretakers, administration staff and others are only paid 44 weeks a year and they can’t claim benefits during the school holidays. These workers, essential to the smooth running of state schools, are usually among the lowest paid staff.

School teachers are paid a salary for the entire year.

Other council workers – who negotiate for pay alongside school support staff as part of the National Joint Council agreement – are also paid for the full 12 months of the year. Continue reading →

Posted in Business, Schools | Tagged , , , , | 1 Comment

Three subscribers win tickets for Mozart Players’ concert

Posted on March 1, 2026 by insidecroydon

Hard luck if you didn’t win our competition – but tickets for the March 8 St John Passion concert are available – and Inside Croydon readers get a 10% discount. Scroll down for more details

Congratulations to Inside Croydon subscribers Adrian Ham, Sue Eardley and Moira O’Donnell, who have each won two tickets for the Fairfield Halls next Sunday, where the London Mozart Players will be performing JS Bach’s St John Passion.

Sunday March 8 will be the London Mozart Players‘ first concert at the Fairfield Halls of 2026.

Our three clever readers all knew the answer to our question – what is the other surviving Passion by Bach?

Correct answer: St Matthew Passion.

And their prizes are a pair of tickets each, each ticket costing £43.50, for next Sunday’s prestigious concert.

Prize competitions such as this are one of the benefits of supporting Inside Croydon’s independent local journalism.

And our winners are in for a rare treat: “St John Passion connects with our sense of universal humanity through music which is full of heartbreak, beauty and reflection,” the London Mozart Players say. Continue reading →

Posted in Activities, Art, Fairfield Halls, Inside Croydon, London Mozart Players, Music | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Police use stop-and-search powers to counter ‘Croydon Wars’

Posted on February 28, 2026 by insidecroydon

There were no arrests across London yesterday, as the threatened youth violence prompted by social media messaging failed to materialise. Now  some suggest the ‘Red v Blue’ messages are all a hoax

Increased police presence: by 5pm yesterday, officers were being stood down from their patrols around the town centre. Pic: Gianella A Basile

A large police presence in Croydon town centre yesterday afternoon eventually saw officers stood down without there being any outbreak of the “Croydon Wars” fights between school groups, which had been promoted via TikTok, Instagram, Snapchat and WhatsApp.

“Police were not called to any incidents relating to this matter yesterday – in Croydon or elsewhere,” a Metropolitan Police spokesperson told Inside Croydon.

“No incidents and therefore no arrests.”

Police, schools and community groups had been put on alert after social media messages encouraged pupils as young as 11 to turn up at certain locations and times and to “Be violent”, and to video their clashes with rival school groups.

The messages divided schools into two groups, the “Reds” and the “Blues”, and showed men in red and blue balaclavas, as worn by the Los Angeles street gangs the Bloods and Crips.

Some of the messaging told children to carry weapons, including fireworks and “bladez”. Continue reading →

Posted in Business, Centrale, Coloma, Coombe Wood School, Crime, Harris Academy Beulah Hill, Harris Academy South Norwood, London-wide issues, Norbury Manor, Oasis Academy, Orchard Park High, Policing, Schools, Whitgift Centre | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Perry agrees to pay £½m to reclaim flats at Red Clover Gardens

Posted on February 28, 2026 by insidecroydon

Inside Croydon has obtained a top-secret, ‘Part B’ council report providing key financial details on the collapsed property deal for Red Clover Gardens  – all because someone at Croydon’s cash-strapped and incompetent council posted it on their own website
EXCLUSIVE by STEVEN DOWNES

Croydon Council has been forced to pay half-a-million pounds of “hush money” to a property firm just to be able to repossess three blocks of flats in Coulsdon after the buyers failed to come up with the promised £22million to complete the deal.

That’s according to a confidential “Part B” agenda report, which Inside Croydon has obtained because Croydon’s incompetent council published it on their own website, despite its supposedly “secret” status.

The report clarifies the amount that the council has been stiffed for over blocks B, D and E at Red Clover Gardens: £22million. That’s £2million more than was included in previous council reports published before Christmas.

Inside Croydon has today revealed the collapsed property deal with Regen Capital for Red Clover Gardens, which Conservative Mayor Jason Perry has been trying to cover up for the past year.

It was Perry who, in 2023, pushed through the dodgy-looking sale and lease-back arrangements for three of the five “architect-designed” blocks of flats built on the Lion Green Road car park in Coulsdon. Continue reading →

Posted in Brick by Brick, Business, Coulsdon, Coulsdon East, Coulsdon Town, Croydon Council, East Coulsdon Residents' Association, Housing, Jason Cummings, Mayor Jason Perry | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 5 Comments

Tory council loses £20m over Coulsdon collapsed property deal

Posted on February 28, 2026 by insidecroydon

Flats out: nearly four years after the blocks built on the site of the Lion Green Road car park in Coulsdon were completed, Tory Mayor Perry’s council is nursing a £20m hole in its accounts from a property deal gone badly wrong

It is almost three years since this website warned that a ‘complicated, opaque lease-back arrangement’ conducted with a property firm with no real track record, for the disposal of blocks of flats at Red Clover Gardens, all looked just a bit iffy.
Guess what happened next…?
EXCLUSIVE by STEVEN DOWNES

In the week that the council needed a £119million bail-out to balance its latest budget, Inside Croydon has uncovered a £20million hole in the council’s finances, caused by the collapse of a property deal over one of Brick by Brick’s final developments.

Three years ago, Conservative Mayor Jason Perry pushed through a dodgy-looking sale and lease-back deal for three of the five “architect-designed” blocks of flats at Red Clover Gardens, built on the Lion Green Road car park in Coulsdon.

Taken together, the 157 flats were reckoned to have a market value approaching £50million. Mayor Perry’s crack negotiators at the council only managed to get a sale price of £38million, in a convoluted deal with Regen Capital, a little-known company that some suggested did not have the financial clout to undertake such a deal. Continue reading →

Posted in Brick by Brick, Business, Coulsdon, Coulsdon East, Coulsdon Town, Croydon Council, East Coulsdon Residents' Association, Housing, Jason Cummings, Mayor Jason Perry, Mears, Stuart King | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 4 Comments

Labour councillor finally apologises over vile online slurs

Posted on February 27, 2026 by insidecroydon

INSIDE SUTTON: The long adios of Sheldon Vestey, the Valencia-based councillor for… checks notes … Hackbridge, has seen him once again hauled before a council disciplinary panel – albeit via video link – after an investigation that has cost the council £14,000. CARL SHILTON reports

Bib and tucker: Labour’s Sheldon Vestey waged a two-year harassment campaign

Señor Sheldon Vestey, the Labour councillor for Hackbridge who has lived in southern Spain for more than a year, has finally complied with instructions from a Sutton Council panel and issued an admission of misconduct and an apology, albeit grudgingly.

The councillor on the Costas waged a two-year harassment campaign against another member of Sutton Council, which included allegations of paedophilia, illegal pornography, racism, sexual predation and incitement to murder. None of Vestey’s vile allegations were ever substantiated.

As a consequence, Vestey was subject of formal complaints which led to a hearing before the council’s code of conduct panel in July last year. The panel upheld three complaints against the leader of the two-member Labour group in Sutton, and ordered Vestey to issue an apology to Conservative councillor Steve Alvarez, the target of his campaign, as well as to Sutton’s other councillors who Vestey had emailed. Vestey was also to undergo a training course. Continue reading →

Posted in Helen Bailey, Sadiq Khan, Sheldon Vestey, Steve Alvarez, Sutton Council | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Starmer shocker: could Gorton and Denton happen here?

Posted on February 27, 2026 by insidecroydon

Polanski’s pooches: the Green Party leader with Hannah Spencer and her hounds in Gorton and Denton. The result there could be seen by disaffected Labour voters as providing a realistic alternative to Starmer’s authoritarianism

Our resident psephologist, WALTER CRONXITE, crunches the numbers after a disastrous by-election result at Gorton and Denton for the Labour Prime Minister, with local elections across London, including in Croydon, just 70 days away

The Green Party’s historic parliamentary by-election victory in Greater Manchester yesterday could utterly transform how local elections across London play out on May 7, especially in Croydon, and if repeated at scale might even force Keir Starmer out of No10 Downing Street.

Plumber and greyhound owner Hannah Spencer was declared the winner of the Gorton and Denton by-election in the small hours of this morning, becoming the Green Party’s fifth MP with 40.7% of the vote, relegating Starmer’s Labour into third place in a seat which they had won as recently as July 2024 with a 50% vote share. Continue reading →

Posted in 2026 council elections, 2026 Croydon Mayor election, Croydon East, Croydon West, Natasha Irons, Rowenna Davis, Sarah Jones MP, Steve Reed MP, Streatham and Croydon North | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 17 Comments

David Lean Cinema, March 2026 listings: H Is For Hawk special

Posted on February 27, 2026 by insidecroydon

C O M M U N I T Y
A D V E R T I S E M E N T

Continue reading →

Posted in Advertisement, Advertisement features, Art, Cinema, Community associations, David Lean Cinema Campaign | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Perry has stabilised council finances in state of perpetual crisis

Posted on February 26, 2026 by insidecroydon

Poor value for money: Croydon’s £87,000 per year lame duck Mayor, Jason Perry, at last night’s council budget meeting maintained that he has Croydon ‘on track’. Few believe him

TV and radio politics pundit ANDREW FISHER, right, sat through three hours of false claims and spin at the Town Hall last night, as Croydon’s £87,000 per year lame duck Mayor still says he has done a decent job

“I have stabilised the finances of this council,” Mayor Jason Perry delusionally claimed at Croydon Council’s budget meeting last night. According to Perry, the finances are “back on a stable footing”.

Perry resisted the urge to echo the “strong and stable” slogan of Theresa May, but there was something reminiscent in the way that, the more the Mayor made claims of stability, the less plausible it seemed. Continue reading →

Posted in 2026 council elections, 2026 Croydon Mayor election, Andrew Fisher, Commissioners, Council Tax, Croydon Council, Housing, London-wide issues, Mayor Jason Perry, SEND | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 9 Comments

‘Normal service’ on Windrush despite safety workers’ strike

Posted on February 26, 2026 by insidecroydon

Transport for London says it is operating a “normal timetable” on the Windrush line today, despite a one-day strike by staff providing maintenance for signalling, communications and other essential safety features.

‘Normal service’: TfL says the Windrush line is operating today, despite an RMT strike

The Overground line from West Croydon and Norwood Junction that serves Crystal Palace, New Cross, and north into east London, has been hit by industrial action by members of the RMT rail workers’ union employed by outsourcing firm Cleshar CS Ltd.

Cleshar provides track, signalling and telecoms maintenance on the Overground between Dalston Junction and New Cross Gate. Continue reading →

Posted in Commuting, Norwood Junction, TfL, Transport, West Croydon | Tagged , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Croydon has worst fly-tipping record in whole of England

Posted on February 25, 2026 by insidecroydon

There was an average of more than 1,000 fly-tips reported every week around the borough last year, according to official figures published today – at a time when the council had no enforcement staff

Croydon has the worst record in the country for fly-tipping. That’s official, from data published today by DEFRA, the environment department.

Rubbish contractors: lack of enforcement since 2023 and poor performance by contractors Veolia leave Croydon streets strewn with rubbish

The announcement is appalling timing for Croydon’s Conservative Mayor Jason Perry, the man that handed a £40million contract to rubbish contractors Veolia two years after sacking them for poor service.

Tonight, Mayor Perry is expected to trot out his “back on track” schtick, before raising Croydon’s Council Tax and awarding himself a tidy pay rise.

According to DEFRA, on Perry’s watch, Croydon had 53,268 fly-tips in 2024-2025. That works out as more than 1,000 fly-tips every week reported around the borough.

The government figures relate to rubbish illegally dumped on public land.

Seven of the worst 10 fly-tip hotspots are London borough councils.

But Croydon’s fly-tipping tally dwarfs even the next worst-affected borough, Camden, where over the same period there were 36,216 cases. Continue reading →

Posted in Community associations, Croydon Council, Fly tipping, London-wide issues, Mayor Jason Perry, Norbury, Refuse collection, Veolia | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | 11 Comments

£84,000 per year Tory Mayor approves his own pay rise

Posted on February 25, 2026 by insidecroydon

EXCLUSIVE: It’s trebles all-round for directors at Croydon’s cash-strapped council, as there’s a second generous pay rise in 12 months for council chiefs, while allowances paid to councillors are also to rise, and amount to £1.6m per year.
Yet long-suffering Croydon residents will now be paying Council Tax bills of more than £2,000 per year.  By STEVEN DOWNES

Jason Perry, Croydon’s £84,000 per year executive Mayor, will tonight award himself a £2,700 pay rise – less than 48 hours after he was given a warning from Westminster following the latest multi-million-pound bail-out for his basketcase, cash-strapped council.

In the red: Jason Perry’s given himself a pay rise. Another one

For the avoidance of any doubt, Katharine Street sources have confirmed that part-time Perry’s pay increase is not performance-related.

Yesterday, Alison McGovern, the local government minister, handed Croydon its latest chunk of “emergency financial support”, this time £119million, just so that Perry and his interim CEO, Elaine Jackson, can make their budget balance.

“Given the support we have agreed to today, it is my clear expectation that your council… will take the action needed to deliver better and more efficient services, as part of your financial recovery,” McGovern wrote in her formal notice to Mayor Perry.

Tonight in the Town Hall Chamber, Perry will preside over the last full council budget meeting of his four-year term in office. Meanwhile, external auditors are poring over the books trying to locate £15million that has gone “missing” from the council’s education budget for SEND families – Special Educational Needs and Disabilities – and at the same time special debt-collection measures are being taken to chase an unpaid £20million for the purchase of Brick by Brick’s final properties.

Yet according to Tory Perry, he’s got Croydon’s finances “back on track”. Continue reading →

Posted in 2026 council elections, 2026 Croydon Mayor election, Commissioners, Council Tax, Croydon Council, Housing, Katherine Kerswell, London-wide issues, Mayor Jason Perry, Section 114 notice, SEND | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

Minister Reed challenged to release his Mandelson messages

Posted on February 25, 2026 by insidecroydon

The former DEFRA minister ignored all calls to nationalise the water industry. Now campaigners want to know why, and whether lobbying firm Global Counsel had any role in the matter

TV shocker: Channel 4’s docu-drama Dirty Business has left millions of people angry over water companies

Steve Reed, the MP for Streatham (and Croydon North, when he can be bothered), who is already up to his neck in the Labour Together scandal that has engulfed the Labour Party in disgrace, is now being dragged back into the swamp of sewage that surrounds the water industry.

Reed has been challenged to release all his private messages and correspondence with Peter Mandelson, the co-founder of a lobbying firm which was working for the water industry when the Croydon MP was the minister in charge of the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. Continue reading →

Posted in Business, Lambeth Council, South West Water, Steve Reed MP, Streatham and Croydon North, Sutton and East Surrey Water, Thames Water | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment