Jon Rouse, the chief executive of Croydon Council, has been forced to call an internal inquiry into the handling of the planning process of a controversial scheme in the south of the borough.

Rouse, who has never been known to have any conflicts of interest, has been forced to go through the motions of instituting a cover-up an internal inquiry (you know the sort – they hold them at News International and Met Police all the time) following a series of complaints and allegations of corruption made by residents in Kenley who have been affected by the flawed planning application to build a hospital across the site of two detached houses on Higher Drive.

In an official email dated July 20 and seen by Inside Croydon, Rouse has written to Higher Drive residents:

In respect of your e-mail, there are now three separate issues in play in terms of correspondence from you and the other residents from Higher Drive. Let me be clear how we are dealing with them:

(i) ongoing matters in respect of the planning status of the development – being dealt with by Mike Kiely as Chief Planning Officer

(ii) complaints about how the Council has managed the process – being dealt with as a formal stage 1 complaint under our complaints process; at stage 1, this will be dealt with by Mike Kiely at the service level; if you are unhappy with his response, this can be escalated to me at stage 2; thereafter, if still unhappy you can go to the Local Government Ombudsman.

(iii) allegation of collusion/corruption – this element of your complaint, set out in detail below, is very serious indeed. I have established an urgent meeting with my key officers to discuss how we will handle these allegations. This will include the Borough Solicitor and the Council’s Anti-Fraud team. Once we have established the process for investigating these allegations, that team will be in direct contact with you to ensure that we have all your available evidence. If there is anything further you wish to send me in the meantime that supports your allegation, please send it to me straight away.

Jon Rouse

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