More people in Croydon South have signed the Parliamentary petition opposing Mayor Jason Perry’s 15per cent Council Tax hike than any other constituency in the borough.

That’s according to official figures on the parliament.uk website.

By noon today the petition, which was published only yesterday, was already halfway towards reaching the 10,000 signature threshold which will force the Conservative government to provide a formal response to those who oppose the imposition of the 15per cent Council Tax increase.

The parliament.uk website has a nifty map tool where the public can check out which areas have the most signatures. Every parliamentary constituency in the country is checked and colour-coded.

By noon today, from a total then of 4,687 signatures,

1,485

of them were from Croydon South.

Croydon South’s MP is the Conservative junior minister, Chris Philp, who retained his seat in 2019 with a 12,000 majority. In last May’s local elections, all 10 of the constituency’s 10 wards returned a least one Conservative councillor.

Croydon South is also the area which offered strongest support in 2019 and 2020 for calling a borough-wide referendum to decide on whether or not Croydon should be run by an elected Mayor.

At noon today, in Croydon Central, a Tory-Labour marginal seat held since 2017 by Labour’s Sarah Jones,

1,321

had signed the petition.

In Croydon North, the Labour stronghold of Progress MP Steve Reed OBE

850

had signed the parliamentary petition.

It is, of course, early days for this petition, and the numbers are not yet significant.

But then Tory Jason Perry was elected Mayor of Croydon last May with a majority of fewer than 600…

The Parliamentary petition has already attracted support from across the country, including signatories in Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross, the most northerly constituency on mainland Britain, all the way down to Truro and Falmouth in Cornwall.

The Parliamentary petition had to be worded differently from the people’s petition launched by Inside Croydon last week, as the House of Commons cannot accept any petition which identifies another organisation or body.

So we were not allowed to highlight Croydon’s 15per cent Council Tax hike without a borough-wide referendum, nor the 10per cent increases which the Conservative government has agreed can be imposed on the people of Slough and Thurrock, two other financially crippled councils.

The Parliamentary petition states:

No local authority should be able to increase Council Tax by more than 5per cent without a referendum. The Government should instead renegotiate its settlements with local authorities in England to find a way to resolve the exceptional financial difficulties that many councils find themselves in.

The public should not have to pay for a financial crisis which is not their fault through Council Tax increases above the 5per cent cap, unless these are approved through a public referendum.

Many people will be placed in dire financial circumstances during the cost of living crisis if their local authorities are allowed to raise Council Tax by more than 5per cent.

• Click here to sign the the petition to Parliament
• If you haven’t done so already, click here to sign up to our separate petition to Croydon Council

Read more: Mayor to let people’s petition be presented before budget
Read more: Perry to preside over record-breaking 15% Council Tax hike
Read more: Public’s furious reaction to Perry’s Premium Council Tax hike

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