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Perry’s back-pedalling furiously on Boris-backed bike scheme

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Croydon Mayor’s long-term opposition to safe cycling infrastructure could yet lead to a scheme along Brighton Road causing someone serious injury, maybe worse, as the council fails to act on a potential death trap.
By JEREMY CLACKSON, transport correspondent

Death trap: the junction at Riddlesdown Road which has been the site of several ‘near-misses’

The evidence continues to mount that there is a co-ordinated campaign from the pro-motorist, anti-cycling Croydon Mayor to try to ensure that the Brighton Road “cycle corridor” fails and is ultimately scrapped.

Last month, we reported on the fiasco where council contractors installed “wands” to properly mark out the new cycle lane on the main road from Purley into the town centre, only to take them out again 24 hours later.

Removing the wands and leaving the defender bases not only imperils cyclists, taking away a visible barrier between them and motor traffic, but it also leaves cars, vans and motor-bikes more likely to collide with the bases.

However, suggestions that the removed wands have been sliced in two lengthways in order to be sold as guttering by a well-known plastics building supplies retailer have proved to be without foundation.

Pro-car: Mayor Jason Perry

Last November’s annual meeting of the Croham Valley Residents’ Association was attended by Mayor Jason Perry and South Croydon councillors Maria Gatland and Danielle Denton. It was noted that “the cycle lane on the Brighton Road has [sic] harming local businesses” The claim was presented without a shred of evidence.

The meeting notes say that “Jason and Maria agreed and said it would be looked at”.

Gatland had already put the boot in to the original ambitious design for the cycle route, resulting in it being interrupted by legal parking spaces, making it harder and more dangerous to use if you choose two-wheels instead of four.

This month’s Hartley and District Residents’ Association email newsletter blames Labour for the “Brighton Road Corridor”, adding “the councillors in Purley and South Croydon have made representations to council officers based on residents and businesses in the area. Highways have changed some aspects of the design.

“There is a six-month consultation on the scheme, so I would urge you comment.” It seems clear that someone is nudging the residents’ associations who helped to get Perry elected to weigh-in on the matter of the Brighton cycle corridor, just as Croydon Council’s own website repeatedly encourages the public to file objections to the borough’s own school street schemes.

From the party that “must be the party of the motorist” (according to Jacob Rees-Mogg and the far-right petrol heads on GBNews), Perry has adopted some of the Tories’ anti-ULEZ rhetoric in order to undermine safer cycling and safer walking scheme which his own council has been implementing.

On your bike: the Brighton Road cycle lane was part of an initiative from Boris Johnson’s Government

In January, Perry told a packed (with six Conservatives) Zoom meeting, “If we truly believe in Low Traffic Neighbourhoods, if we truly believe that walking and cycling is the way forward and the way that we create a more healthy environment, the way we do that is not by fining our residents.

“Any future schemes coming forward should not be based on fining residents in order to achieve it.”

There are no fines are being levied to “create a more healthy environment” on the Brighton Road, though. Not even if you park your car illegally. Enforcement of the law, or the lack of it, remains an issue for the council under Perry, just as it was under Tony Newman.

And at the full council meeting last month,  Councillor Ria Patel asked Mayor Perry about tackling air pollution. Perry talked about “modal shift”, but he did not mention a word about walking and cycling in his carefully drafted response.

The political hypocrisy involved in all this is that the Brighton Road cycle corridor has been designed, laid out and paid for under a scheme with the explicit and overt support of none other than Boris Johnson.

In July 2021, when he was Prime Minister, Johnson threw down a challenge when eulogising about cycling as a mode of transport in his foreword to the government publication, Gear Change – One Year On.

“I support councils, of all parties, which are trying to promote cycling and bus use. And if you are going to oppose these schemes, you must tell us what your alternative is, because trying to squeeze more cars and delivery vans on the same roads and hoping for the best is not going to work.”

Two Prime Ministers later, Perry and his pro-car lobby mates must be hoping that this message has been forgotten. But the question remains, what is Mayor Perry’s alternative?

Shocked: how one Croydon councillor reacted when she saw the Cyclegaz video

Worryingly for those people who choose to cycle rather than clog the A235 with air-polluting, climate-changing cars on their way to or from the shopping sheds on the Purley Way, a supposed cycling improvement might just claim someone’s life.

One active Croydon cyclist known on Twitter as “CycleGaz” shared a shocking video today of what could have been a fatal collision between him and the driver of a van who overtook then cut across him while he was cycling south, near the Purley Oaks council recycling depot.

The only action the police took was to send the driver on an awareness course, although we understand that his employer sacked him once knowledge of his recklessness became widespread.

But this is not the only “near miss” recorded on video by CycleGaz at that location.

Somebody else was so concerned that they emailed the council to ask for action to be taken following two incidents while cycling at the same location, where his life was put in danger. That was on March 1 this year – six weeks ago. He had an acknowledgement saying that his concerns would be relayed to the highways team, but has heard nothing since.

Will it really take the death of a cyclist for Croydon Mayor Jason Perry to take action? Or is the Mayor committed to undermining all efforts to make the borough a safer and easier place to go by foot or by bike?

Read more: Has the Mayor ordered the cyclists’ magic wands to disappear?
Read more: Council’s ‘new’ cycle corridor to Purley doesn’t go far enough


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