Jason Perry, cash-strapped Croydon’s £84,000 per year Mayor who was elected last year on a manifesto promise that he would “fix the finances”, now reckons it could take him until 2034 to get the job done.
Plate-spinner: £84,000 per year Mayor Jason Perry
And part-time Perry feels that he is entitled to a second term in office because the council he took over in May 2022 is in such a mess.
Tory Perry was speaking to a sparsely attended Mayor’s Question Time in Upper Norwood on Wednesday evening, where he let slip that Croydon was in such a bad state that he actually needs three terms of office.
Perry said things have got so bad that many people don’t admit to outsiders that they live in Croydon, saying instead that they reside in “a neighbouring town or in the south of the borough, in Surrey”.
It is widely thought that, with his Conservative Party mired in scandal and disrepute, Perry never seriously thought he would actually win last year’s mayoral election. That’s why he had himself on the ballot paper in South Croydon ward to continue as a councillor. But the backlash against Labour for crashing the council’s finances saw Perry sneak across the line, albeit by fewer than 600 votes.
Since being elected, piss-poor Perry has issued a Section 114 notice of his own, conceding that he would be unable to balance the council budget for this financial year, and hiked Council Tax by an inflation-busting 15%.
This week, in an unusual confession about how dire things are and how he is struggling to run the council, Perry admitted that he would now be breaking a key election pledge, “You can’t turn Croydon around in one term. You probably need three terms,” he said.
“We are at a very low ebb. We are just busy spinning plates to keep up.
“But there is a vision, a shared vision. I hope that I can prove there is progress and win a second term.”
In the same week that Croydon charities were shocked to find their bankrupt council landlord selling their properties, Perry said, “I do not like having to sell buildings that might help the community in the future.”
He did, though, give an undertaking that the White House in nearby Norwood Grove would not be sold but that “there is a need to sort out the stables and get better use of the house”.
He said that Croydon’s bus passengers could look forward to bus shelters being back in place next winter, with procurement for replacements about to start. The borough’s streets have been without council-provided shelters for almost three years.
Perry reported that a small number of new shelters will come sooner from Transport for London, which has responsibility for infrastructure on major roads, likely including outside Fairfield Halls, a location which the Mayor described as a very wet and windy place.
On other local matters, Mayor Perry felt it “very important” that Croydon’s political parties exhibit good governance, that work will be required with TfL when the Brighton Road cycle lanes consultation results come back in two weeks, and that he hopes for lower central Croydon parking charges.
Read more: Tory Mayor Perry admits: ‘Essentially, we’re insolvent’. Again
Read more: Town Hall staff braced for £31m more cuts and job losses
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ROTTEN BOROUGH AWARDS: Croydon was named among the country’s rottenest boroughs for a SIXTH successive year in 2022 in the annual round-up of civic cock-ups in Private Eye magazine
We need Perry times three to sort out the financial mess. Perry times one has made no progress other than putting residents deeper in the mire with his token fifteen per cent increase to buy the favour of Gove in Central Government rather than making any real progress in making Croydon solvent.
His future budgetary plans are for no increase in his election year budget. His Tory friends will be long gone in Central Govt. by this time, but the real solution to Croydon and Local Govt.’s financial issues may be at hand with a Govt. that has a practical attitude to Public Finance.
Since it will be facing a whole sector in crisis and requiring recapitalisation due to the madness of year on year reductions in local Govt. funding for over a decade.
Remember he isn’t even in charge of Council finances anymore with Commissioners in place to run the Council.
His most useful contribution to Croydon would be to step down and stop Council tax payers having to fund his completely superfluous role. We do not need two ceremonial Mayors.
He will ‘earn’ nearly one million pounds over 3 terms, a useful saving if not really needed.
Three more terms? Is he having a laugh?? Hopefully he’ll be in the dustbin at the end of this term, the useless spare part that he is.
Didn’t think he’d win, and wants 3 terms? They call him Croydon Trump.
We should applaud the candour and transparency. Mayor Perry is telling us “the way it is”. I certainly do not want to go back to the days (just a few years ago) when we heard nothing whilst the administration shuffled deck chairs.
The previous administration created an almighty financial mess through incompetence of the worst degree (how nobody was ever received criminal charges I do not understand).
Wake up and smell the coffee – That monumental financial mess was created over several terms, and It is not surprising that it will take several terms to clear it up.
Last time we checked, Geoff, there was no criminal offence of “incompetence”. Otherwise the prisons would be overflowing (oh… they already are).
Truth is that it was more than mere bungling that got Croydon in the mess it is in, and Perry was involved at the very beginning of its descent into crisis with CCURV and Westfield. It was Perry who appointed Negrini to her first job at Croydon.
But this “candour” has all the hallmarks of a door-to-door salesman who, when you’ve discovered he’s knocking out dodgy goods, does a runner with your cash. Or in Perry’s case, your votes, and the votes of all those other residents’ associations who believed his promise to “fix the finances”.
It’s the candour of someone who is admitting they lied to you. Don’t think that’s something that is worthy of even a one-handed round of applause.
Candour? He took out an insurance policy in standing as a local councillor in case he lost and wasted more valuable council resources in having another by-election for his safe seat. By the way was there any candid confirmation that he repaid the costs of this by-election as he claimed he was going to do or is repayment by instalments over his three terms?
To avoid any accusations against this website of being “vexatious”, and using that as an excuse to block FoI requests, I would suggest, Mr Thrower, that you ought to put a question regarding the refunding of the cost of the unnecessary ward by-election to the council, using the WhatDoTheyKnow website tool.
Wow… they tried to Section 14 you? Would never have happened in my day!
Not sure if Inside Croydon comments accept outside links, but this seems appropriate: https://images.fineartamerica.com/images-medium-large-5/he-tells-it-like-it-is-paul-not.jpg
We don’t.
But for this, we’ll make an exception
Working from the back,
Wake up and smell the coffee.
This Monumental mess was created by Cameron and Clegg with Pickles changes to local Government and its loan shark sytle of loans instead. Fisher and Perry availed of that (1bn as did Newman (1.bn).It took from 2011 – 2018 to realise that loss – less than two terms. The next 5 years (1 term) has been to try to stem the debt whilst servicing horrendous interest payments at a time of a cost of living crisis.
All this was visible by 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022 and today. I did not see any candour or transparancy from Mr Perry to date on anything. Includin his inaction along with Ms Kerswell on seeking prosecution. However I would not blame them totally also as there are very clear barriers to them doing so that they may not have authority to take such action. More to the point if this was done in a public court a lot more information may have to be disclosed that would be in the public interest, but perhaps not in public servants interests elected and employed.
But hey why look at facts when presumptions fit better
He was in the council for 28 years, what was it he did not see, hear and know? why did not get involved when they previous lot were doing the dirty on Croydon, he worked there, what is there to claps our hands about???????
I can think of one or two types of clap he may be deserving of, One is the slow kind as he leaves office perhaps. Shall we start now?
You are overlooking the fact that the previous Labour administration created the mess. Fairfield Halls renovation, Brick by Brick etc. Were progress reports on these and other projects ever given to councillors and the electorate? Did Inside Croydon have any knowledge of how the projects slipped out of the Council’s grasp? God help us if we get a Labour government at the next General Election. Time to emigrate I think!
Cheerio, Derek. Where you off to, the Orkneys, along with Lager Lee Anderson?
Sorry, did you miss the Fisher Tory administration’s debt of £0.8bn when they left office and Newman took over?
Did you miss Cameron’s changes via Pickles in Local Government funding?
Were you on holiday when Trussonomics happened?
And you want more of that?
Frankly even the Monster Raving Looney Party would be better than that! And that’s probably disparaging the Monster Raving Looney Party. My apologies.
It is a rarely remembered fact that shortly after the Conservatives came to power in 2010, Croydon’s very own candidate for the Monster Raving Looney Party gave up, packed up and… joined the Croydon Tories.
I’m reminded of the saying
“stupid people don’t know they are stupid, because, if they did, they wouldn’t be stupid.”
In Perry’s case substitute an appropriate word or phrase of your choice.
Everyone knows there isn’t a crime of incompetence, but there are plenty of crimes that come under the Misconduct In Public Office heading and I’m pretty sure your loyal reader was thinking of them. And, I suspect, you thought that too!
What does that say about all those who voted for stupid – twice or more times and expected a different outcome?
Ten years to fix this mess? Well, he’d better fucking hurry up, because he’s out at the next election. Back to selling plastic guttering…..