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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