When he’s not providing a platform for vandals to celebrate the destruction of ULEZ infrastructure, Croydon’s hypocritical Mayor is accepting help from Transport for London
Waiting in the rain: Croydon Mayor Jason Perry has done nothing to replace the borough’s vanished bus shelters
It’s coming up to three years since Croydon Council had all of its own bus shelters up-rooted, after someone in Fisher’s Folly believed the spiel of a New York con artist who promised millions of pounds in advertising revenue from “smart” bus shelters. Even though the start-up company had never built a bus shelter before, nor ever sold any roadside advertising.
It’s nearly two years since Jason Perry was elected as Croydon Mayor, with restoring the shelters among his many promises. Now he has been reduced to claiming the credit for installing replacement bus shelters by the capital-wide transport authority, Transport for London.
In April 2021, there were 185 council-operated bus shelters in Croydon.
In December 2023, Tory Mayor Perry tried to claim the credit for four new bus shelters.
Yes, that’s right…
4
Only another 181 to go…
Thing is, piss-poor Perry had little or nothing to do with the installation of these four new shelters. They have all been provided by Transport for London.
That’s the same TfL which has recently had so much of its roadside infrastructure damaged, acts of anti-ULEZ vandalism which are celebrated on a private Facebook page where Mayor Perry is an admin and “expert”.
Still going: Perry is admin of an anti-ULEZ page, which endorses vandalism of public property, and is still encouraging criminal damage
Even by his own dim standards, Perry’s been slow on the uptake about Croydon’s vanished bus shelters.
He still claimed until late last year that he was going to get fly-by-night company Valo Smart City to honour their contract and deliver the bus shelters.
It was not until after Inside Croydon reported that the London-registered version of Valo Smart City was being wound-up and had gone out of business (it was hardly ever really in business, as would have been obvious to any reasonable individual) that Perry abandoned this fool-hardy quest.
And while he’s still making claims of trying to get compensation from a non-existent company, nothing has been said about any action against the senior council officials in the Croydon Digital department who championed the Valo deal, having failed to conduct anything resembling competent due diligence.
It is London Mayor Sadiq Khan and TfL who have very kindly provided Croydon with new shelters at Brigstock Road; on London Road, opposite Fairholm Road; Whitehorse Road, opposite Devonshire Road; and on Wellesley Road (“outside of Appolo House”, as the illiterates operating the council’s social media accounts would have it).
Such is the underwhelming nature of the news of a mere four bus shelters after such a long wait that Perry has not had the propaganda department issue any kind of press release about the new shelters.
But they did manage a handful of tweets, in which arch-hypocrite Perry was quoted as having said: “I am delighted to announce that in partnership with TfL, four new bus shelters have just been installed in high-traffic areas of Croydon – with more to come in the new year…
“We are pleased to finally be able to take action on this incredibly frustrating situation, which stems from decisions taken before I took office to allow the removal of all existing bus shelters well in advance of new shelters being delivered.”
Ha! “Before I took office”: Perry’s wasted two years still believing that Valo Smart City might deliver and doing nothing to remedy the situation.
“Council officers have made several attempts with the contractor to deliver, but as it became apparent this was futile, we are now considering all options available – including pursuing damages.”
Piss-poor Perry doesn’t offer any detail how the council pursues damages against a company that no longer exists. There is a serious risk that by acting too late (again), he will squander yet more public money on lawyers who will ultimately return empty-handed. As Inside Croydon reported last year, the council’s “negotiations” included agreeing to a Valo request to cancel one agreement under which they were due to pay Croydon £500,000.
“Getting bus shelters in place is a key priority for me – and while we welcome these new ones, I want to assure residents that this is only the beginning.”
Re-instated: one of the replacement shelters being installed. Four down, 181 to go…
Only 181 to go, eh, Jase?
Croydon is one of only two London boroughs that tries to make some pin money from operating its own bus shelters (the other is Camden), something else it has demonstrated it is incapable of managing effectively, as anyone who has had to wait for a bus at a shelter-less stop these past, rain-soaked weeks will attest.
Residents have long ago lost patience waiting for the council to act, with Perry’s credibility taking another blow.
“All we want was a shelter, no bells and whistles needed,” one resident said. “To be honest, we don’t have a huge degree of faith that all the shelters will be there.
“The Mayor’s statements are pure hot air. They say it’s going to happen ‘at some point’. There are no dates.”
Read more: Perry in another U-turn over borough’s vanishing bus shelters
Read more: Perry drops action against bus shelter firm and loses £500,000
Read more: Company behind ‘smart’ bus shelters has CCJs for unpaid bills
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Still no shelter outside East Croydon station going south. Its been absolutely miserable for the last few winters with the amount of trains which are cancelled/new timetables so you need to grab the bus towards Purley. Still all of us standing there getting wet can look at the bus station over the road and then the four TfL shelters which are slowly decaying outside the Town Hall since they changed the road to one-way. Sad state of affairs when they want us all to take the bus instead of driving.
This is EXACTLY the form of hypocritical hot air i and ALL residents of Croydon expect from our totally inefficient and Lying council leader and his utterly useless (unless its claiming bigger pay rises!) chief exec . I suffer from asthma and are totally fed up of waiting in the rain for this man and his cronies to keep me even partly dry .