Dodgy fines on motorists, rubber-stamping LTNs, £5 charges for replacement bins, public library closures and now delays over a long-promised Coulsdon healthcentre are likely to be some of the awkward questions tonight for out-of-his-depth Jason Perry
Oi! Oi!: Jason Perry is likely to face some angry questions tonight
Jason Perry, Croydon’s £82,000 per year Mayor, can expect angry protests in Sanderstead tonight at the latest of his usually carefully stage-managed “Question Time” events.
There’s been a couple of lower-key public meetings recently, the latest in New Addington last month where piss-poor Perry’s loyal cabinet members helped to fill the gaps in the auditorium.
But tonight’s event at Sanderstead United Reform Church from 6.30pm promises to be a full house, as locals from the south of the borough who are facing 21% Council Tax rises since the Mayor took office are demanding truthful answers on a range of issues.
Purley residents want answers to what’s happening with the 250 retirement flats scheme on the site of the Purley Pool and leisure centre: who are the shady figures behind the scheme? What’s proposed to replace all the car parking spaces lost? And where’s the planning application that was supposed to have been submitted before the end of last year?
Residents from Coulsdon are expected to attend to express their concerns over the feared loss of their town’s NHS health centre, now that Perry’s council is marketing the site for residential development.
Mounting anger: Sanderstead residents are noticing they are paying more and getting less from Perry’s council
And Sanderstead residents will be attending, angry at the Tory Mayor’s plan to close their public library, along with three others at Broad Green, Bradmore Green and in Shirley.
No questions are asked of Mayor Perry at these meetings without them being very carefully vetted first. But such is the growing sense of distrust in the Tory Mayor’s handling of the borough’s issues that it is difficult to see how Perry’s little gang of helpers will keep a lid on residents’ growing sentiment of betrayal for long.
It was just seven days ago that one of Perry’s henchmen, Coulsdon councillor Mario Creatura, attended a residents’ association meeting without once mentioning that the site earmarked for a health centre in the town was about the be placed on the property market by the council’s estate agents.
The simmering anger in Sanderstead over Perry’s proposals to close their library will have boosted tonight’s attendance figures, too.
Perry claims that these events making “our borough a place where people are proud to live, work and visit”.
And he is supposed to have said, “I’m looking forward to meeting residents in Sanderstead.”
Let’s see if he’s still saying the same after his meeting ends tonight.
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