CROYDON IN CRISIS: Three years since the borough’s bus shelters were unceremoniously uprooted after council staff signed the borough up to a dodgy get-rich-quick scheme, and the tendering process to replace the 185 shelters has not yet begun. EXCLUSIVE by STEVEN DOWNES
Out to lunch: Croydon’s £82,000 per year Mayor has not even started seeking tenders for the borough’s missing bus shelters
Two years since he came to office, and six months since he announced that he was terminating the dodgy contract with the dodgy American company that promised Croydon Council 185 “smart” bus shelters and millions of pounds in ad revenues, Inside Croydon can reveal that Mayor Jason Perry has not even started the tendering process for the borough’s much-missed and sorely needed shelters.
On Friday the council published what’s called a “Prior notice information for pre-engagement marketing bus shelters and advertising”, a civic fishing expedition to see if there’s any companies out there who might, just might, be interested in pitching for the work with our basketcase council.
Yet in November last year, at one of his Mayoral Question Time events staged in Upper Norwood, Mayor Perry told residents that Croydon’s bus users could look forward to shelters being back in place by next winter. Procurement, Perry said then, was about to start.
A council source today told Inside Croydon that it could be at least a year before the procurement process is completed and contracts drawn up, never mind the planning and installation process of bus shelters at more than 100 locations around the borough.
Having seen the prior notice for pre-engagement notice published by the council, our source said, “It will be a while before they go out to tender as this is only a market interest exercise.
‘Temporary’: when the shelters were removed in 2021, bus passengers reasonably expected replacements within weeks
“Basically they don’t seem to have a list of suitable contractors so are fishing for interest. They don’t even know who they can order the bus shelters from!”
And the latest documentation suggests that our council is looking to replace the missing shelters on the cheap – with only two-thirds of the bus shelters being costed to be replaced.
Croydon is one of only two London boroughs which manages its own bus shelters, in the past taking a cut in the (modest) advertising revenue they can generate (other boroughs leave bus shelters to the bus operators, Transport for London).
There is one well-known supplier of bus shelters, JC Decaux, but they might still be miffed that they needed to uproot dozens of shelters in Croydon in early 2021 after the council thought they’d got a better deal…
Passengers in Croydon have now endured a third winter in the wind, rain, hail as they have waited for their buses.
This is all thanks to officials in Digital Croydon, the council’s technology department, having done a deal with a US-based company which had never before made or ordered a single bus shelter, nor had ever sold a single roadside ad.
It was the ads which were to pay for the wifi, air quality monitors and other hi-tech bells and whistles which Valo Smart City said would come with their “smart” street furniture, as well as generating £6.8million for Croydon Council over the course of the 10-year too-good-to-be-true contract.
Valo Smart City turned out to be run by a con merchant – something that might have been discovered with the briefest of internet due diligence checks. Four years on, Croydon’s cash-strapped council is out of pocket by tens of thousands of pounds (just the lost JCDecaux income; forget the unrealistic promises of Valo), and the borough’s bus passengers have been left shivering in the cold and wet as they wait, shelterless, for their buses.
Slow to act: it took Mayor Perry 18 months to get round to dealing with the dodgy bus shelter contract. As for ‘pursuing damages’, there’s not been a peep since
Despite being given plenty of warnings, piss-poor Perry wasted 18 months listening to council officials assuring him that they could get Valo Smart City to deliver on its undeliverable promises.
In the end, in October 2023, Perry finally pulled the plug and threatened to send in the rozzers – even though a series of previous small claims court actions against Valo Smart City, brought by its creditors, showed the company as owing a lot and owning very little.
“The council awarded this contract in 2021, to Valo Smart City which had no track record of delivering a contract like this in the UK and has failed to deliver a single bus shelter in our borough,” Perry was forced to admit.
“The worst of it is that all the existing bus shelters were removed leaving residents without shelter and facing a third winter out in the cold.” No shit, Sherlock.
“Since I was elected in May 2022, many attempts have been made to arrange a working plan that would deliver the shelters; timelines have been shifted, negotiations have taken place, and none of this has resulted in a satisfactory outcome. Our residents have waited long enough,” Perry said.
“Bus shelters and street furniture are an important part of the transport network and street scene, and I am determined that we must restore them for the benefit of commuters, residents and businesses. The council is taking immediate steps to terminate the contract with Valo Smart City and we have informed them of our intent to pursue damages.
“Meanwhile council officers are reviewing our options to get bus shelters back on our streets as soon as possible.”
That’s right: “as soon as possible”, Perry promised.
He repeated the pledge a few weeks later, at the Mayor’s QT.
Yet last week’s pre-engagement notice shows that, as with so much that Mayor Perry says, it was just all hot air.
“I wonder how Perry is doing on recovering that money he said he was going to chase?” our council source asked, mischievously.
“He is either just thick or a blatant liar. Perhaps both?”
Apart from a handful of shelters re-installed close to the Fairfield Halls, all provided by London Mayor Sadiq Khan’s Transport for London, not a single new shelter has been tendered for, procured or installed in the borough since Perry became Croydon Mayor.
Late notice: council staff only got round to inviting expressions of interest last week
But Perry has been very successful in inciting groups of anti-ULEZ vigilantes to commit thousands of pounds of criminal damage to other TfL property, such as lampposts and CCTV cameras, through the Facebook group of which Croydon’s Mayor is both an “administrator” and “expert”.
Perhaps part-time Perry could have been better employed spending his Mayoral time on more constructive matters, such as instilling a sense of urgency in council staff working on the borough’s shelter-less roads.
The “Prior notice information for pre-engagement” from Croydon flopped on to the interweb last week, without suggesting any notion that council staff are in any sort of hurry to fix the situation of their own making.
“This notice describes a possible future purchase,” it said. “There is no specified closing date.” Which is a bit misleading, because elsewhere in the document, the council has set a deadline of April 12. Little wonder that serious commercial organisations are often put off dealing with amateur hour at Fisher’s Folly.
The notice then outlines some of the terms and conditions, and the council’s requirements. Although the cancelled Valo contract was to replace the 185 shelters removed in 2021, this notice is only seeking to provide 112.
Perhaps London’s Labour Mayor Sadiq Khan is going to be bailing out Tory Perry again (as he has done over the rebuilding of the Regina Road council estate)?
The official notice states: “The London Borough of Croydon is seeking information from potential contractors as part of a soft market testing exercise for the provision of 112 bus shelters within the borough and associated advertising.”
The document then sets out “the council’s draft strategy”… yes, a draft strategy, three years after they had all the existing, perfectly serviceable, bus shelters removed.
“There is no existing service provision at the 112 sites,” the council notes, without offering any explanation why that might be. “The requirement is provision, installation, maintenance and cleaning of the shelters with associated advertising at locations right across the borough. The council’s preference is for digital advertising but would rely on the expertise of its partner to deliver the maximum return.” Ahhh. How humble of them.
“Digital advertising consent for circa 60 bus shelter sites has been granted but these would be subject to the council’s application process for a new applicant.” That very much sounds as if they are going to have to go through the whole planning process for 60 sites again.
And don’t get too excited: “This is not a formal tender opportunity and there is no guarantee of any tender opportunity arising following this period of soft market testing.” So as our source suggested, a fishing exercise.
And who knows, there might be a possibility of some bus shelters being installed before Mayor Perry’s term of office comes to its inevitable end. But don’t get your hopes up, that’s not until May 2026.
Read more: After two years Perry claims the credit for just 4 TfL 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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ROTTEN BOROUGH AWARDS: In January 2024, Croydon was named among the country’s rottenest boroughs for a SEVENTH successive year in the annual round-up of civic cock-ups in Private Eye magazine
If we had a full time mayor we might have got this done a lot quicker
We all deserve better
Our bone idle Mayor might not be as stupid as he looks. Dragging things out means the new shelters can be installed in early 2026, as part of piss-poor’s re-election campaign
What a dragged-out saga, unless the budget isn’t there to get these shelters back?
The shelters should be, or were, self-funding. Under previous deals, the contractor paid a licence fee and a commission from ad sales.
Then some smart, six-figure salary exec in Fisher’s Folly thought they knew better and signed a deal with a firm that never really existed.
For three years, the council’s received no such income, and we’ve all been getting wet waiting for a bus.
This is an “officer-led” council.
The Mayor’s never been in control.
Queen of the bus stops Opama Khan has just started a new role at Hackney.
Thanks Tim.
Funnily enough, there’s been no announcement of Khan’s departure, or her replacement, by Kerswell’s cash-strapped kouncil.
Maybe Opama didn’t get the head of tech job when she was asked to re-apply.
Do the people of Hackney know what might be coming their way?
They can’t order some new bus stops without getting ripped off.
Do they really think they can give out the contract to become an AI driven council?