After a private golf club held ‘consultation’ meetings with SIX residents’ associations, Jason Perry has been forced to make a U-turn and contradict his previous statements while giving an undertaking not to allow any development on Shirley Heath and Addington Hills public open space.
By STEVEN DOWNES
FORE!
Bunkered: Jason Perry has got himself into a very deep hole of deceit over his talks with The Addington Golf Club
Jason Perry appears to have shanked his tee shot and ended up in thick rough.
The Mayor of Croyon was forced last night to issue a lengthy (well, verbose) statement in which he finally admitted that he had been in talks with the multi-millionaire owner of a private golf club over the potential disposal of public open space at Shirley Heath and Addington Hills.
Just four days earlier, the Tory Mayor was dismissing the suggestion that the council had held any talks with The Addington Golf Club as mere “rumour”.
Last night, Mayor Perry admitted that he had attended not one but two meetings with the golf club last year, including visiting the £165-per-round club in August 2023.
It must have been a strange, and strangely inhospitable, visit, because there’s no record on Mayor Perry’s official declarations of his receiving even as much as a G&T at the 19th hole to quench his thirst during his meeting with the golf club’s owners…
It was earlier this week that Mayor Perry was tweeting to anyone who could be bothered to believe a word he says that the golf club’s well-developed plan “doesn’t make much sense to me”. Perhaps Perry had been confused by his development meeting and visit to The Addington?
Caught out again: Mayor Jason Perry
In last night’s statement, Perry sought to transform his image, from that of a Wooster-esque golfing fan to some kind of late-onset eco-warrior.
“I have no intention, and never have, of selling, leasing or entering into any other agreement which would give control or use of this Green Belt land to the golf club,” he wrote.
Yet even this has struck some as odd. According to attendees, the golf club has staged meetings in 2024 with the members of SIX residents’ associations in the area, where they understood that The Addington’s management had been advised to hold these consultation events by senior officials of… Croydon Council.
Which seems strange advice to offer if the borough’s Mayor is so set against the very idea.
The admissions made by Perry last night were dragged out of him by the widespread outrage that he and the cash-stapped council might even consider disposing of the public open space to a private owner for development.
Inside Croydon first reported the land grab plans laid out in a glossy digital brochure distributed to the residents’ associations by The Addington GC.
The Addington is part of a golf and sports business owned by multi-millionaire Ryan Noades, the son of the former Crystal Palace Football Club owner, Ron Noades.
The golf club’s well-drawn plans involve building a driving range on the precious heathland for its members – who pay £2,000 a time to join The Addington – and to dig out a money-saving irrigation reservoir, intended to reduce the golf club’s spiralling water bills.
Storm clouds: the golf club ‘offered’ to take over the habitat management of Addington Hills public open space
A petition first publicised by this website last week had attracted more than 5,700 signatures by this morning, demanding that Mayor Jason Perry “does not allow the club to build their facilities on our public land”.
The signatories include at least two Conservative councillors.
Perry and his council had been utterly silent about the approach from The Addington and their meetings until last Friday. Questions which Inside Croydon put to the Mayor and his chief executive, Katherine Kerswell, about the council’s role in the discussions, and Perry’s or councillors’ memberships of The Addington or other golf clubs remain unanswered.
“Transparency and honesty have been a key guiding principle throughout my administration,” Perry claimed last night.
Perry’s statement did at least attempt to address some of the issues raised. He’s not, he says, a member of The Addington or any other golf club. “For further clarity, I have received no gifts or hospitality from any golf club.” He says that he “regularly” updates his declarations of interest (although his last update on the council website is now three months old).
“These meetings were not an endorsement or agreement of the golf club’s plans,” he wrote.
“These meetings were also not attended by any representatives from the council’s asset disposal team.”
According to Perry, he regularly holds secret meetings with private developers – all part of the service that the Council Tax-payers get for his £82,000 Mayor’s salary.
“No decisions or commitments are made at these meetings. Any proposals which advance from this stage must then go through formal and public decision-making processes, including planning if relevant…
“I will always fight to protect our precious green spaces,” wrote the Mayor who has already sold off a tranche of one public park and is currently overseeing the disposal of part of the Purley Way Playing Fields.
“Since I was elected Executive Mayor, I have proudly overseen the investment in our green and open spaces,” claimed the man who has already sold a tranche of public parkland, and who is looking for a buyer for part of the Purley Way Playing Fields.
“I want to reassure residents that the golf club’s aspiration to manage parts of Shirley Heath and Addington Hills and to build a driving range is not happening, and will not happen as long as I am Executive Mayor, as I know how important these spaces are to all of us as Croydon residents,” Perry wrote.
That pledge has been taken at face value by Peter Underwood, the conservationist who started the petition.
Petitioner: conservationist Peter Underwood’s online appeal attracted almost 5,800 signatures in less than a week
Today Underwood, who is a Green Party election candidate in next month’s London elections, thanked the thousands of petitioners as he claimed a victory for the brief and dynamic campaign which had forced Perry’s council to abandon its secret talks with the golf club.
Yet, like others, Underwood found serious inconsistencies between Perry’s altered account of events, and what other sources have said has been going on.
Perry, Underwood said, “has now made a commitment that the plans will not go ahead during the remaining two years of his term as Mayor. I want to thank all of you who signed the petition and contacted your councillors to raise your concerns – I believe it was only through that public pressure that we have got the answer that we all wanted.”
But Underwood said that the Mayor’s comments had raised cause for further concern. “I think it is disgraceful that Jason Perry thinks he can have private meetings with developers and businesses about plans for Croydon while leaving us all in the dark about who he is meeting and what plans they are discussing.
“This is the exact opposite of the honesty and transparency we have a right to expect from elected politicians.
“The Mayor has finally admitted that he did have secret discussions with the Addington Golf Club about their plans. Apart from the Mayor’s statement there is no public record of what was said or agreed at those meetings.”
As any reasonable person might, Underwood questions why Mayor Perry bothered to conduct a site visit with the golf club if he never had any intention of going ahead with the land transfer, and he also asks, “Why did the golf club then feel that they could carry on with their plans and arrange a meeting with local residents’ associations to discuss the plans further?
“I think that this case should serve as a warning. We do not know what other plans Mayor Perry has been discussing in secret and we need to keep a watchful eye out for other threats to our town.”
The Mayor’s announcement does mean that for the timebeing the only birdies to be heard on Shirley Heath and Addington Hills will be owls, woodpeckers and song birds, while the eagles and albatrosses will be confined to the immaculately maintained fairways and greens of The Addington GC.
Read more: Suspicions raised over golf club’s Addington Hills ‘land grab
Read more: Mayor Perry is caught in a ‘bad lie’ over Addington golf talks
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