CROYDON IN CRISIS: Town Hall reporter KEN LEE on how 157 Brick by Brick flats in Coulsdon were sold below the market rate, as the council continues to overspend on Mayor Perry’s unbalanced budget

Property speculation: council car parks in Norwood Junction and Norbury are among 13 properties listed for sale

Anything that is not nailed down is being put up for sale by cash-strapped Croydon Council, with three public car parks on a list of 13 properties being flogged off as part of proposals being considered at the Town Hall tonight to “accelerate” its assets disposal programme.

Being £1.5billion in debt and with spending this financial year out of control, Conservative Mayor Jason Perry and his finance enforcer, Councillor Jason Cummings, are expected to have their plan to rush through their “Tranche 3” of asset sales rubber-stamped at the council cabinet meeting.

The council’s “For Sale” signs will be going up at Clifford Road car park (26 bays) and Belgrave Road car park (15 spaces), either side of the tracks at Norwood Junction, and at Granville Gardens car park, near Norbury Park, which has parking for more than 100 vehicles.

More asset sales: cabinet member for finance Jason Cummings

Norbury locals are expected to protest the sale of the car park, over reasonable fears that lack of available parking will deter the public from visiting the shops, cafés and restaurants on their already struggling high street.

The car park sites are expected to be sold to property developers, who will buy in the expectation that the local planning authority – Croydon Council – will grant planning permission for any scheme that they put forward. Not that there’s any guarantees that the developers will actually complete the projects.

The report to the cabinet meeting tonight states: “The council’s challenging financial position requires it to review its assets regularly and only hold those assets in its ownership that are vital for service provision.”

The council is hoping to sell £100million of assets between April 2023 and March 2025, “and a potential of £32million for 2025-2026”, the report states, perhaps indicating that the authority is running out of sites to sell.

Unlucky 13: the Tranche 3 council properties going up for sale, including three car parks

“By increasing and bringing forward asset sales, further financial savings can be achieved within the council’s annual budget by using the capital receipts achieved to repay the council’s outstanding borrowing which in turn reduces its annual debt charges,” the report states.

“By bringing forward the commencement of Tranche 3 disposals – which would start
immediately after cabinet approval (subject to due diligence and any required
consultation) and run in parallel with Tranches 1 and 2 – the council is seeking to
accelerate its delivery of asset sales.”

Figures in the council’s papers tonight show the council has sold assets for a total of £232million.

Best price?: Croydon sold the 157 Brick by Brick flats in Coulsdon for around £38m

Brick by Brick, the council’s failed housing company whose lack of profits and repayments crashed the council’s finances, has this year made a £6.5million loan repayment (it is not shown how much of the £200million of loans from the council have been repaid), and since April 2024, there has been a “disposal” of £38million-worth of Brick by Brick properties.

That looks very much like income from the long-delayed sale of Red Clover Gardens in Coulsdon, and worryingly millions of pounds below the “retail” value of the 157 “architect-designed” flats built by Brick by Brick there, as was predicted by Inside Croydon this time last year.

The £38million figure puts the average price of each of the 157 Coulsdon flats at £242,000. In Croydon. In 2024…

Meanwhile, Cummings and the council’s finance director, Jane West, struggle on trying to control the council’s runaway spending, as increasing demand for emergency housing and adult social care blows holes in Mayor Perry’s never-balanced budget.

In September, the council was predicting an overspend in this financial year of £42million – a £24million overspend on Mayor Perry’s ludicrous budget figures, plus £13million from the council’s ever-diminishing reserves and £5million plucked from a contigency fund.

Tonight’s report brings us up to Period 6 – halfway through the financial year – and shows the predicted overspend reduced to £17.6million. Which is better, but still in “effectively bankrupt” territory.

Having issued one Section 114 notice on his watch, Mayor Perry, the man who has hiked Council Tax in the borough by 21% since 2023, is desperately dodging having to issue another S114.

But his council is already applying all the spending restrictions that would normally accompany S114 status: “The council continues to operate spend control panels, and tightened the criteria from July 2024, to ensure that stringent financial control and assurance oversight are maintained,” one of tonight’s reports confirms.

Another reason that Tory Perry has not issued a S114 this time around is that the Labour government doesn’t want him to.

“There’s just so many councils in deep financial trouble out there now,” a Katharine Street source said today, “that Whitehall just doesn’t want the constant drip-drip of Section 114 notice after Section 114 notice. It was different four years ago, when Croydon was only the second council to go under this century.

“So Whitehall is telling councils not to issue Section 114s, but to stay in contact and conversation with them.

“All councils are just hanging on in there until the next round of central government funding packages are announced.”

Or as the official report to cabinet tonight states: “Dialogue with [the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government] continues around options of further financial support from government in regard to the level of structural indebtedness to ensure the council can deliver sustainable local government services.”

Fingers crossed, eh?

Read more: Mayor Perry busts his unbalanced budget with £42m overspend
Read more: Cash-strapped council recruits £80,000 head of press office
Read more: Perry and Kerswell ask for your ideas to fix their budget mess
Read more: Perry pleads poverty when he has more Council Tax than ever

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