Proposals buried in a planners’ report show that a vast development of retirement homes to be built by private developers are to have Croydon’s cash-strapped council picking up some of their construction costs for a swimming pool and leisure centre.
EXCLUSIVE By STEVEN DOWNES
Timeline of deceit: Jason Perry failed to re-open Purley Pool, and his promised free replacement will see his cash-strapped council subsidising private developers
A private developer’s £60million scheme to build 220 expensive “later living” flats on the site of the former Purley leisure centre now includes provision for cash-strapped Croydon Council to “subsidise” the cost of providing a new pool and leisure centre.
This vital detail has been buried in the planning report which is to go before the council’s planning committee tomorrow night.
The provision for a subsidy would completely contradict everything that has been said by Croydon’s Tory Mayor Jason Perry and Chris Philp, the Conservative MP for Croydon South, since they offered their support for the proposals by Polaska Assets, a subsidary of a company based in the British Virgin Islands dodgy tax haven.
Neither Perry, a part-time Mayor and full-time plastic guttering salesman, nor Philp, a millionaire entrepreneur who finances overseas development companies, have ever answered questions about who the beneficial owners are behind Polaska Assets BVI.
But in a timeline of deceit, this is what they have said over the past four years about how the new pool in Purley town centre would not be paid for by Croydon’s long-suffering Council Tax-payers:
Back in 2021, when plain old Councillor Jason Perry was seeking people’s votes to make him Croydon’s first elected Mayor, he promised to refurbish the existing leisure centre, but at nil cost to residents.
Broken promises: in July 2022, Perry was claiming – via the council’s press office – that he could refurb the old pool at zero cost to the tax-payers
In his election manifesto, Perry wrote: “I will re-open Purley Pool and leisure centre. This has been fully costed and will come from unallocated community infrastructure levy monies and will not impact on any other services.” Our italics. Of course, it never happened.
In July 2022, by now in office as Mayor after a narrow election victory, Perry was still trying to claim that Purley Pool could be refurbished on the cheap, without spenind any taxpayers’ money. Now using the council press office to spread his misinformation, the official Croydon website said: “Funding for works would come from unallocated Community Infrastructure Levy (CIL) – fees the council receives from developers to deliver the infrastructure needed.”
But when the refurb costs proved to be far more expensive than Perry and his supporters had falsely claimed during the election campaign, a new plan suddenly emerged for four massive blocks of retirement homes on the site, from Polaska, a firm of developers with no real track record in development.
Polaska, it now emerged from the instinctively secretive council, have been long-term leaseholders of the site that is owned by Croydon Council. With Perry’s refurbishment of Purley Pool a non-starter, Polaska came to the red-faced Mayor’s rescue by offering to build a pool and leisure centre as part of their money-spinning scheme, with the facilities handed over to the council to manage once completed.
In June 2023, again on the council website, Perry got around to admitting that he and Tory councillors had lied to the public over the potential for a low-cost refurbishment of the pool.
Clear enough: ‘aim is for the construction of the pool to be fully funded through the development’, according to the official council website
In his usual style, Perry took no responsibility for two years of lies, and tried to pass the buck on to someone else – his usual target, the previous administration, which had opted not to re-open Purley Pool after the covid lockdown in 2020 because it would have been too expensive to bring back into service (and which Perry ought to have known all along).
“It is now clear that re-opening the former pool would not be sustainable due to the extensive disrepair allowed by the previous administration,” piss-poor Perry blustered.
“So we have been looking at different options. These are exciting proposals for modern leisure facilities, housing and a new public square in the heart of Purley town centre, which will help to revive the high street for everyone locally to enjoy.”
And elsewhere in that official council press statement, it said: “The aim is for the construction of the pool to be fully funded through the development and the council will run and operate the new facility.” Our italics. Seems clear enough.
Overseas property developer: Chris Philp used his role as local MP to lobby residents’ associations in the south of Croydon over the Purley Pool plans
In July 2023, MP Philp weighed in. He wrote this for at least one residents’ association in the south of the borough: “The proposal is that the construction of the new pool and facilities will be fully funded by the developer (ie no cost to taxpayers), and the council will then run and operate the new leisure centre.” Our italics.
Polaska’s initial planning proposals, including the free pool, got sunk under a welter of complaints from at least seven residents’ associations and the Greater London Authority, who dismissed the scheme out of hand as “wholly unacceptable”. It may have included a free swimming pool, but Polaska’s profit-hungry proposals had no affordable housing.
Polaska went away to re-configure their plans. Through all of this, according to local Tories, the pool was still to be built at no cost to Croydon tax-payers.
Recently, in January 2025, Philp emailed his constituents and posted on his own Facebook page: “The construction cost of the new pool and leisure centre will also be covered by the revenue from a housing scheme for older people, of 180 ‘later living’ flats and 40 care home rooms, to for example help local down-sizers to free up family homes. 10% of the housing for older people will be ‘affordable’.”
The timing of this is significant, because Philp distributed this after Polaska had come up with their v2 of their proposals, taking in some afforadable housing.
Couldn’t be clearer: this was what Tory MP Philp was saying most recently
“So construction won’t cost taxpayers anything, but ownership and management of the leisure centre will still transfer to the council once built.” Again, our italics. Seems clear enough.
But was a free swimming pool and leisure centre always just too good to be true?
Perhaps Perry and Philp are gullible twerps, because now, as the scheme gets put before the planning committee, it appears that Croydon Council will be paying a private developer “subsidy” for the leisure centre and pool.
When the council planners’ own report appeared last week, it included some serious reservations about certain aspects of the scheme but nonetheless came with a recommendation to the planning committee to approve.
The planners noted how Polaska were bleating about the financial viability of their project, now that those horrible people at City Hall had intervened and forced them to include 10% of “affordable” homes in among their expensive “later living” flats.
But the free pool was now “to be provided to the council at a subsidised cost”.
So not free after all.
Later in the report (paragraph 8.90, if you’re looking for it), the council’s planning official states: “A key consideration within the viability appraisal is that the new leisure centre has been modelled as having a build cost of approximately £19m[illion] and being leased to the council for approximately £830,000.” Our italics. That £830,000 might be an annual figure. The report doesn’t say.
Gullible twerps: last July, Chris Philp was even dragging his then party leader, Rishi Sunak, into the saga of Purley’s ‘free’ pool
Now who pays to build a scheme, and how, is not usually a relevant consideration for the planning committee.
The viability of the scheme can be a consideration for the committee, though there is limited detail included in this report to explain how Polaska won’t make millions in profits from their 220 retirement homes. The fact that Polaska are now suggesting that they need a significant public subsidy for their private scheme, some might suggest, is a matter of huge public interest.
Yet Tories Philp and Perry have been silent on the matter.
Significantly, this is the first time in any public sphere that any cost to Croydon Council has been raised. It is useful context to note that Mayor Perry and Katherine Kerswell, the council chief executive, have been forced to go to the government for a £136million bail-out because of a predicted overspend in 2025-2026. Can Croydon afford to pay £830,000 for Perry’s “free” swimming pool?
The report going to tomorrow night’s planning continues: “This figure is subject to commercial discussions between the council and the developer and may change (with those changes reflected in a future viability review).” The cost of subsidising a swimming pool build may go up; they rarely go down…
Polaska are the leaseholders of the site – which includes the long-disused Sainsbury’s supermarket and the much-still-used multi-storey car park – while the council owns the freehold. Negotiations between the parties could continue for many years.
“… It is however clear that the development viability has modelled a substantially subsidised leisure centre, being funded by the IRC [‘Integrated Retirement Community’]. Therefore, the development can be considered ‘enabling’ development and rather than providing a substantial amount of affordable housing, a key benefit is the delivery of the leisure centre.”
So we have a trade-off: Perry’s not-so-free pool, against “affordable” housing. No prizes who Perry and his Tory mates will blame if the project doesn’t get passed.
“The provision of a new leisure centre is a significant public benefit and must be weighed against the shortfall in affordable housing,” the council official’s report adds.
Tomorrow’s planning committee meeting is due to begin in the Town Hall Chamber at 6pm, to be chaired by Michael Neal, an old buddy of Jason Perry.
Read more: Residents scathing of report on Purley retirement flats
Read more: Who can afford £4,000 per month for Purley later living flats?
Read more: GLA rejects Polaska Purley Pool plan as ‘wholly unacceptable’
Read more: Tories warn residents: don’t dare complain about Purley pool
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If Perry tried to flog me some guttering I’d check very carefully to make sure there were no holes in it.
Isn’t Perry, Philp and the whole South Croydon Tory Gang just essentially a racket. Public money is always good for our pals to help them. Why is it public expenditure over the last decade and a half grew even bigger and public services shrunk when they are always redirecting public money into private sector hands. Dirty deeds done rather expensively.
It’s not clear who is paying for the pool. Will the Community Infrastructure Levy cover the £830,000 or is not enough?
Of course the council should help fund the pool. That’s what happened years ago when the Sainsbury’s development was thrown up
The council had money then. It doesn’t have money now.
Perry said the pool would cost the council nothing. He should keep to that pledge.
A report to part-time Perry’s Cabinet meeting of 25th October 2023 said “the Council owns the freehold title to the Site. Polaska has a lease of the site running for a term from 25 March 1979 until 25 March 2129. A lease deed of variation was signed by both parties in 2004 confirming that the lease term be extended from 25 March 1979 to 25 March 2129. There is no break clause in the lease.”
Which is very odd, because Polaska Assets Limited (company number 14316454) wasn’t incorporated until 24 August 2022.
Unless you’re prepared to fork out $50 USD and up, you won’t get details of the British Virgin Islands version of Polaska. However, last April it was registered here in the UK as an overseas entity, (company number OE032600). This shows that the earliest that any individual beneficiaries were identified was in April 2009, namely Paul Marcus Andrews and Equinox Trustees Ltd of the tax haven Jersey. Together they hold, directly or indirectly, more than 25% of shares and voting rights in the entity.
Curiously, the registration details also say that “The entity has reasonable cause to believe that there is at least one registrable beneficial owner that it has not identified”. Who might that be, boys and girls?
Polaska’s webshite offers no clues, but says “Polaska Assets Limited was established in 2004 as a Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV)”.
Could it be true that, back in 2004, the council, under the control of Croydon Labour’s Hugh Malyan, did a deal with a newly established company to extend the lease which it apparently already had from 1979, by another 150 years?
It all seems very dodgy indeed. And begs the question, how much money – if any – did “Polaska” pay our council for the lease? I think we should be told
Of course a special purpose vehicle is to seperate it from the other activities of a business owner. Whoever is the real underlying owner of Polaska invests a huge amount of time trying to hide their identity. So much for the transparency of Perry, Philp and the South Croydon Tory Gang. Smells rotten it is rotten.
There’s another puzzle here which is the lease on the supermarket? This was sold by Sainsburys in 2004 to Oriental City (famous for their development in Colindale) who then went bust in 2008? Who got the lease to the supermarket then?
Told you it was a dodgy deal in my previous post on IC.
Cannot now believe a single word said by Perry and Philp.
Talk about changing goalposts and shifting sands.
In fairness, Graham, there were many people who smelt something rotten about this deal from the very beginning, when Mayor Perry plucked the dead rabbit from his magician’s battered top hat.
Smells like a dodgy deal and they’ll all be gone when we end up paying for it.
Was it a dodgy deal back in 1979 when Polaska took on the lease? That would have been under a Conservative council
Polaska did not exist in 1979
First World developed democracy. Is Croydon part of that?
Something stinks here. They have been ultra secretive about this Polaska developer, behaviour you wouldn’t expect in a first world developed democracy.