CROYDON IN CRISIS: ‘Come on down! The price is right!’ The cabinet member for finance has said that the arts and conference centre could yet be sold if the cash-strapped council is ordered to do so.
By STEVEN DOWNES
Acclaimed: Fairfield Halls Concert Hall has ‘the finest acoustic of any in London’
Jason Cummings, the Conservative councillor who is the brains behind Mayor Jason Perry’s floundering administration, has admitted that the sale of the Fairfield Halls could yet happen if they are ordered to do so by the government-appointed improvement panel.
Cummings is the cabinet member for finance who led on the bankrupt borough’s pitch for the latest, £136million government bail-out, as the Town Hall’s Tories failed again to balance their annual Budget.
And it was Cummings who provided much of the vitriol directed at young woman councillor Ria Patel after she told this website’s news podcast, the Croydon Insider, that she had attended a briefing of the improvement and assurance panel where the council-owned arts centre the Fairfield Halls “was specifically mentioned” as being among the assets that could be sold.
Having accused Patel, Croydon’s youngest councillor, of “an immature political attack” and saying that she had lied over the Halls, Cummings and porkie pie enthusiast Perry piled in again on the Green Party councillor, this time in public, at last week’s Budget-setting Town Hall meeting.
Shouting: Jason Cummings has admitted that if the panel told the council to sell Fairfield Halls, then he would have to do so
But at the same meeting, Cummings admitted that he was not even at the briefing given by the improvement and assurance panel which Patel and other witnesses had attended.
“I wasn’t in it,” Cummings told the Town Hall Chamber.
Croydon’s latest multi-million-pound capitalisation direction, if anything, makes the need to sell all council assets even greater.
“What are we going to do when we run out of assets to sell?” the undaunted Councillor Patel asked during last week’s Budget debate. She never really got much of an answer either from Mayor Perry nor his finance expert.
But there had been some clues in comments Cummings gave to a small-circulation newspaper based outside the borough.
“I am not going to stand here and say that something will never, ever happen,” Cummings had said when apparently trying to rubbish Inside Croydon’s reporting of what Patel had been briefed by the improvement panel.
Cummings then said: “If an organisation came forward tomorrow, like ExCel, and said they would like to make Fairfield Halls the top venue, conference and culture centre of south London, would we talk to them? Of course we would, but we are not selling Fairfield Halls for the financial benefit of the council.”
None of the asset sales conducted by the council since 2021 have been “for the financial benefit of the council”, and none have stopped Cummings and the Tories hiking Council Tax to record levels. The cash raised from asset sales has gone to pay off the council’s ever-growing debts.
Undaunted: Councillor Ria Patel has not been put off asking important questions
And Cummings further confirmed that the sale of the Fairfield Halls is a real possibility: “If there is something that would come up that would benefit the community in Croydon, we would look at it, but there is nothing like that on the table at the moment.”
Cummings also contradicted his denials, when clarifying how the improvement panel operates. The panel, Cummings admitted, “have the power to instruct us, but they have never used it”. At least, not yet.
He said: “If they wanted to tell us that we had to sell the Fairfield Halls, they could, and we would have to do it, but they haven’t.” So far…
The financial position at Croydon Town Hall is more grim now than at any time since 2020.
Croydon Council has debts of £1.4billion (at least). It has recently sought, and been granted, a bail-out from central government of £136million – the fifth successive year that Croydon has required “extraordinary financial assistance”.
And since 2023 the council has been under the special powers of the government-appointed “improvement” panel, following Mayor Perry issuing Croydon’s third Section 114 notice – effective admission of bankruptcy – and then asking for permission to hit the borough’s residents with a 15% Council Tax hike that April.
For sale: Heathfield House, up for auction with a guide price of just £1m
Perry has since increased Council Tax in 2024 and will do so again in April this year, his increases totalling 27% since he was elected. But he still hasn’t managed to “fix the finances”, as he promised he would do when seeking the public’s votes. Which leaves precious public assets, like the Fairfield Halls, at serious risk of having to be flogged off.
In the end, it doesn’t matter whether Mayor Jason Perry or his bagman Cummings have “plans” to sell the Fairfield Halls, or any other council-owned properties. Last month, they put Heathfield House, the listed Victorian villa on Gravel Hill, up for auction, with a modest price tag of £1million.
If they have meet the terms of of the government’s latest finance deal, as Councillor Cummings has admitted, then they will just have to sell more assets.
A statement issued by the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government to Inside Croydon said: “The improvement and assurance panel continues to work with the council to identify suitable properties to include in the asset disposal programme.”
The Labour government has issued contradictory and conflicting advice over its position over whether heritage assets can be sold.
‘Identifying new opportunities to expedite’: local government minister Jim McMahon
In his letter to Mayor Perry on February 20, Jim McMahon, the local government minister, included a paragraph that he has sent to all 30 councils who had been knocking on his door with their begging bowls out.
McMahon wrote: “If you are considering financing capitalisation support through capital receipts…”, meaning flogging off assets, “… I want to make clear at this stage that it is my expectation that councils should avoid the disposal of community heritage assets where possible to protect the public ownership of locally significant sites to ensure residents can continue to benefit from them.”
But earlier in his letter, McMahon had laid out four “requirements” for Croydon to be seen to get its house in order. These included the requirement that Croydon, “Reviews its current asset disposal strategy, identifying new opportunities to expedite existing and further disposals where possible, and agrees this strategy with the improvement and assurance panel.”
Or as Jason Cummings put it so clearly, “If they wanted to tell us that we had to sell the Fairfield Halls, they could, and we would have to do it.”
Read more: ‘The improvement panel’s general position is to sell everything’
Read more: Government panel wants Croydon to flog off the Fairfield Halls
Read more: Kroll Report provides no answers to £73m Fairfield fiasco
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