CROYDON IN CRISIS: Mayor Jason Perry’s bungling council has now withdrawn the publicly-owned Grade II-listed building from the auction in their latest embarrassing climbdown
Withdrawn from auction: the council-owned Heathfield House has been granted a stay of execution
Croydon’s bungling Mayor Jason Perry has been forced to withdraw Heathfield House from the controversial auction that was planned to take place this Friday, in the latest embarrassing U-turn for his cash-strapped council.
Perry was offering a 125-year lease on the Grade II-listed Italianate Victorian villa at the top of Gravel Hill, once the home of industrialist Raymond Riesco, with a guide price of £1million. Some property experts suggested that valuation was only one-third, maybe even just one-quarter, of the true worth of the 12-bedroomed, eight reception room and three bathroom house.
And it is the second time in a couple of weeks that a public protest and petition has forced the Tory Mayor into a “reverse ferret”, following Perry’s enforced change of plan over the closure of the Croydon Carers’ Centre on George Street.
More than 2,000 people have signed a petition opposing any planned sale of Heathfield House. The council requires 1,000 signatures for a petition to be debated by full council at the Town Hall.
Savills, the top-end estate agents who had been given the particulars to market ahead of the sale, today confirmed to Inside Croydon that Heathfield House had been withdrawn from auction.
“Heathfield House has been withdrawn from sale by its owners, Croydon Council,” a Savills exec said.
Another climbdown: Mayor Jason Perry has been asked to explain the decision-making process over the Heathfield auction
“Any further information will have to come from Croydon Council.”
Mayor Perry and the Croydon Council press department failed to respond to Inside Croydon’s request to make a statement about the change of plan over the auction.
The property was last year was converted into 17 rooms for “guardians”, to avoid the expense of security guards or the costs of repairs after squatters.
According to a response to a Freedom of Information request, cash-strapped Croydon Council is receiving no income whatsoever from turning Heathfield House into a HMO – a home of multiple occupation.
Commercial company Lowe, which is managing the tenants at Heathfield House, is estimated to be receiving at least £10,000 per month for renting out the rooms in the council-owned property, which offers fantastic views over the fields towards New Addington, and is handily placed for the Gravel Hill tram stop for the daily commute into Croydon and beyond.
Inside Croydon’s report last month prompted Perry’s Tory colleagues at the Town Hall to try to claim that Savills were marketing Heathfield House as some kind of “mistake”. As the council scrambled to try to get some kind of coherent, or credible, story together, they tried to claim that offering the property on a 125-year lease was not selling it.
For sale: Savills’ particulars for Heathfield House, ahead of the ultimately abortive auction. Perry’s council tried to claim it was all a mistake
Last month’s council statement said: “With the current financial pressures we have, we need to optimise the use of council-owned properties. As part of our Asset Strategy, we have been identifying opportunities to lease spaces which can generate income and reduce running costs. This is essential to help the council become financially stable, so we can continue to invest in vital services.”
It was around about the same time that the government was granting Perry’s council a record £136million capitalisation direction, allowing it to borrow more against the sale of capital assets.
Omnishambles: council official Huw Rhys Lewis BSc BArch MSc MRIBA MRICS MAPM
Katharine Street sources suggest that this latest omnishambles is traceable back to the desk of someone who styles himself Huw Rhys Lewis BSc, BArch, MSc, MRIBA, MRICS, MAPM, notionally in charge of the council’s “commercial investment and capital”, and the council director notorious for issuing legal threats to a charity that feeds the homeless in Queen’s Gardens.
It is Huw Rhys Lewis BSc, BArch, MSc, MRIBA, MRICS, MAPM who turned Heathfield House into an HMO, without bothering to apply in advance for a licence for an HMO – house of multiple occupancy – and without seeking planning permission.
The Heathfield petition calls for a meaningful engagement with the community to ensure the house remains in public hands.
The petitioners highlight how the Savills particulars offered Heathfield with “significant opportunities for redevelopment”, and the complete absence of any public consultation over the future of the building and grounds.
“Any sale of this site raises serious legal and ethical concerns and sets a dangerous precedent for public, historic and green spaces in the borough,” the petition states.
“Rather than exploring sustainable community-led options, the council has engaged in a pattern of exclusion and dishonesty, choosing opaque processes and private interests over public benefit.
“Rather than recognising Heathfield as the gem in its crown, Croydon Council has treated it like a thorn in its side.”
Misinformed: Natasha Irons MP
Former Merton councillor, now Labour MP for Croydon East, Natasha Irons, leant her support to those opposing the sale of Heathfield House.
But Irons’ letter to Mayor Perry appeared ill-informed and repeated assumptions that Heathfield is somehow subject to a protective covenant. It is not; the house was sold to Croydon Corporation shortly after the Second World War, and Lloyds broker Riesco and his family were permitted to live there, rent-free, until his death in 1964.
It was Raymond Riesco’s China porcelain collection which was left for the people of Croydon, although that did not stop Perry and his Tory mates flogging off a large part of the collection 12 years ago.
In her letter to Perry, Irons wrote: “My constituents are requesting that, instead of selling the property, the council should consider alternative avenues such as securing heritage funding, forming partnerships with local preservation societies, or repurposing the building in a way that benefits the community while maintaining its historical character.”
Irons also asked the Mayor to “disclose full details” of the decision-making process that led to what she calls “this treasured local landmark” being put up for auction in the first place. Which could be interesting…
Today, on hearing the confirmation that Perry had been forced to abandon his plan to auction Heathfield House, Ria Patel, the Green Party councillor, said, “I know that the thousands of Croydon residents who signed the petition to stop the sale of Heathfield House, and I suspect many more, will be relieved that it has been withdrawn from sale.
“Our assets shouldn’t be up for sale. But we are left with the question – what are Jason Perry and Jason Cummings up to? Why put the property on the market and then withdraw it?
“Is this part of some bizarre strategy they are keeping secret from residents or do they just not know what they are doing?”
Read more: Council caught in new omnishambles over Heathfield House
Read more: Council failed to apply for HMO licence for Heathfield House
Read more: Long-neglected Heathfield House being rented out as 17 rooms
Read more: Council’s once-prized listed building Heathfield House left to rot
Read more: Riesco objections: Croydon Council’s squandering our heritage
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Has Heathfield House been withdrawn from sale/lease, because Croydon Council got a big bailout from national government, so they are now back on ‘easy street’ and don’t need to flog off any property assets? Piss-poor Perry’s property asset-stripping puppet-masters must be fuming because it is now more difficult for them to get hold of the council’s valuable property assets for know-down prices?
Do all those organisations know that the Huw Rhys Lewis (idiot) is bringing their names into disrepute by claiming membership of them. Do they have no standards?!
In answer to your first question, almost certainly not.
If Perry and Cummings (Croydon’s answer to Trump and Vance) didn’t feel the need to flog off Heathfield House following their bailout by a Labour government, they’d have announced it themselves last month when the taxpayer-funded lifeline was announced.
Instead they’ve been embarrassed by Inside Croydon breaking the news, for the second time.
Did I put Trump and Vance? Laurel and Hardy, more like it
Does P P Perry get anything right?
Jason-P and Jason-C
Agreed to sell Heathfield
Because Jason-P and Jason-C
Wanted the money it would yield
But Croydon folks said hold on a mo
‘Fix the finances’ is a fairy tale
Which frightened both the heroes so,
They withdrew it from the sale
Oh Peter, what have you done? I predict a torrent of poems from IC’s versifiers.
There was an old fool called Myers
whose ramblings showed he was biased
the Tories he loved
their tripe he did shove
With a tone that was exceedingly pious
My nursery rhyme parody was prompted by the feeling that some at Croydon Council appear to have gone through the looking glass and are operating in a world completely divorced from our reality.
I actively encourage people to use their creative talents and I think the comments section of IC might be brightened by the occasional sonnet, ode, or comic doggerel.
I will mostly stick to political comment, but I look forward to IC’s review when my first book of poetry is published….
We already feature plenty of doggerel, comic and tragic, in the collected sayings of Mayor Jason Perry.
That’s unkind. And incorrect.
you’re a poet & you know it.
Great news, I hope those who take over from this sorry administration work hard to fully utilise our public assets for the community to eliminate the threat of selling them!!