DODGY LEAFLETS: The Tory campaign to save Jason Perry’s political career is underway, with the Conservatives delivering pamphlets making all kinds of exaggerated claims. As KEN LEE reports, some community groups have not been fooled by Perry’s false claims
Dodgy leaflet: a Norbury community activist has helpfully annotated the disingenuous Tory leaflet
With little, if any, help from their council, the community in Norbury is rallying around to get things done, after decades of neglect from the local authority.
Tony Hooker, of the Litter Free Norbury campaign, has managed to get street bins reinstated and leads on regular litter picks (because rubbish contractors Veolia rarely sweep the streets), and he has conducted some impressive number-crunching of data and FoIs to demonstrate the council’s general uselessness.
It is Hooker who obtained the data that exposed that there has been only four prosecutions for fly-tipping by Croydon Council since Jason Perry became Mayor in 2022 – with just one successul case in 2024.
Now Hooker is sorting out the rubbish that has been landing on the public’s doormats: Jason Perry’s latest “Newsletter”, a thinly disguised propaganda pamphlet from the Tory Party, full of half-truths and outright lies.
The next Croydon local elections, and D-Day for Perry’s re-election, is Thursday May 7 2026.
Hooker writes: “A newsletter emanating from the Mayor covering initiatives in Norbury, including street cleaning, has recently appeared through some residents’ letter boxes.”
Hooker’s a stickler for the facts. He’s anotated all the dodgy details throughout the leaflet, which has been delivered by the Tories to a staunchly Labour-supporting area in the knowledge that for Perry to win a borough-wide election in 2026, he needs to con people from Crystal Palace to Coulsdon into voting for him, despite his 27% Council Tax hikes.
“A few things struck me,” Hooker wrote of the leaflet, “so let’s do a bit of fact checking.”
“1, Latest News”
Hooker’s not at all impressed by the £84,000 per year Mayor’s turn-round of “news”, pointing out that it is almost 18 months since he took part in a photo-opportunity (all paid for out of your Council Tax) when doing a bit of power-sparying in Norbury.
“2, Data-driven cleaning”
“It is claimed,” Hooker notes, “data was used to identify and clean fly-tipping hot spots. Well, who provides that data? Us, by reporting the issues on LoveCleanStreets.” LoveCleanStreets is the council’s Crap App, which after almost a decade, still has no category for reporting a missed bin collection.
Hooker is not impressed by the Tories’ bogus claims. “The notion that they identified the hot spots to clean them is fanciful – we report the issues, such as fly-tips, every day. Veolia (usually/hopefully) responds and picks them up. This is not a ‘Blitz clean’ activity – it’s simply Veolia doing their job.
“It was also advertised as part of the Blitz initiative that Veolia will be ’emptying bins’. Jeez, come on: it’s what they are paid to do!”
Veolia, it is worth remembering, are the rubbish contractors that were doing such a rotten job of emptying our household refuse bins and sweeping our streets that Croydon, Merton and Sutton all sacked them 18 months ago. And after spending nearly £1million between them on separate procurement processes, guess who the three boroughs have taking over their waste and street cleaning contracts from April 1? No prizes for guessing it’s Veolia! The council’s propaganda department has even started issuing press releases to claim what a wonderful new deal Mayor Perry has struck with the same contractors he sacked…
Hooker’s takedown continues: “I’ve been told that [Croydon Council] does not have the resource [or] capability to generate the heat maps that [Litter Free Norbury] has created to make this analysis.
“Veolia will undoubtedly know, because they have to clear them every day, but one can’t imagine they were just sitting there waiting to clear the next fly-tip!”
“3, Graffiti removal – a partial success”
Success story: Norbury residents have been impressed by the grafitti removal, though less so around shop shutters
“The removal of graffiti from public areas was probably the most successful aspect of the Blitz,” Hooker says. “The reinstatement of this service has probably been the biggest improvement we have seen in cleaning up Norbury.
“However, the removal of graffiti from shop shutters was very hit and miss. All of the businesses I spoke to said a council officer dropped a letter in and then they never saw or heard from them again. Many shops who had said they would have been happy to have had the service were left in the dark.
“The other aspect that appeared to be successful was the coordination with [Transport for London] as they were very active in repainting their street furniture – unlike the council, it must be said.”
“4, Jet-washing of pavements and gulley cleaning”
“I saw some jet washing taking place around the bigbelly bins, and they may have had some cleaning, but this activity was previously on a six-monthly service contract. This may have been cancelled by the council, so doing this as a one-off ‘special’ activity is not a substitute.” You can’t blag your way past Tony Hooker, it seems.
“I did not see any other ‘mechanical washing’ of pavements taking place and could not find any evidence of that, but clearly [it is] something that should be done routinely.
“Additionally, none of the other bins were cleaned, despite it actually being part of Veolia’s contract to do so four times per year!”
And here we have one of the fundamental issues with Veolia and their contracts: “For some reason the council has never enforced this clause and has shown zero interest in doing so when we have raised it with them.” So we have all been paying a contractor for delivering a service which they fail to perform, and our council does nothing about it.
Hooker continues by reminding us that gulley cleaning “isn’t a one-off activity”.
“It should be part of a planned maintenance programme. It is sad that what was routine activity is now treated as some kind of a special undertaking.” Which sums up so much of the claims being made by Mayor Perry, in his desperatation for people’s votes in 2026.
Hooker also takes issue with some of the photos used in Perry’s Norbury leaflet, highlighting that they include imagesfrom other parts of the borough. Does this suggest that “Pwoud Cwoydonian” piss-poor Perry doesn’t know his way around his own borough quite as he should do?
And Hooker sums up: “Mayor Perry’s publication paints a misleading picture, seemingly crediting him alone for Norbury’s ‘cleanliness’.
“The truth? This is a community effort, driven by dedicated residents and volunteers, not just political headlines.
He did warn us: Mayor Perry’s warning soon after taking office is just about the truest thing he has said
“There is no mention of all the fantastic work undertaken and organised by the community organisations, such as Litter Free Norbury, the residents’ associations and friends groups, as well as individual street champions who work tirelessly, as unpaid volunteers, to ‘tidy up Norbury’ on a daily basis. Often where the council’s paid contractor fails to do so.”
Hooker is also at pains to stress that Litter Free Norbury is non-political. “We don’t pin a specific coloured rosette to our hi-viz jackets.” He appears to hold all politicians in similar contempt, with good reason.
And his assessment of the Perry leaflet?
Hooker gave it a more-than-generous
4/10
“Overall, a pretty poor publication, Mr Perry,” Hooker writes.
“In respect of the Blitz campaign, we were grateful to have had some focus on Norbury, and this was the first attempt at undertaking this kind of initiative. It was disappointing, however, that the council did not ask for any feedback to provide key learnings to assist with future bltizes.
“Communication from the council… was extremely poor. But no surprise there. It always is.”
Read more: Councillor slams ‘shameful and deceitful’ waste figures
Read more: Just four prosecutions for fly-tipping in Croydon under Perry
Read more: #Binmageddon: Now Croydon named worst in UK for fly-tipping
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