CROYDON IN CRISIS: Without any debate or discussion at the Town Hall, the Tory Mayor is trying to sneak through cuts which some fear will put thousands of children’s safety at risk on a daily basis.
EXCLUSIVE by STEVEN DOWNES
Under threat: Croydon could see the last of its school road safety patrols axed as soon as July
Jason Perry, the Conservative Mayor of the cash-strapped council who just a few weeks ago awarded himself a juicy pay rise, is considering axing all of the borough’s “lollipop ladies” and “lollipop men”.
The Tory Mayor has been accused by opposition councillors of “penny-pinching” and making the wrong choices over council spending, as well as putting the safety of the borough’s young children at risk.
Mayor Perry’s cost-cutting decision has never been discussed at full council (there isn’t another substantive meeting until July) nor ever raised among other Town Hall public business. But the process has been uncovered in a Freedom of Information response to an enquiry by Inside Croydon.
The number of “school road safety patrols” around Croydon has been drastically reduced over the past decade or so. In 2011, there were 22 lollipop patrols at locations around the borough, when a previous Tory-run council decided to halve their number. Perry was a senior member of the Conservative council cabinet that made that decision, too.
Road hog: Jason Perry pockets £84,000 per year as Croydon Mayor
School safety patrols are usually staffed by retirees on modest part-time contracts, who turn out in all weathers all through the year, first thing in the morning and then at going-home time in the afternoon, to see children aged as young as four safely from one side of a busy road to the other. With their large, hi-viz “Stop” signs, lollipop ladies and men have legal rights to stop traffic to allow pedestrians to cross.
Now, only six of Croydon’s primaries have the help of a lollipop lady or man when children are on their way into school in the mornings or after the bell for the end of the school day.
The six schools are Cypress Infants and Juniors (South Norwood Hill), Norbury Manor Primary, Orchard Way Primary (Monks Orchard; listed by the council in the FoI response as “Cherry Orchard”), Oasis Academy Ryelands (Woodside), Greenvale Primary (Selsdon), and Monks Orchard Infants and Juniors.
Mayor Perry’s council is considering cutting all six posts, and at least four roles face the axe. The bankrupt borough, with toxic debt of £1.5billion, reckons the road safety patrol service cost £58,000 in 2024-2025 – less than five grand per month.
Since Perry took charge of the basketcase council, he has hiked Council Tax by 27%, yet continues to cut services.
It is just a few short weeks since Mayor Perry handed himself a handsome pay rise, so he now pockets £84,000 per year. He also bumped up the salary for the council chief exec, Katherine Kerswell, to £204,000 per year.
According to the council’s FoI response, they are unable to say how many road safety patrols will still operate in the borough from September this year. “This service is currently under review, so unable to confirm at this present moment in time,” said the council’s official response.
And this is at a time when casualties from road traffic collisions have been on the rise in Croydon.
In 2023, Croydon achieved the dubious distinction of having the second-biggest increase in road casualties across London over the last decade. It also had the highest increase in the capital, at a time when general trends across the country are for fewer collisions.
Department for Transport figures show there were 1,258 road casualties in Croydon in 2023, the highest figure recorded in the last decade. Of those, 155 people were seriously injured on the roads last year, four of whom died.
Other research showed that children in Croydon have been at special risk, with the highest number of recorded casualties for child pedestrians from all London’s boroughs: there were 91 child casualties in Croydon between 2021 and 2022 (based on DfT figures covering 304 local authorities in England, from the previous 12-month period).
Committed motor car enthusiast Perry has previously spent huge amounts of public money in order to have other road safety features – such as bicycle lanes – ripped out of the borough’s roads.
Opposition councillors today expressed their anger at the way these latest insidious cuts are being implemented by the increasingly remote and unaccountable Mayor Perry.
Safety concerns: Crystal Palace councillor Claire Bonham
“Parents at Cypress primary have shared their concerns with me about the proposed cuts to their lollipop man and they are rightly concerned that this will have an impact on their children’s safety,” Claire Bonham, the Liberal Democrat councillor for Crystal Palace and Upper Norwood ward, told Inside Croydon.
“Lollipop men and women are a valued part of the community, keeping children safe and providing a safe, reassuring presence for families on their way to school,” Bonham said.
“This feels like penny-pinching from the Tory Mayor and I will be writing to him to set out my opposition to cutting these services from Crystal Palace and other locations around the borough.”
And Rowenna Davis, who will be seeking election as Croydon Mayor in 2026, told this website: “Mayor Perry thinks that just £58,000 is too high a price to put on our children’s safety. But there’s always money for what he wants, like 4,000 new laptops for his staff.
“If I’m your Mayor next year, I’ll make different choices with your money. I’ll put people first, and I’ll put our children first.”
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Rowenna Davis will have to do a lot better than criticise the necessary replacement of ageing laptops that would leave the council vulnerable to hacking and systems failures.
Contenders for the full-time job of Mayor of Croydon should do a bit of digging for some real dirt. For example, why is cost-cutting part-time Perry spending over £35,000 of our money on a couple of propaganda news sheets in the run up to his re-election bid?
Yes I received this poorly printed rag that is of such low quality production it could be mistaken as used chip paper. Unbelievable Perry has the gall to cut back on services for children, but can still sanction this piece of political propaganda for the near equivalent budget.
Has this mayor ever done anything constructive? All I see is stuff closing or disappearing. I hope he doesn’t expect to get re-elected.
Perry is the original lollipop?
Pitifully pathetic can only be used with reference to this action and the overall level of the Council deficit. The only way to make real inroads into the debt is the axe going to Kurzewell-Reid, Perry’s and other Senior Executive roles. Can anyone seriously say they will be missed unlike the Lollipop Staff.
When I was a teenage lollipop man outside John Fisher in the early 1980s (I kid you not, I have photographic proof), I was employed by the Met and classified as a civilian employed for police purposes under the Road Traffic Act 1964.
Used to collect my wages, in cash, from the desk at Kenley nick.
When did the police manage to offload this and make it the council’s problem, and how and why?
Dunno the answer to the question. One of our sage readers will probably assist.
But have seen said photographic proof. In the form of a newspaper cutting with a headline only those of a certain vintage will truly appreciate: My boy lollipop!
From the days when local newspapers had great sub-editors. And newspapers…
First record I bought, from a shop in Coulsdon.