The Mayor who has hiked your Council Tax by 27% in just two years today tried to claim that he has the Town Hall finances under control and that no one had raised any concerns about soaring levels of borrowing
Opposition councillors today demanded that Croydon Mayor Jason Perry should hold an emergency meeting of full council to discuss the government’s announcement that it is to send in Commissioners to run the borough.
Katharine Street sources said that they were “appalled” by the Tory Mayor’s response to the news. After imposing swingeing cuts to public services and hiking Council Tax by 27%, today Perry claimed that “the residents of Croydon have felt enough pain”.
Mayor Perry, like his chief executive, Katherine Kerswell, appears to be in denial of the severity of the situation, and their impotency to improve it.
Perry, who has a growing reputation for not telling the truth, even tried to claim that he had never received directions from the government or from the Whitehall-appointed improvement panel – a direct contradiction of what was written in the improvement panel’s report to Angela Rayner, which was made public today.
“My top priority has always been to fix the council’s finances,” Perry said in a prepared statement issued at lunchtime, claiming, somewhat unconvincingly, “we have done everything possible to achieve this at a local level whilst protecting vital services”.
Perry’s record in office since 2022 includes hiking residents’ Council Tax by 27% and in March this year accepting a £136million bail-out from government, after spending at the council last year ran out of control.
The council’s debt stands at £1.4billion. But under Perry’s finance plans, he wants to increase that debt to £2.2billion by 2027. The improvement panel described such borrowing plans as “impossible”.
Cockin’ a deaf ‘un: Jason Perry claims that no one told him there were problems with the council’s finances
In his statement today, Perry bleated: “If at any time the panel or government felt that there was any action the council should be taking, and was not, they had the power to instruct us. They never did.
“Surely that means we are doing everything possible, and they agree with our actions? We have already made very difficult decisions and in my view the residents of Croydon have felt enough pain.”
One Town Hall insider described Perry’s statement as “an appalling example, even by Perry’s standards, of his gas-lighting the people of this borough”.
According to a Katharine Street source today, “If Mayor Perry really is claiming he was unaware of significant reservations about the out-of-control spending and his bat-shit crazy plan to borrow another half a billion quid, then he’s either deaf, or stupid.”
In the statement issued from the council’s propaganda bunker, it was claimed that the Mayor who has closed four public libraries, is axing the Youth Engagement Team and is ending the borough’s lollipop patrols, as well as other salami-slicing of public services, “is not willing to support any cuts that would decimate local services”.
Yet in the same statement, the council outlined how there have been £167million of service cuts imposed on Croydon residents over the last four years, with another £50million more cuts coming this year under Perry.
The Tory Mayor who in 2022 issued Croydon’s third Section 114 Notice, effectively admitting bankruptcy, and in 2023 hiked Council Tax by 15%, is now saying that he is not prepared “to break his promise to residents of no more Council Tax rises above the government cap”.
The next council budget is due to be agreed in February 2026. With the next Mayoral elections in May 2026, that’s looking like it could be Perry’s last council budget as Croydon Mayor.
Read more: McMahon acts after serious concerns on ‘aspects of leadership’
Read more: Borrowing plan would lead to council’s ‘collapse’ says report
Read more: Government sends in Commissioners to run Croydon Council
Read more: Kerswell’s ‘Stabilisation Plan’ has failed before it is approved
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“No one raised any concerns about soaring levels of borrowing” says Perry! Unbelievable!
Well In raised concerns about Council borrowing being out of control, most recently published on this site in an article dated 22 May 2025. Oh, sorry, I forgot that Croydon Officers (and Councillors?) are banned from reading Inside Croydon articles.
Only on the councils own IT equipment.
Nothing to stop them using their personal phones and IT.
Which renders the block all the more imbecilic.
How do we initiate a vote of no confidence?
How did they think they could borrow their way out of trouble? Would they do this in their personal life? What was the logic behind this? These are all rhetorical questions but it absolutely beggars belief that they thought this was any sort of plan. I really do feel for the residents of Croydon and the staff who still show up day in and day out and try to do their best. None of them asked for this but have to deal with the fallout.
He’s on £80k+ a year yet he’s only a part time Mayor.
The pay for elected mayors is at a level that they should be spending the vast majority of their time working on council business.
If he’s not prepared to take difficult decisions then he shouldn’t be in the job.
Hopefully this will bring the end to the two decades of disaster that has befallen Croydon. Perry’s reaction to the whole event demonstrates his inadequacy in the situation he had done much to create.
Having a tantrum in response to the arguments put forward by the panel shows he has given up already in trying to persuade Central Govt. to not take over the running of the Council.
His ridiculous penny pinching savings with regard to Croydon Care and the School Lollipop Service show he did not have a clue how to tackle Croydon massive debts.
This would have required something that would act against Croydon Conservatives interests such as selling Shirley Park Golf Course for private development and not renewing the peppercorn lease.
He lives in denial of his participation in the Croydon Urban Regeneration Vehicle and appointing Jo Negrini with her speculative property development proposals. The two main drivers of the massive debts that have been run up. Even the local Croydon Tories must now realise the complete mediocrity of a man who has been at the forefront of their political leadership for the last two decades. For god sake finally move on.
He has an impossible job. Nobody could have fixed the finances after what numpty Newman did to Croydon.
At least it feels better now than it did under Labour.
Newman inherited around £800 million of debt from Croydon Tories. He added about another £800 million to that. The bad news is that Jason “fix the finances” Perry wants to add another £600 million to that and take the total up £2.2billion. Good, innit
Appalling, pathetic whataboutery. Perry is a useless lying disgrace, why are you making excuses for him?
Easier than you think. Grow the economy of Croydon by giving them incentives. By all means get rid of the barber shops, vape shops, luggage shops and mobile repair shops by quadrupling the business rates. Frankly, nobody wants to shop or do commerce in Croydon because it looks and is run like a third world country. Surrounding areas like Battersea, Clapham , Tooting are thriving without the mentioned trash sectors….and so ppl want to go there! Croydon Council are really so deluded
In what way does it look like a ‘third world country’?
If you can’t see it you must be blind as a bat.
Disgraceful apologist garbage. Would you like to borrow a big crowbar to force your hatred of Labour into every completely unrelated issue?
So when he said that he’d “fix the finances”, he was lying, right?
Not necessarily. He might have been sincere in his intentions, just incompetent in his actions.
But he was economical with the truth in his manifesto and election campaigning about his plan to take on a demanding job and then not devote himself full-time to the tasks. That, and paying himself 100% of the allowance, smacks of greed and arrogance. And yes, lying
The point is that “fix the finances” was always an election campaign slogan, and not a realistic end goal.
Perry always knew that. He was, in large part having approved the multi-million-pound plans for Fisher’s Folly and the Bridge to Nowhere, responsible for half of the debt that he would inherit as Mayor.
Politicians who claim to be all-knowing and all-powerful are dangerous. And liars, too.