CROYDON COMMENTARY: It was Einstein who was supposed to have said that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. Here, PETER UNDERWOOD, right, questions the council’s thinking behind the latest renewal of the town centre PSPO
Here we go again!
Croydon Council is planning to renew its Public Space Protection Order, or PSPO, in Croydon town centre.
No-go zone: the council is seeking to renew its failed PSPO in the town centre
Despite having failed twice already, under Labour and the Conservatives, Mayor Jason Perry is convinced that a PSPO will solve everything that he thinks is wrong in the town centre.
What is a PSPO? Public Space Protection Orders came into existence under the Anti-Social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014 and give councils the powers to turn normal behaviour into a crime. A PSPO lasts for three years.
As I pointed out when the Labour council first came up with a PSPO for Croydon, this was just allowing petty local politicians to impose their prejudices on the rest of us.
I also spoke to Dr Bradley Garrett, an ethnographic geographer writing for The Guardian, who was highlighting PSPOs being used as part of a wider attack on our freedoms and the ongoing private control of our public spaces.
PSPOs not only allow the police to use the powers, these powers can be passed on to others – allowing rich businesses and landowners to have their own private police forces.
Despite all of these sensible objections, the Labour council introduced a PSPO in 2017. Did it make our town centre a better place? No, and that’s why, when it reached an end of its term in 2020, it wasn’t renewed.
Canned: PSPOs can result in on-the-spot fines, issued by private security guards, for minor littering offences
But then along came Jason Perry with his own set of petty prejudices, and he decided to impose his own PSPO.
Ria Patel, one of the Green Party councillors for the town centre, made clear at the time it was being proposed that Perry’s PSPO was not just a failure, it was also actively harmful.
The PSPO just moves people and activities from the town centre into surrounding areas. “In a town where public confidence in the police is already low, and a society where black people and young people are disproportionately affected by police violence, all that introducing the PSPO will do is make matters worse and further reduce public confidence in the police,” Patel said then.
Again, despite these sensible objections, the Conservatives pushed on and introduced a PSPO in 2022.
So has the PSPO Mk 2 been a success? Obviously not.
Perry himself doesn’t believe that anti-social behaviour has reduced. In a toddler tantrum at his own failure, he has even started removing benches because if people won’t use them nicely, then they can’t use them at all. So all those people who might need a sit down when out doing their shopping have now also been excluded from the town centre.
Despite Perry’s ongoing persecution of homeless people and anyone who tries to help them, the number of homeless people in Croydon is still going up. Perry just doesn’t want to see the evidence of his party’s failures sleeping in any sheltered spots in the town centre.
PSPO off: Mayor Perry wants to renew his public safety order, which grants extra powers to the BID’s ‘rangers’. Perry is a director of Croydon BID
Allowing the use of private enforcement firms has even led to thuggish harassment of families just trying to do their shopping. Yet another way that Perry is making Croydon less welcoming.
The fundamental problem with PSPOs is that they are based on the cruel and completely false idea that you can stop something happening just by increasing the punishment. Longer prison sentences do not reduce crime, and issuing fines does not stop people drinking in the street or help them find somewhere to live.
As the South Norwood Community Kitchen have said “criminalising the symptoms of a broken society does not solve its problems” .
In politics we’re used to the same old parties rolling out the same old ideas and failing in the same old ways. But there comes a time when we all have to say enough is enough. We need real action to tackle the underlying problems in our society, not just another false promise.
A new PSPO in Croydon will not tackle any of the problems in the town centre, and it will actually make people’s lives worse. Please reply to the consultation and tell Croydon Council that you definitely disagree with having yet another PSPO.
We don’t need more pompous and petty politicians dishing out punishments to people they don’t like. If we want Croydon to improve, then we need to work together to develop real solutions that work to make all of our lives better.
- Peter Underwood is the Green Party’s candidate for Croydon Mayor at the May 2026 local elections
- Croydon Commentary provides a platform for any of our readers to offer their personal views and experiences about what matters to them in and around our corner of south London. To submit an article for consideration for publication, email us at inside.croydon@btinternet.com, or post your comment to an Inside Croydon article that has caught your attention
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Perry’s Public Space Protection Order isn’t working. Take a walk by the green spaces next to Croydon Minster, from Church Road to Howley Road. Then head back to town along the footpath between Charles Street and Surrey Street. You’ll see loads of old beer bottles and cans, consumed contrary to Section 62 of the Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014, as cited in the PSPO. There’s just no enforcement.
While urination in a public place is prohibited by the PSPO, if you’re unlucky, you’ll see evidence of worse behaviour on your travels. But defecation, whether by man or beast, isn’t covered by Perry’s proscription, so that’s alright.
Oddly enough, the PSPO says you’re not allowed to “behave in a manner, either as an individual or within a group of people, which causes, or is likely to cause harassment, alarm or distress”. In which case, the police should turn up at the next Council meeting and nick the front benches of both main parties. They’ve been getting away with anti-social behaviour for years
P-P Perry’s name seems to be associated with every failure!
Will this stop drunks and vagrant sitting around in the entrance to West Croydon station? How about all the other strange characters in that area who I routinely see?
That shows another failure from another gimmick: Live Facial Recognition Cameras
‘Strange characters’? Commuters? Shoppers? Tell us more!
perhaps if it was rigidly enforced in an almighty blitz it might help …. the area needs extending to cover the side streets off Southbridge Road.. all its done is move the problem on..
Quite. Why isn’t the whole borough subject to a PSPO?