Has Mayor Perry’s council backed down from ending lollipop road safety patrols at six of the borough’s primary schools? That’s what it sounded like at this week’s Town Hall meeting, as KEN LEE reports
Petition presented: Cllr Bonham (right) and parents and pupils from Cypress at the Town Hall this week
Did one of Croydon Mayor Jason Perry’s henchmen, Councillor Scott Roche, suggest that the cash-strapped council’s decision to remove lollipop ladies and men – school crossing patrols – from six of the borough’s primaries might be “reviewed”?
That’s what it sounded like at Wednesday’s meeting of full council, the last to be held before the arrival of government Commissioners, and the last to be held until October – by which time the borough’s six remaining lollipop patrols may have been reduced to nothing more than a fond memory of better, kinder, safer times.
Councillor Claire Bonham had managed to get a public petition opposing the cuts presented at the meeting, despite underhand efforts by council officials to try to claim that the petition was received too late or that they could not verify the hundreds of signatures on the submitted petition.
At any rate, if the council would not accept the Cypress school’s petition, then they really ought to have been considering a 500-signature petition from Greenvale Primary, another of the schools who fear the loss of their lollipop patrol.
Bonham, a councillor for Crystal Palace and Upper Norwood ward, had been at last Friday’s parents and pupils protest on Sylvan Road, which stopped the traffic and showed overwhelming support for Robert, their long-serving lollipop man.
Inside Croydon broke the news of the axing of the school safety patrols, the last six in the borough, and discovered that Croydon’s increasingly secretive council, under chief exec Katherine Kerswell and Mayor Perry, didn’t even bother to advise the schools affected.
The six remaining lollipop patrols are under threat so that the council can make a saving of £58,000 – small change for cash-strapped Croydon, where debts stand at £1.4billion and barely one-quarter what they pay in salary to their chief exec.
As originally revealed by Inside Croydon, the six schools under threat of losing their lollipop patrols are Cypress Infants and Juniors (South Norwood Hill), Norbury Manor Primary, Orchard Way Primary (Monks Orchard), Oasis Academy Ryelands (Woodside), Greenvale Primary (Selsdon), and Monks Orchard Infants and Juniors.
Until Wednesday’s council meeting, Mayor Perry had not allowed any debate over the decision to axe the road safety patrols.
The majority of the borough’s elected councillors, from Labour, Green and Liberal Democrat parties, were unaware of the axing of the lollipop patrols until Inside Croydon reported Mayor Perry’s plan in May.
Mumble, mumble: Scott Roche struggled to get his message across
And on Wednesday, Croydon’s £82,000 per year “executive” Mayor dodged the question raised, getting one of his cabinet members, Roche, to stand in the firing line instead.
Bonham, a Liberal Democrat councillor, spoke of cross-party opposition to the lollipop cuts, which she describes as “penny-pinching”. The council’s alternative to having a lollipop patrol for Cypress Infants and Juniors is an un-staffed zebra crossing half a mile away, at a busy four-way junction.
Lisa Castagner, one of the local mums who staged the protest last week, explained that Councillor Roche and the council had ignored her and other parents’ appeals for two years, without a single response to emails expressing concerns about speeding drivers, vehicles crashing and a lack of enforcement on the area’s roads.
The Town Hall Chamber’s faulty sound system is an embarrassment (another one), and some councillors’ abilities to use the microphones provided is often less than good. Roche, in particular, is a committed and dedicated mumbler who never looks up from his notes. How he ever managed to land a £40,000 cabinet position remains another Croydon mystery.
Which is why, even after he responded to the public petition, it remains uncertain exactly what Roche said, or meant.
“The council will not place savings above children’s safety,” Roche began, sounding clear enough.
Clear message: the council has been accused of ‘penny-pinching’ over the planned lollipop cuts
He then mumbled something about assessments. These would be council reports assessing road safety at the six schools that have never been made public.
And then Roche seemed to say this: “Council officers are currently reviewing recommendations from assessments. Where appropriate they will undertake recommended interventions to improve road safety.”
Did he really say that his lollipop decision was up for “review”?
“I don’t know,” Councillor Bonham told Inside Croydon. “I can’t be sure. He was mumbling too much.”
And what might this “review” mean? Will the lollipop patrols keep their jobs?
No one really knows. When mumbler Roche resumed his seat, the civic Mayor, Richard Chatterjee, the Tory councillor who chairs council meetings, shut down the debate (procedure, donchaknow), so no one could ask Roche to clarify what he meant.
It was a vignette of much that is wrong about the way our council has been run.
Today, Councillor Bonham said: “I was delighted to hand in the petition at the council meeting and lead a short debate on why Robert is such a valued member of the local community.
“This is a tiny saving to the council, and so I say to the Mayor – think again! It isn’t too late to change your plans, and remove the threat to these vital road safety posts, which help to keep local children safe.”
Read more: Council failed to tell affected schools about their lollipop cuts
Read more: They voted to raise your Council Tax, then to increase their pay
Read more: Council’s healthy school streets have no ANPR protections
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