EXCLUSIVE: The latest annual accounts for Carlton Business Plastics, the family business run by entrepreneur and part-time Mayor Jason Perry, show that his company is suffering a financial crisis of its own.
By SANDRA STEAD
Looming redundancy: Jason Perry could soon be out of work at two of his jobs
There is good reason for Inside Croydon to refer to the Mayor of Croydon as “part-time Perry”.
Since his election in May 2022 as Croydon’s first executive Mayor, with a council salary which has ballooned to £84,000, Jason Perry has not only continued as managing director of his family firm, but he has also held other directorships, including at the oxymoronic Croydon Business Improvement District.
During his election campaign four years ago, Perry made a number of promises, all since broken, including that he would “fix the finances” of the council. Unmentioned was the near £1billion debt that he and his Tory colleagues had left behind when the Conservatives were last in office at the Town Hall in 2014.
As we approach 2026, everyone in Croydon who has seen their Council Tax hiked by 33% under Tory Mayor Perry, while he has had to get multi-million government bail-outs for his busted budgets, will know that this has gone very badly indeed.
As part of his campaign schtick four years ago, Perry would say he was “born and bred” in Croydon, that he supports Crystal Palace and that he would bring his vast experience of running a business to the Mayor’s office.
Two of those attributes are only marginally relevant to the competence, or lack of it, of the plastic guttering salesman in public office. The third is increasingly looking to be utterly untrue.
But the latest set of accounts, published by Companies House yesterday, show Perry’s Carlton Building Plastics to be a company suffering difficult financial conditions.
Four years ago, when seeking people’s votes to become Mayor, Perry lectured Croydon residents about the need for discipline and restraint, while promising “sound financial management”.
Carlton Business Plastics’ latest annual report, for the year ending December 2024, shows a collapse in cash reserves, rising debts and a £75,000 plunge in net assets.
While small companies are allowed to withhold their profit‑and‑loss account, the balance sheet alone tells a story that raises serious questions about the financial competency of Mayor Perry.
At the end of 2023, Carlton Building Plastics held £83,075 in the bank. By the end of 2024, that figure had fallen to… zero. The company is now operating with a £12,518 overdraft.
For a business that has traded for decades, such a dramatic drop in what the number-crunchers call liquidity is not a trivial matter. Cash is the lifeblood of any company. When it disappears, it usually signals deeper operational or financial problems.
Yet while the company’s cash evaporated, its short‑term debts increased.
Loans and borrowings due within a year jumped from £43,083 to £72,528. Trade creditors remained high. Tax and social security liabilities stayed significant. And the business moved from having £48,432 in net current assets to £16,843 in net current liabilities — meaning it now owes more in the coming year than it has available to pay.
Based on the Beddington Industrial Estate, close to Ikea, Perry’s Carlton Business Plastics is also facing a new strain on their finances from April, when their business rates are increased by 28%, from £116,000 per year to £149,000. As things stand, it is hard to see where managing director Perry is going to find that additional £33,000…
He did warn us: it is just about the only thing Mayor Perry has said during his term in office that has come true
Given how Perry has repeatedly criticised Croydon Council’s past financial mismanagement, his own record is looking decidedly ropey.
The company’s net assets — the simplest measure of its financial strength — fell from £140,261 in 2023 to £65,301 in 2024. That’s a drop of £74,960, almost halving the business’s value on paper.
Because the company has not filed an income statement, we cannot see the exact cause. But the fall in retained earnings strongly suggests the business made a substantial loss during the year.
This is not a minor fluctuation. It is a significant deterioration in the financial position of a long‑established trading company.
One of the most eyebrow‑raising figures in the accounts is something called the directors’ loan balance. This is a special account tracking money a company might owe to a director (credit balance) or money a director owes the company (the debit or overdrawn balance).
In 2023, the directors’ current account at Carlton Business Plastics stood at a negligible £338. In 2024, it had ballooned to £33,538.
Such a sharp increase typically indicates that directors have withdrawn money from the business — or that drawings have been reclassified as loans because the company did not have sufficient distributable profits to pay dividends.
Either way, it is a sign of financial strain. When a company is losing cash and its directors are simultaneously taking more money out, creditors ought to take notice.
In the red: Jason Perry as Croydon Mayor has lectured others about financial controls. His own business, meanwhile, has been struggling
In 2024, the company’s borrowings increased both in the short- and long-term. Hire‑purchase liabilities rose. Bank loans increased. Meanwhile, the value of the company’s tangible assets fell after depreciation and the disposal of older vehicles.
The business did invest in new equipment — including nearly £40,000 on motor vehicles — but the overall asset base still declined.
Jason Perry has repeatedly positioned himself as the man to “fix Croydon”, a steady hand after years of financial chaos at the Town Hall. Yet the accounts of his own company tell a very different story.
While he has been urging Croydon residents to accept cuts, closures, and massive Council Tax rises, his family firm has:
- Run out of cash
- Increased its borrowing
- Seen its net assets collapse
- Taken large sums out through the directors’ loan account
- Shifted from a solvent working‑capital position to a deficit
These are not the hallmarks of a business enjoying stable, competent financial management.
Why this matters
Carlton Building Plastics Ltd is not a giant corporation. It is a small, private company. But the financial behaviour of its directors — including Jason Perry, a high-profile local politician — is relevant when that same individual is responsible for overseeing Croydon’s finances.
Residents might reasonably ask:
- What is part-time Perry’s priority: his struggling business or the cash-strapped council?
- If Perry’s own company is struggling, how does that square with his claims of financial prudence?
- If he is withdrawing tens of thousands from a business that appears to be under pressure, what does that tell us about his approach to decisions affecting the whole borough?
- If he cannot maintain cash reserves in a small firm, how can he be trusted with Croydon’s much larger and more complex finances?
These are legitimate public‑interest questions, arising from the the company’s own filings.
And Jason Perry is being less than forthcoming about the true state of his family company’s finances.
Perry’s company has chosen not to file its income statement — a legal right for small firms, but one that conveniently shields from public view the scale of any losses.
Without that document, the public cannot see:
- How much revenue the company generated
- How much profit or loss it made
- Whether costs have spiralled
- Whether turnover has collapsed
What we can see is the outcome: a business that is financially weaker, more indebted, and less liquid, holding less cash, than it was a year earlier.
Under pressure: Carlton Business Plastics are running out of money. Are they also running out of time?
Carlton Building Plastics’ 2024 accounts reveal a company in a significantly worse position than the year before. Cash has disappeared. Borrowing has increased. Directors have taken more money out. Net assets have nearly halved. Working capital has swung into the red.
For any business, these would be concerning signs. For a business run by the Mayor of Croydon — a man who has built his political brand on claims of financial competence — they raise serious and unavoidable questions.
Especially as Jason Perry is the Conservative candidate for Mayor of Croydon on May 7 – will the company’s managing director have the time or energy to fight an election campaign while still overseeing the struggles of his family business?
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