LibDems and Greens say that only a thorough, deep dive into the council’s accounts and records conducted by an outside body – such as HM Revenue and Customs – can get to the bottom of the latest multi-million-pound financial scandal at Croydon Council. By STEVEN DOWNES
Block heads: Croydon’s Tory-run council looks to have lost millions of pounds in its handling of Red Clover Gardens
Two of Jason Perry’s election rivals have made calls for a full investigation into the possibility of fraud around the collapsed property deal at Red Clover Gardens in Coulsdon which has left the council £22million out of pocket.
Using confidential council reports, we also reported how Tory Mayor Perry used public money to repossess three of the residential blocks, while gagging the company with a hush fund of £500,000 – more than Labour’s Tony Newman handed Jo Negrini when she quit the crisis-hit council in 2020.
Now Richard Howard and Peter Underwood, candidates standing to succeed Conservative Perry as Croydon’s Mayor, have both made calls for an independent investigation into how the dodgy-looking deal was set-up, and to ensure that directors at the cash-strapped council did all that could reasonably be expected to protect the public interest, its property and its money.
“We’ve all had enough of dodgy deals at Croydon Council,” said Underwood, the Green Party’s mayoral candidate (and a council election candidate in Selsdon Vale and Forestdale).
‘We’ve had enough of dodgy deals’: Peter Underwood, the Greens’ candidate for Croydon Mayor
“It’s no surprise that many people believe it isn’t just incompetence, it could be fraud.
“There’s a saying that when it comes to the stench of backroom deals ‘the light of day is the best disinfectant’. We need a thorough and public investigation and we need to change the culture at the council so we can really see what’s happening with our money.”
Professional financial analyst Howard is the Liberal Democrat candidate for Croydon Mayor, and is also standing for the council in Coulsdon Town, the ward where Red Clover Gardens was built on the Lion Green Road public car park.
Howard has been monitoring the Red Clover deals for almost four years – and he never liked what Perry’s council came up with when they first revealed the details of the leaseback scheme.
Previous Met Police investigations that looked at Croydon Council’s loss of hundreds of millions of pounds of public money over Brick by Brick and the Fairfield Halls refurbishment were eventually abandoned, despite the council’s independent auditors, Grant Thornton, issuing a Report In The Public Interest which identified three or four areas of likely fraud.
Today, Howard says that to resolve the stench of scandal over the Red Clover Gardens deal, the council needs “a full inquiry with independent oversight examining whether due diligence, counterparty risk assessment and scrutiny processes met the standards expected”.
‘Full inquiry’: Richard Howard, the LibDems’ candidate for Mayor
Any investigation, Howard says, “needs to address who was responsible for the failed structure’s design, and who ultimately benefited from this arrangement”.
“Does the Mayor and Conservative councillors now accept that the 2023-2024 deal for Red Clover Gardens was a mistake?” Howard asks.
“Red Clover Gardens should not become another chapter in Croydon’s history of complex property engineering followed by retrospective rationalisation. It should be the moment where complexity gives way to simplicity, opacity to transparency, and defensiveness to accountability.”
Regen Capital, and their subsidiary Regen Coulsdon Ltd, look to have walked away from its negotiations with Croydon Council with at least £4million of what used to be public money. The curse of Brick by Brick has struck again.
At the time of this article’s publication, neither Mayor Perry’s Conservatives nor the opposition Labour group at the Town Hall had called for any kind of urgent, third-party investigation by the police or HM Revenue and Customs into the council’s latest financial scandal.
Read more: Perry has stabilised council finances in state of perpetual crisis
Read more: Coulsdon flats deal was rushed through as massive tax dodge
Read more: #PennReport wanted police probe into possible misconduct
Read more: #PennReport: Cover-ups and denial over Brick by Brick failure
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Perry promised he’d “fix the finances”. It’s starting to look a lot like fiddling the figures
I suppose it depends how Piss-Poor defines “fix”?
He may run (after May) but he can never hide; the Police pursued Croydon’s first mayor to Argentina in the 19th century and dragged him back to the UK to face justice !
So Perry has lost the Council another four million pounds it doesn’t have. How difficult is it to just dispose of property. Is it just too difficult to sell something directly?
We are so fortunate to have Part Time’s expertise to protect the Residents of Croydon interests all over again like Newman. They are the Ying & Yang of Croydon Politics.