EXCLUSIVE by STEVEN DOWNES
Mayor Jason Perry, who has been claiming that he has got Croydon “back on track”, failed to include the possibility of his council losing its legal challenge over Low Traffic Neighbourhoods in the authority’s corporate risk register.
Hypocrisy: Jason Perry, Croydon’s £86,000 per year Mayor, has been caught out once again
And given that the court case was fought over whether the cash-strapped council was issuing £160 Penalty Charge Notices to help plug holes in Perry’s unbalanced budgets, there was no allowance made in the Tory Mayor’s latest budget, passed last week, for the possibility that the LTNs might have to be removed.
According to a Katharine Street source this afternoon, “It is just completely, crassly incompetent.
“How can they have not even considered the possibility that they might lose the case, and the £10million in revcenue from fines that they have budgeted to receive?”
Early estimates put the loss of the road fines revenue – which is supposed to be used only for road repairs and improvements – as costing Croydon Council around £2million this year alone. The council’s own figures, when proposing to make the LTNs permanent in 2024, was that fines would raise £10.7million over a four-year period.
Then there is the administrative costs of managing refunds, and the cost of the fine refunds, which could amount to at least £5million.
And all because witless Jason Perry told a public meeting after he had been elected Mayor that, “£20million of future income… would have to be replaced.”
Judgement: Justice Pepperall made his ruling based on the comments of Croydon’s Tory Mayor
High Court judge Justice Pepperall has ruled that the legal orders from 2024 which made six Croydon LTNs permanent should now be quashed. The council has three weeks to appeal against the ruling.
The LTNs are at Dalmally Road, Addiscombe; Elmers Road, Addiscombe; Parsons Mead in Broad Green; Sutherland Road, Broad Green; Holmesdale Road, South Norwood; and Albert Road, also South Norwood.
The LTNs, according to Croydon Council, “aim to improve the lives of those living in Croydon”, and are “intended to support people live healthy lives. That could mean being more active, breathing cleaner air, getting to know neighbours, getting involved in the local community or living in a more attractive, clean and green neighbourhood”.
Croydon Council has so far refused to issue any comment following the devastating ruling handed down by judge Hon Mr Justice Pepperall yesterday. And that’s before they have been asked to explain why a High Court case with a potential multi-million-pound impact was not included in the council’s risk register.
A council corporate risk register is a formal document that is supposed to list the most significant threats and opportunities facing the authority’s objectives. It acts as a tool for management to assess, monitor and mitigate risks — such as financial, operational or reputational — to ensure the smooth running of the organisation. Or in Croydon’s case, not.
The legal case, brought by a shadowy organisation calling itself Open Our Roads, had been contested at the High Court since late 2024, and in June 2025 counsel for the council got the case thrown out on procedural matters.
Only an appeal by lawyers working for Open Our Roads managed to drag the council back to court in December, despite Croydon’s legal efforts to delay and dismiss.
Such has been the churn of senior staff at the council that none of the directors who were responsible for handling the legal case, all interims, are still working at Fisher’s Folly. The council chief executive, Katherine Kerswell, left her job in October, helped on her way by a £50,000 pay-off approved by Mayor Perry.
The council’s corporate risk register has not been updated since early September last year.
It includes such things as the risks to the council’s finances surrounding the new stand at Crystal Palace, or “maintaining parking revenues”, and it lists as a strategic risk the audio-video equipment in the Town Hall Chamber. But there’s not a dickie bird about a multi-million-pound LTN legal challenge.
Risky business: the council’s strategic risk register was last updated in September. There’s no mention of the LTN legal case
A report on the risk register was discussed at a council meeting last November, when Jason Cummings, Perry’s cabinet member for finance, “advised that the visibility of the council’s risk register and how the risks were managed was an important part of the operation of this council”.
Oh dear.
“The fact that Perry’s council did not factor-in losing a major court case which could result in lost revenue, and maybe even the refunding of millions of pounds of fines, will not go down well,” a Katharine Street source said.
“They’ve either been blindsided or hidden it. That’s shocking.”
Such serious shortcomings in the way the council is (still) being mismanaged could come up for discussion at next Thursday’s audit and governance committee. But some Town Hall figures fear that £86,000 per year Mayor Perry and the council’s paid officials, such as interim CEO Elaine Jackson, will try to run down the clock on the matter until Croydon enters the period of pre-election purdah, when all political debate is gagged.
Councillor Stuart King, the leader of the Labour group at the Town Hall, tonight told Inside Croydon, “Jason Perry’s hypocrisy has caught up with him. He campaigned against LTNs and then, when he became Mayor, the High Court has found that he made them permanent for financial reasons, and in doing so acted unlawfully.
“Taxpayers in Croydon are now on the hook for millions as the Mayor needs to fill a gaping hole in next year’s budget that is entirely of his own doing.
“This latest financial fiasco by Perry comes on the back of a ‘misstatement’ of £15million in costs, the loss of a £22million asset sale and the need for the highest-ever government bailout to balance his budget.
“Residents should call time on Jason Perry’s mayoralty at the elections in May.”
Read more: High Court judge orders end to Croydon’s ‘unlawful’ LTNs
Read more: The next battle in the culture wars? Traffic bollards
Read more: London’s toxic air is ‘a public health emergency’ says charity
PAID ADS: To advertise your services or products to our 10,000 weekday visitors to the site, as featured on Google News Showcase, email us inside.croydon@btinternet.com for our unbeatable ad rates
- If you have a news story about life in or around Croydon, or want to publicise your residents’ association or business, or if you have a local event to promote, please email us with full details at inside.croydon@btinternet.com
- Our comments section on every report provides all readers with an immediate “right of reply” on all our content. Our comments policy can be read by clicking here
- Inside Croydon is a member of the Independent Community News Network