CROYDON IN CRISIS: After spending two years in a High Court battle to defend his decision to make six Low Traffic Neighbourhoods permanent, today Croydon’s Mayor tried to claim credit for their forced removal.
By STEVEN DOWNES
End of an error: council contractors were at work on Friday to cover over signage in Croydon’s six unlawful LTNs
Croydon Council will not be appealing against Wednesday’s High Court decision to quash six Low Traffic Neighbourhoods in the borough.
Inside Croydon has learned that legal advice received by Croydon Council on Friday night made it abundantly clear that, thanks to Mayor Jason Perry’s big mouth, they would certainly lose the case again.
It leaves another gaping hole in Perry’s latest budget, which is balanced this financial year only because of another £119million bail-out from government.
The cash-strapped council has so far refused to comment on the matter, or explain how it might fund the many thousands of claims for refunds of £160 fines from Penalty Charge Notices arising from Perry’s money-spinning LTNs that have been ruled “unlawful”.
After almost two years of legal arguments over whether the Judicial Review ought ever to have been heard, Mr Justice Pepperall handed down the decision that the council’s legal orders from 2024, which made six Croydon LTNs permanent, should be quashed.
Justice Pepperall’s judgement was devastating for Jason Perry, as it focused on the comments that the Conservative politician had made before and after he was elected as Croydon’s Mayor.
The judge’s ruling was implicitly critical of Perry and his shifting position and contradictory comments, as he opted to keep the schemes and the £10million-plus revenue they were expected to generate. The case was straightforward, the judge said: LTNs can be introduced to calm or reduce traffic and pollution, but they cannot be introduced to balance the bankrupt borough’s books.
Long sentence: the real, and the only, reason that the council is removing its LTNs
Croydon’s roads department projected annual income from fines from motorists of up to £10.7million over four years.
The schemes ruled unlawful are Albert Road in South Norwood, Dalmally Road, Addiscombe, Elmers Road, South Norwood, Holmesdale Road, Selhurst, and Parsons Mead and Sutherland Road, both in Broad Green.
In his ruling, Justice Pepperall wrote: “The schemes were controversial. In opposition, Conservative Councillor Jason Perry criticised the then Labour administration for the introduction of the schemes.
“In seeking election as Mayor, Councillor Perry frequently campaigned on the issue. He then said that he would like to remove all Low Traffic Neighbourhood schemes on the first day that he became Mayor and only reintroduce any scheme that had local backing and would achieve its stated purposes.
“While that was his wish, he cautioned: ‘However, owing to how Labour has constructed their budget this is simply not possible. There is well over £20million of future income within the budget which would have to be replaced if this happened’.”
The judge also highlighted how Perry lied to the public once he was elected. “He said that he did not support the schemes but did not pledge to remove them.”
The judge even quotes Perry’s porky: “I did not at any point say that I would remove all the [Low Traffic Neighbourhood schemes] because I just knew it was not a pledge that I could uphold.”
And today,
1,402
days later than he said he would, Perry appeared in a little social media video trying to claim the credit for the removal of his unlawful LTNs.
“He’s looking just a bit pathetic,” one Katharine Street source said on viewing the video. “And increasingly desperate.”
The video – issued by Croydon’s Tories, not by Croydon Council – fails to mention the latest legal advice or the undisguised criticism of Perry’s hypocrisy by the High Court judge, as Porkie Pie Perry tries to take the credit for the removal of the LTNs.
“I’m scrapping Labour’s LTNs in Croydon,” Perry lies in his video. It’s the High Court’s decision, not his. As recently as December, Perry and council officials were saying that they were confident that they would win the Judicial Review brought against the LTNs.
As recently as Tuesday this week, Perry’s council was still banking the PCN revenue generated by the CCTV cameras that Perry had had installed.
“When these Low Traffic Neighbourhood schemes were introduced by Labour in 2020…” Perry lied, failing to state that it was his decision, in 2024, to make the LTNs permanent. It was these council orders that Judge Pepperall quashed.
“Residents and businesses across Croydon told me the same thing: they increased congestion, lengthened journeys and fined local people for driving on their own streets.” Another lie. Residents are issued permits to use their own streets. The only people issuing such fines has been… Jason Perry’s own council.
“This is nth-degree gas-lighting by Perry,” according to one resident who was shocked by the Tory Mayor’s efforts to spin a multi-million-pound mess of his own making.
Another described Perry’s video as “weapons-grade misdirection”: “The Mayor had the power to remove these when elected to office. He chose not to.”
Part-time Perry’s video continues: “As a lifelong Croydon resident and local business owner, I’ve always shared those concerns.” Apart from the time he signed the orders to make the LTNs permanent, that is. Or the past two years, when he has been writing the fines revenue into his council budgets.
Video nasty: Perry’s statement has been described as ‘weapons-grade misdirection’
Perry kept the porkie pies coming: “I always said Croydon should not rely on fining residents to balance the books.” Apart from the times when he said he was doing just that. And the time he made the LTNs permanent to do just that.
Perry goes on to claim that the the council’s finances are “stabilised”, which, of course, is also untrue.
“I’ve taken the decision to remove them,” Perry lied. He’s been ordered to, by the High Court, which ridiculed his shifting position on the matter.
One resident remarked on social media: “This is a decision made not in the interests of the council or Croydon residents, but for Perry’s own, personal political expediency.”
Perry’s self-regarding diatribe continued: “Croydon has come a long way since Labour’s financial collapse.” The council’s debts today, under piss-poor Perry, stand at £1.4billion, exactly the same as the day he became Mayor.
“While I am Mayor,” Perry boasted, perhaps puffing out his chest just a little, the LTNs “will never return.”
Perry might be in office only until May 8. Local elections take place on May 7, and residents are beginning to realise that he’s been taking them for fools.
“The only thing he’s managed to do halfway competently is increase his own wages,” one resident said this morning.
Politicians don’t often resort to using the words “lies” or “liar” when talking about political opponents. Too close to home usually.
But unusually, after seeing Perry’s latest video nasty, today they did.
“There’s no principles in any of this,” Councillor Stuart King, the leader of the Labour group at the Town Hall, said.
“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.
“It was Jason Perry who introduced camera-enforced LTNs in September 2022 and it was Jason Perry who in February 2024 made those LTNs permanent, which he then fought a two-year court battle to defend.
“In May 2026, voters have the chance to sack this incompetent Mayor.”
After seeing the latest Perry video on LTNs, Peter Underwood, the Green Party candidate for Croydon Mayor, said: “So many lies in one video.
“A perfect example of why no one should vote Conservative on 7 May. Whatever your view of the issue, we need honesty in Croydon politics, not more shameless lying.”
Read more: High Court judge orders end to Croydon’s ‘unlawful’ LTNs
Read more: Council failed to include High Court LTN case on risk register
Read more: London’s toxic air is ‘a public health emergency’ says charity
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ROTTEN BOROUGH AWARDS: In January 2026, Croydon was named among the country’s rottenest boroughs for an EIGHTH time in nine years, in Private Eye magazine’s annual round-up of civic cock-ups
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Another nail is Piss-Poor’s coffin
Those imposing LTNs across the country are no better than Perry. Perry just admitted it. They benefit those living on them and council income.
Isn’t that the point of the LTN – to benefit those living in them by reducing through traffic and improving the environment?
And like all sorts of other fines such as speeding, parking where you shouldn’t, driving in bus lanes / gates etc etc they are easily avoided by drivers not doing any of those things!
Yet many drivers can’t grasp that concept.
And it says something about the stupidity of drivers that a council can budget for a steady income stream.
They benefit more than those living in them. They benefit those who travel through them. Those whose entire outside existence takes place either in a car or walking to and from their car never seem to grasp this.
Unfortunately one of Croydons problems has been their inability to understand the concept of ‘Budget’ not just meaning where you cn hire a car.
Does anyone know the best way to start the process of reclaiming fines resulting from the illegal LTN’s. I’m still bitter about being caught in one by no more than small signs placed high, not seen as watching the traffic was important to me as Google led me up ‘the garden path’!
The best way to reclaim a fine from an unlawful (not “illegal”) Low Traffic Neighbourhood is to turn up on Perry’s doorstep or office and ask him for your money back – plus interest. Make sure you have your phone set to video to record the proceedings, then share the results with Inside Croydon
I strongly disagree.
Whilst he is indeed the Mayor, his home is his private residence, where he and his family live, and they are entitled to their privacy at all times.
The course of action you advise could be construed as harassment, especially as more people do it.
No matter how angry people may be at having been fined, that is no excuse to behave like yobs.
Office, please. Harassment at home is a bit yobbish
I was being tongue-in-cheek
Email mayor@croydon.gov.uk
Can I reclaim the fine paid for transgressing a Croydon LTN ?
Email mayor@croydon.gov.uk.
I understand the council is now obliged to clearly set out the procedure forecovery and like you I nned to know to which department (or preferably individual) we need to approach so we don’t get sent down a rabbit hole of ‘Computer says no’. I have my CR number fromm the original ‘fine’ notice and copy of the credit card statement under which I paid the fine. I don’t think more will be needed.
Who do we ask now – is the question.
Happy days
Email mayor@croydon.gov.uk
Logical indeed. The question now is to whom should we address our demands for refund? Parking? Treaurer? etc.
Email mayor@croydon.gov.uk
For those asking if they can get their fines back. My nonlegal answer is, if it was issued after the Mayor made them permanent, probably yes once the council gets its act together. If it was prior to that, probably no as this isn’t a judgement against LTNs in general, just the way our Mayor made these 6 permanent in 2024. The reason is that the 2024 decision was based in large part on income to the council, something prohibited by the 1984 act. Prior to that, it is arguable, and no one has shown any actual evidence of the decision being based on income. The papers show the decision being based on safety and environmental considerations.
Anything related to parking income in Croydon is only ever about the money. Permit costs and Pay and display cost will go up as a result of this to try and mitigate the loss.
And those activities on which the income from fines was expended won’t take place in the coming years e.g. road improvements.
This is surely a resigning issue for Perry.
He has cost the council and tax-paying residents of the borough millions of pounds through his own incompetence.
But resignation will not be an issue if voters simply turf him out of office on May 7.
It does beg the question where is the Labour response to all this. There again you could have said the same thing throughout the last four years. Budgets abstained on, confidence votes not brought… it’s all very well allowing Perry stuff up, but this nightmare could’ve been over a hell of a lot sooner. Not sure SD enjoys his role as the defacto Leader of the Opposition!
SD?
Dunno who SD is, but amongst the mob of Labour councillors in Croydon, there are two SC’s, and an SF, SK, and SN, but no SD ?!
You Steven!
That’s very kind. Though I think a long way from the situation: after 16 years, in the words of Don Maclean, they are still not listening.
Yet again Perry with his poor decison making wastes millions of pounds that Croydon certainly does not have and by failing to make a measured judgement with regard to income raising has exposed the Council to huge debts in its future budget making.
We should change his name from part time to full time negligent and incompetent.
So the drivers who couldn’t read signs aren’t going to be placated by this, clearly. And the people who want safer streets certainly aren’t. Pretty slick politics to be able to piss off everyone at the same time. But then I’m not convinced he ever expected or wanted to be mayor and the sooner he’s able to wash his hands of all this, the better. His legacy will be every crash and injury on these roads from now on.
Have you got links to the council’s reports that informed making the schemes permanent after the experimental periods. If they are anything like those in other areas I expect they show solid cases.
On penalties, the council was obligated to include them in budgeting and they are ringfenced by law for roads and transport-related measures.
Of course like all new schemes the penalties are high at first but will tail off as there is a diminishing number of new drivers to the zones who can’t read road signs.
It looks to me like this was a bad judgement exacerbated by daft talk. After all, all six LTNs cannot possibly be judged as one.
LTNs are generally unpopular, and signs are too easily overlooked while driving – the one that caught me involved too much text to read as I turned into a road which apparently contained a school and which I could not drive along between certain hours. I paid the fine, blaming my own ignorance for driving along a road I’d used for years when I lived in S. Croydon but hadn’t used recently, and failing to absorb all the information on a sign. Perry was going to abolish all of them, but needed the fines to boost income. It looks a bit like entrapment!
So when local election candidates call at the door, remember to make a written note of the date, their name and their response to the question “when will you abolish all Croydon LTNs?” Best of all, ask them to sign it….
That’s not an LTN, that’s a school street. The biggest and most obvious part of the sign just means no entry to motor vehicles. The full Highway Code is available online, and driving instructors offer refresher lessons if it would help.
“LTNs are generally unpopular” in *your* opinion. The ticket you got wasn’t for driving into a poorly designed Low Traffic Neighbourhood but for going through a Healthy School Street, something completely different
You appear to have been fined for using a school street, Diana. Those restrictions remain unaffected by the judge’s ruling.
Here’s a thought. Maybe they could recover some of the lost expected income from the LTN enforcement by scrapping the pay rises that Jason Perry awarded to himself, cabinet members and anyone else who was involved in this entire debacle.
Was this a deliberate delay, to score points with the faithful just before an election, or salt the earth financially if he loses? Maybe I’m being too generous as to the level of political scheming he’s capable of.
Perry is too occupied in opening ice cream parlours and taking credit for new venues in Allders Parade