CROYDON IN CRISIS: It has taken the borough’s £86,000 per year Mayor more than a week to make an official statement on his unlawful LTN moneyspinners. But he still doesn’t know how the cash-strapped council will refund the PCN fines. By STEVEN DOWNES
Ten days after he was ridiculed in a High Court judgement for his hypocrisy and shifting position over Low Traffic Neighbourhoods, Croydon’s failed Mayor Jason Perry has finally made a formal statement through the council press office to confirm that the Town Hall will be refunding motorists who were issued with Penalty Charge Notices for driving in the six traffic zones now ruled to be unlawful.
The refunds could amount to at least £5million, while Croydon’s cash-strapped council will incur untold costs in administering and verifying the refund payments.
No-go zones: Tory Mayor has been ordered to remove the unlawful LTNs
And Transport for London has today confirmed that it is in talks with the council over the status of grants handed to Croydon for implementing “safer neighbourhoods”, with millions of pounds more now at risk.
Some Katharine Street sources fear that the overall cost of scrapping the six LTNs and paying refunds to drivers could reach at least £10million – money that the council does not have, while it has expected income from the road fines budgeted at £2.5million for each of the next two financial years.
Croydon is having to pay the costs of Tory Mayor Perry’s big mouth, after he said publicly that he needed to keep the LTNs to generate revenue for his budgets.
When introduced in 2020, the LTNs blocked the roads to through-traffic using planters. There was no system of fines.
In 2021, when seeking election as Mayor, Perry said he would get rid of LTNs from “Day One” that he was in charged at the Town Hall.
In 2024, it was Perry who signed the order to make the LTNs permanent, and to introduce ANPR – automatic number plate recognition cameras – to trap unwary motorists or those incapable of reading road signs up to £160 a time.
Perry, after being assured by the council’s lawyers that they would win the court case, has spent the past week-and-a-half scrambling around, desperately trying to cover his arse, with local elections just eight weeks away.
The £86,000 per year Mayor has been accused of telling “shameless lies”, as he has sought to blame anyone but himself for this latest crisis of incompetence. Now, even the Croydon public are claiming his position is untenable and he should resign.
Even today’s statement from Perry via the council failed to take responsibility for the judge’s ruling against his unlawful LTNs.
Yet Perry has come up short again, with an admission that the council has no scheme in place to make the refunds.
After days of uncertainty, Perry finally announced: “I can confirm that residents who received a penalty notice whilst the schemes were in operation will be able to claim refunds, and we will update our website with information about the process in the coming days.”
No responsibility: Perry today finally issued a statement via the council website. But he refuses to take responsibility for the High Court’s judgement against him
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.
Fines issued on these roads since March 2024 were ruled unlawful by Mr Justice Pepperall, as he quashed the orders that brought the LTNs into use.
And today, Transport for London confirmed that they are looking to the funding that was previously allocated to Croydon in connection with its traffic management schemes.
“We are working with officers in Croydon Council to understand the implications of recent judgement concerning six Low Traffic Neighbourhood schemes and their Local Implementation Plan,” a TfL spokesperson told Inside Croydon.
According to a letter from TfL’s “head of healthy streets” from March 2025, Croydon was allocated £2million for 2025-2026 towards various road and transport schemes, including £1.36million for “safer corridors and neighbourhoods”.
Tonight, Croydon residents, not just opposition politicians, who are calling for Jason Perry to resign – although it appears that a council official has been spending their time censoring any remarks deemed to be too critical of Croydon’s incompetent Mayor.
“Refunds should be automatic. You knew where to send the fines, so you know where to send the refunds!” one resident wrote on the council’s own Facebook page.
“Where do I get a claim form?” asked another.
And another resident wrote, “Complete humiliation for Mayor Perry. This statement omits the crucial detail that the LTNs were income-generating [and] therefore unlawful.
“This is on him. He should resign.”
But Perry has had a council employee delete that comment. Paid for out of your Council Tax.
- If you seek a refund for a fine you believe was issued in one of the six “unlawful” LTNs which have been ordered quashed by a High Court judge, we suggest you write to Mayor Jason Perry at mayor@croydon.gov.uk, providing details of when you received the PCN, and the fine’s reference number
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: Traffic creeps back on to Croydon’s now-banned LTN streets
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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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I got hit once. I’m inclined not to request a refund and take a hit / consider it a write-off. Yes the situation is shambolic and I am owed a refund, but unless the Council is insured against something like this (it is not), I don’t think a series of mass claims will, on balance, do any collective good. It’s just doesn’t sit well with me. Instead, I will get pay back, so to speak, on election day.
You should have both! Take the refund and well as your election day payback.
Then with the refund donate it to a local charity or buy some books for the local library if you don’t want to keep it for yourself.
I thought Starmer was incompetent but Perry said “Hold my beer…”
Should he resign then if he had any sense of honour then yes but he won’t.
He only had a couple of months on the clock before he’s hopefully out on his ear in early May.
If he did resign then his statutory deputy – Lynne Hale – automatically becomes Mayor and she’d have to appoint her statutory deputy as it’s a legal requirement so it’s not like they’d be any salary savings that could be used to help pay for the refunds.
I live on one of the streets with one of these cameras. My car was registered in their system, with a “virtual permit” that hadn’t expired, yet I still received a fine. Croydon Council denied my appeal, claiming that they had apparently deleted my permit months earlier (news to me) but providing no other information as to why. Only after I appealed to the London Environment and Traffic Adjudicators did they suddenly back down, with a letter that contained no apology or explanation.
I was initially in support of the LTN to reduce rat-running, but this left a bitter taste in my mouth. It felt like they just wanted the money and didn’t care if they were in the right or not. I wonder how many other peoples’ permits were mysteriously “deleted” without being informed.