Cheeky truckers: the rules banning pavement parking don’t seem to apply to Veolia. But then, there’s many rules that don’t seem to apply to Croydon’s rubbish contractors
TONY HOOKER, of the voluntary organisation Litter Free Norbury, pictured, wants to know why
Nearly a year after Croydon’s new waste collection contract came into force, the council has still not published the agreement.
For residents, this is not a minor administrative delay. It raises serious questions about transparency, accountability and what exactly has been agreed behind closed doors in one of the borough’s most high-profile and controversial public service contracts.
Waste collection affects every household in Croydon and represents a major area of council spending. Yet despite repeated requests, the full contract — including service standards, performance targets and penalties — remains withheld from the public, 12 months since it came into force.
A request for publication was first made to the (now former) director of streets and environment on March 24, 2025. In April last year, Charles Baker, the council’s head of environmental services and sustainable neighbourhoods, confirmed in writing that “we will be making this publicly available and publish a redacted copy of the contract on our website”.
Five-day wait: is this the kind of detail in the new Veolia contract – giving them five business days to clear fly-tips outside the town centre – what Mayor Perry is desperate to keep secret until after the election?
Around the same time, Graham Mitchell submitted a Freedom of Information request to Croydon Council asking for details around the new Veolia contract. Graham is a community activist of many years, and he is standing as an independent candidate for Bensham Manor ward in the council elections in May.
The council refused disclosure under Section 22 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000, claiming the contract was intended for publication at some point in the future. On April 14 last year, Mitchell raised this with Mayor Jason Perry at a community meeting in Thornton Heath. Residents were told at the meeting that the Veolia contract would be available “soon”.
Repeated requests were made to the council to ask when the contract would be made available. But these requests were ignored.
Inconsistent: Mayor Perry’s Town Hall answers don’t tally with other council replies
On December 10 last year, in the Town Hall Chamber, the matter was raised at full council. In response to a public question, Mayor Perry said, “Now that we are through the mobilisation and the new operation of the contract, work is now being undertaken to do the redacting of the document, and it should be with us early in the New Year.”
This response does not stand up to scrutiny.
The council’s own statements are inconsistent.
In response to an FOI request submitted on December 16 2025, the council stated that the redaction work – blanking out sections of the contract which might be deemed to be commercially sensitive – had begun on March 31 last year.
The Mayor’s comments at the council meeting contradicted this, when he said the process started only followed the completion of mobilisation.
As Mitchell told me: “Given that Veolia’s re-appointment was announced in late 2024 ahead of an April 2025 start date, it is reasonable to expect that a redacted version of the contract could have been prepared within that lead-in period. The length of time now taken is therefore unusual.”
We are well into 2026, and there is still no sign of the Veolia contract.
This is not a trivial delay. The contract has now been operational for almost a year. By any reasonable standard, publication should have happened long ago.
Croydon Council claims that the delay is due to the time required to carry out “necessary redactions”. On the surface, that may sound plausible. Public contracts do sometimes require limited redactions, particularly around commercially sensitive information and data covered by GDPR.
Limited redactions: the previous contract only had very few blacked-out sections, and not enough to warrant more than a year’s work
Historically, the main redactions were limited and specific — primarily relating to financial penalty regimes linked to service performance indicators (SLAs). These are important details, but they are confined to certain schedules within the contract, not the entirety of the document.
The previous 2017 contract documents were published on the website of the South London Waste Partnership. Croydon is one of four councils that are members of SLWP, and it was in part because of Croydon’s long-standing commercial relationship that Veolia landed its SLWP deals with Kingston, Sutton and Merton.
Examination of the 2017 documents showed only four redactions in the main contract. Fewer than 30 pages (of those published) contained redactions within the Schedules.
This is not the kind of redaction work that takes a year to complete.
So, is the issue really about redaction, or about what the new contract might reveal?
Without access to the contract, residents are left in the dark on several critical issues:
- What performance standards has the contractor committed to?
- What penalties apply if those standards are not met?
- What flexibility does the council have to enforce improvements?
- What has changed from the previous contract?
These are not technical details — they go to the heart of how effectively Croydon’s waste service can be managed and held to account.
While the contract documentation remains withheld, we have nevertheless started to uncover some concerning details.
Unconfirmed reports suggest that there has been a significant change in the SLA – service performance indicators – for rectification of fly-tipping reports. This has gone from 24-48 hours up to five business days (so not including weekends). This would represent a significant weakening of service standards.
Is it this kind of information that Mayor Perry wants to hide from Croydon residents, at least until after the May elections?
Mitchell says: “From the outset of the contract, residents should already know what their money is being spent on, including the agreed service standards and key performance indicators, or KPIs—such as the time for clearing fly-tipping.
“The continued delay in releasing the documents, alongside an unusual use of FoI exemptions, raises legitimate questions.
“It is unacceptable in terms of transparency, particularly as we approach the May 2026 elections.”
At their core, public contracts should be public.
Nearly a year on, the continued failure to publish Croydon’s waste contract is no longer credible or acceptable.
Transparency is not optional. It is a fundamental duty.
- Tony Hooker has lived in Norbury for 23 years, and works as an IT consultant, ‘although I find myself increasingly to be more of a full-time activist’. LItter Free Norbury was started in 2020
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