New build: 54A Arkwright Road in Sanderstead is a stark example of how, under Mayor Perry, Croydon Council looks the other way when developers choose not to comply with planning requirements – to the long-term detriment of existing residents
Jason Perry boasts that he halted the overdevelopment of parts of Croydon, caused by SPD2, the hugely unpopular ‘Suburban Design Guide.
STEVE WHITESIDE has compiled dossiers of evidence that show that nothing much has changed in the council planning department since 2022
It is clear, from the information I have available, that for the last four years, council staff have spent a great deal of their time mopping up some of the mess that was left behind by the experiment that was SPD2, the “Suburban Design Guide”.
Croydon Council revoked SPD2 – known to some as a “developers’ charter” – in July 2022. Since its introduction, SPD2 had allowed private developers to knock down family houses and build blocks of flats in their place. Revoking SPD2 was one of the first things that Perry did on becoming Croydon Mayor.
SPD2 left a big mess.
Even if we focus on just one aspect, we can see that the consequences of SPD2 remain with us today. Let’s look at a single planning consideration: sustainable drainage systems, or SuDS.
All new developments are supposed to include some measures for sustainable drainage to manage surface water, mimicking natural hydrology to reduce flood risk, improve water quality and enhance biodiversity. This is important stuff, involving sewer provision and dealings with utilities firms such as Thames Water.
Over the past year, I have submitted a number of Freedom of Information requests about different developments, trying to find out whether the council has been doing its job over the implementation of SuDS as part of the planning enforcement process.
How much does our council do to ensure policies and guidance are complied with or enforced?
How seriously do they take the genuine concerns and complaints raised by residents?
And just how far will they go to cover their own tracks?
Asked if they check whether what they’ve approved when granting planning permission has actually been delivered, Croydon’s published responses include statements such as these:
- 158 Purley Downs Road, Sanderstead: “We have not checked for the implementation of SuDs on this site.”
- 4 Rectory Park, Sanderstead: “The LPA does not have evidence in the form of photographs or CCTV records”, and “The provision of such information is not a requirement of the planning permission.” They refer to themselves in a kind of civic third person, the Local Planning Authority.
- 122 Riddlesdown Road, Purley: “There are no photographs or CCTV records that are held by the LPA…”
- 43 Downsway, Sanderstead:“There are no photographs or CCTV records that are held by the LPA…”
- 98 Hyde Road: “The LPA does not have photographic evidence…” of any key installed drainage items.
- 12 The Ridge Way: “No copies” of soakaway/infiltration tests and “No copies of any evidence… having been installed on site are available”.
Someone in a planning department somewhere came up with the expression “passive oversight”. It means no real oversight whatsoever. What can be seen from the six Croydon cases listed above is a clear pattern of “passive oversight”. Our council planners rely entirely on paper-based compliance rather than physical verification. Who’d have thought it?
Broken promise: this was how 12 The Ridge Way was supposed to look. Unfortunately for existing residents, it has very little relationship with the developed reality
We reported the troubling way in which the developers of 12 The Ridge Way were allowed to break the planning conditions in 2021. The council’s recent responses on SuDs at 12 The Ridge Way have become even more troubling.
Having already admitted to having no evidence of SuDS ever being installed, in a follow-up enquiry the council said that it does hold an “as-built” drainage plan but has refused to disclose it. Apparently, it’s confidential.
Clearly, if drainage and flood-risk decisions are being taken on the basis of unpublished material, meaningful public consultation or scrutiny has become impossible.
And what other key decision-making information does the council hold but choose not to make public, because the developer (or someone else) doesn’t want us to see it?
54 Arkwright Road in Sanderstead provides another example of this procedural unfairness.
All that other residents and I tried to do was to help ensure that all the surface water from roofs and patios in this large new-build was routed to the proposed infiltration tank, the “soakaway”, as shown on the approved drawing.
Approved: this is an official council document showing what passed planning for soakways at Arkwright Road. What was actually delivered was altogether different
In December 2019, I told Croydon’s planning enforcement, “We are not sure if the 6.5m x 3m x 0.8m deep crated ‘soakaway’ shown on the approved drainage layout has been installed.”
On January 9 2020, I received a reply from a planning official. “A site inspection was conducted yesterday. A large soakaway drain has been installed … which is now partially covered. I cannot comment on effectiveness.” A fortnight later, he added, “The soakaway is not fully visible due to a covering of freshly excavated soil. I am unable to say if the soakaway arrangements would be effective. This does not fall within my remit.”
After that officer left Croydon later that year, according to the council’s records the case was re-allocated a year later, in December 2021, to enforcement case official John Penn.
In June 2023, the council planning committee considered a retrospective application 22/00085/CONR. The owner of an adjoining property’s submission included the following: “Residents believe that rather than being disposed of sustainably, surface water from roofs and paving is combined with wastewater before discharging into the foul sewer, which can only exacerbate existing flooding issues.
“Just as alarmingly, courtesy of the ‘vent’ located next to my property, residents are regularly treated to the stench of raw sewage.”
‘Wholesale breach of planning controls’: Jan Slominski told the planning committee that what was installed at Arkwright Road did not meet requirements
Although the planning committee report recommended a condition requiring the drainage to be installed in accordance with the drawing that had been passed with the original application more than four years earlier, planning official Jan Slominski stated at the meeting that what had been installed was a “wholesale breach of planning controls”.
By imposing the condition, the council had essentially washed its hands of a breach it had already failed to stop.
By 2023, the council was, of course, under the Conservative control of Mayor Jason Perry, with Conservative councillor Michael Neal as chair of the planning committee and Conservative councillor Ian Parker as his deputy. Predictably, at this committee meeting, both helped to squeeze the revised application through, with no enforcement against the developer.
Neighbours on Arkwright Road continued to complain about the “odour nuisance” and that the “wholesale breach” of planning conditions probably had something to do with it. But there was still no sign of any enforcement investigation by our council’s planning department.
Eventually, on April 10 2025, John Penn, by now the planning enforcement team leader, revealed that the enforcement file for 54A Arkwright Road had actually been closed in July 2024.
Penn repeated previous claims and excuses to cover for his, and his department’s, previous failures: “Planning enforcement officers are not qualified surveyors, so I have no way of confirming if the works were connected correctly.
“As far as the council is aware (following a visit by an enforcement officer on 27 January 2020), the surface water drainage system in the rear garden (large hole with drainage crates) was apparently being correctly constructed and installed.”
Installed: the council’s own photographs of the soakaway as installed at 54A Arkwright provides proof that it is less than one-quarter the size that it is supposed to be
Yet the council’s own inspection notes show that there was no site visit on January 27 2020.
Croydon’s response to an information request on April 29 2025 included a document (“Soakaway photos 27.1.20.pdf”) showing the tank before it was backfilled. The accompanying inspection notes confirm that the document was received and added to the enforcement file on January 27 2020.
So back in 2020, the council’s enforcement team had had an opportunity to count the number of “crates” in the soakaway: 18. Residents were well aware that when seeking planning permission, the number of crates supposed tio be installed, according to the approved drawing was 78.
The tank at the new-build at 54 Arkwright is less than one-quarter of the size it should be!
Residents filed a formal “Stage 1” complaint over the matter on April 18 2025. By June, with no response, never mind a resolution, they were forced to send the council a reminder.
They wrote: “We now know that the council has, since January 2020, held evidence showing that what has been installed as a surface water drainage system is in clear and significant breach…
“We would like to know why the council never acted on that evidence and instead allowed this unauthorised and unsustainable development to continue, despite the contemporaneous complaints from residents.”
It would take Mayor Perry’s council another six months before they would respond. The letter, from Nicola Townsend, Croydon Council’s chief planner, wrote on December 11, “You allege that the council held irrefutable evidence that the approved drawing (B22491-SK01 RevB) had not been complied with, but I am not aware of the evidence that you refer to.”
So a Stage 2 complaint was sent off – the final stage where the council has an opportunity to review its handling of a case.
Evidence vacuum: council director Venetia Reid-Baptiste brushed off residents’ complaints
The complaint, sent on January 5 this year, stated that the council’s stance that it is “not aware of” relevant evidence “is difficult to reconcile with the fact that the council has separately disclosed that it holds enforcement inspection records and photographs relevant to drainage installation at this site”.
The residents’ complaint asked the council to confirm whether Townsend had, after an eight-month delay in responding to our initial complaint, ever bothered to check her own department’s records and reports.
On March 2, the residents received a response from Venetia Reid-Baptiste, the council’s “interim corporate director of sustainable communities, regeneration and economic recovery”.
“The enforcement officer investigated the matter by visiting the site and did not identify any non-compliance, and no further evidence demonstrating harm or breach has been provided since,” Reid-Baptiste wrote.
The site visit was on January 8 2020. The “Soakaway photos 27.1.20.pdf” council document was added to the enforcement file on January 27 2020, a fortnight after the site visit. The publication of “Soakaway photos 27.1.20.pdf” was on April 29 2025.
Apparently, none of that counts.
And Reid-Baptiste has not replied to further emails questioning her ruling.
I’ll leave it to Inside Croydon’s readers to draw their own conclusions as to the competency and integrity of council employees and the credibility of the corporate complaints procedure.
Mayor Perry has recently claimed a couple of wins in the Magistrates Court were part of his “zero-tolerance approach” to those who flout planning rules that are meant to protect the borough’s character and natural environment.
That looks great. But on the evidence available (and who knows what’s hidden), I have to question Perry’s “tolerance” of those who have deliberately ignored many more measurable and potentially more critical policies and guidance, sometimes on more than one occasion.
I have also seen nothing to suggest that the council’s “enforcers” have been told to stop looking the other way, while planning breaches, or incompetence, or misconduct takes place right under their noses.
SPD2 may be long gone, but as far as Croydon’s planning department is concerned under Mayor Perry, the only thing that matters remains “housing quantum” at the expense of quality and sustainability.
Certainly, with regard to ensuring that new developments do not increase the risk of local flooding or wider environmental damage, the council’s attitude has not changed a bit over the past four years. Given the secrecy now exposed, maybe things are even worse.
Finding a Mayor who really does listen and tries to get council employees to do things properly, in the public interest, would be the kind of planning success everyone could welcome.
Read more: Council delays and lack of enforcement cause residents misery
Read more: Home owner’s victory after four-year battle with planners
Read more: Planners’ unconditional love for developers is unchanged
Read more: Perry’s libraries legacy of unsigned leases and works not done
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