CROYDON IN CRISIS: Halfway through his term of office, and the executive Mayor has broken cross-party understandings to dodge scrutiny – appointing a climate crisis sceptic to chair the council’s environment scrutiny committee. WALTER CRONXITE, political editor, reports
Marking his own homework: Mayor Jason Perry has been compared to a dictator
It took Jason Perry, Croydon’s part-time Mayor, less than half his term of office to break one of the most important pledges he made over future governance of the council, installing fellow Tories as chairs of the Town Hall’s scrutiny committees to dodge accountability, according to opposition councillors.
Perry has been accused of “marking his own homework” and being likened to a dictator.
“There was cross-party agreement after the council’s financial collapse in 2020 that scrutiny committees should in future be chaired by someone not from the same party as the council administration,” a Katharine Street source said today.
“So what has Perry done? He’s broken a four-way cross-party agreement and installed a Conservative climate change sceptic as his chair of the scrutiny committee that deals with the environment, and installed another Tory, someone who has been on the council for less than a month, as chair of the children and young people sub-committee.”
The row in the Town Hall corridors has been caused not only because of Perry’s attempt to cling on to more power to himself, but also because council staff and lawyers have failed to complete a new constitution reflecting the changed model of running the council, almost three years since it was decided to switch to an elected, executive Mayor. Continue reading
Finally, days after the General Election was announced, Croydon’s Liberal Democrats have got around to confirming their four candidates for July 4 – details of which Inside Croydon had reported on weeks ago.
People in Beckenham and Sydenham have fallen ill in recent days with stomach cramps, vomiting and diarrhoea – symptoms similar to those found in more than 100 cases in Devon last week due to a waterborne disease, when the public was asked to boil their water because of contamination fears.
Or, at least, a considerable chunk of the equity in the club is for sale, according to a report in the Financial Times, which states that co-owner John Textor, the American businessman, wants to sell his 40% stake.
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In the second part of our General Election Special, WALTER CRONXITE, political editor, casts his expert eye further afield, to Sutton and Bromley, and even into the Surrey stockbroker belt
GENERAL ELECTION SPECIAL: Our in-house psephological expert, WALTER CRONXITE, looks at Croydon’s new constituencies and the uncertain political prospects for some come July 4
