This week the Labour Government announced plans to take draconian powers over Croydon. They said that they intend to send in unelected Commissioners with powers to override local democratic decisions – including potentially hugely forcing up council tax and imposing swingeing cuts to services on a severe scale.
The elected Mayor of Croydon, Jason Perry, has been making good progress to fix the staggering £1.5 billion debt which Labour left behind when they ran the council and drove it into bankruptcy. The Government’s own Improvement Panel has confirmed that good progress is being made.
When Labour ran the council before 2022, here is what they did to bankrupt our Borough:
⚠️ Labour wasted £250 million on their loss-making property developer Brick by Brick
⚠️ Labour bought the Croydon Park Hotel for £30 million which then went bankrupt
⚠️ Labour spent £53 million on the Colonnades shopping centre which when then crashed in value
⚠️ Labour wasted £90 million on a cosmetic refurbishment of the Fairfield Halls
⚠️ Labour gave the failed chief executive a half a million pounds payoff
And all this in addition to the indiscriminate planning consents that they granted.
So having bankrupted Croydon, Labour is now using its power as the national Government to take powers to inflict even more misery on the Borough.
I fully support Mayor Jason Perry in standing up to this attempt at bullying and coercion by the Government.
By contrast, Labour’s candidate for Mayor hasn’t uttered a squeak of criticism of either the Government or her Labour colleagues who did this in the first place. Indeed, she enthusiastically supported the previous Labour regime that did this to Croydon.
I will do everything possible to oppose Labour’s plans to inflict more pain on Croydon – all caused by their own reckless decisions when they ran the council before 2022.
Chris Philp MP
Croydon South
