This is a precis of the Mayor’s opening address on 26th October and has been edited for ease of reading. It was not a written speech. Apologies for any errors or omissions.
‘It’s a great privilege to be Croydon’s first elected Mayor and it’s a great big thank you to the residents’ associations. I know that KENDRA is one of those residents associations that fought for the referendum campaign and made it happen; because the Council fought back all the way, and it was (down to) the power of the residents associations that we did have that referendum last October. And it was by that, we had every single ward in the Borough voting for a democratically elected Mayor. Which I think was a surprise to both sides of the argument.
People ask me how’s it going, and I say it’s challenging, frustrating, disappointing, rewarding, it’s a privilege. There are so many different things that go through your head. I, and my Council colleagues, are learning all the time, listening to residents, learning what the issues are, fully understanding them and then delivering on those particular issues.
Touching on a few of the things that we’ve done since the election. The first one has been looking at the Council’s finances and that’s really the thing that, unfortunately, drives everything we do for the next three and a half years. We all know the backdrop to the election, we know about the Council’s finances, we know about the bankruptcy of the Council, reports in the public interest, Fairfield Halls, we know those different things that happened.
But since coming to office I’ve undertaken an opening-the-books exercise, a really deep dive into understanding what is happening, and we have found things; like the cost of affordable homes, which is something the previous Council did, that will probably cost us £70 million this year.
The Brick By Brick company is probably going to cost in the region of £50 million just once everything is wound up. Things like housing benefit. We discovered that the Council’s been paying housing benefit that should not have been paid, it will probably be (at a cost of) around £9 million per year. So we’ve got various things happening that shouldn’t have been happening, that need to be resolved.
But the biggest issue we have is the debt of £1.5 billion pounds, the debt of a small country. That’s costing us £50 million to service that debt before we start to do any services or provide anything for our residents. So that’s a millstone hanging round (our necks). And that’s something that we need to have a conversation with government about, I think. How we can get Croydon back on a sustainable footing?
What we’ve done over the past three years is to sell assets, in order to run the everyday needs of the Council. If we’re not careful we will sell off what’s left of our assets, and in three years’ time we will be back, still owing £1.5 billion, with £50 million of interest, with nothing left to sell, and that’s just not sustainable for a local government. So that’s the biggest challenge facing the Council over the next few years.
Going on to some nicer things, I guess, are around planning. Planning was something that really drove the election campaign, drove the referendum campaign, and I said in the campaign that I would remove the Design Guide which I felt was causing so much damage in the planning system. SPD2 will be known to many of you. That was the driver to push forward with the removal of family homes; building blocks of flats, as seen in the foothills of Kenley, and most of the intensification of Purley as well. Again, it’s not sustainable. In July we removed that, now it’s no longer part of the planning process in Croydon.
Now moving on to adapt the local plan; so now we look at the character of the development, not just density; we look at the design of the development and not just density, and (we) try move away from just looking at numbers the whole time.
The local plan will be reviewed. As I say, it should be about design and character, but is should also focus on development where there are connections, like the Brighton Road and similar areas, where you’ve actually got bus networks et cetera, and actually concentrate development where it is accessible to individuals.
We have a London Mayor, who sits above us, who has some control over our plans, and he says ‘it’s not about cars’ in development. So then, building in the foothills of Kenley and saying we can’t have cars, we instantly have a problem. Then all the parking goes onto the roads, and you all know about that. It’s about focusing development where it is actually sustainable and where people want to be, where you’re connected to buses, trains, et cetera.
We’ve just got to clean up our Borough. Over the last few years, Croydon has become a place of where dirt and decay is everywhere to be seen; graffiti everywhere, and it just looks like a place where nobody cares anymore. Having a talk with the local (police) Commander about this, it makes it difficult for the police to police. A place that looks like nobody cares, where people do as they please. So we very much want to clamp down on the broken window syndrome, mend the broken windows and clean the streets.
And clampdown on Veolia who are the contractor who cleans the streets. I went to see them in my first weeks in office and they said they hadn’t met a politician in two years. Well, what’s going on in Croydon has been going on for more than two years. So that’s kind of level of contact (we want), so we are managing their contract much more robustly and in due course will be looking at that, and trying to make sure that it works for Croydon.
But the other thing we looked at was bringing back the Graffiti Removal Team. We’ve now brought it back and want to maintain that level of cleanliness. It’s about restoring pride in the area and bringing people back into Croydon. It’s about restoring pride in businesses. It’s not a place where you can do as you please, but a place where we care about the environment we live in. I think when you start to do that, young people start to take pride again in where they live. It’s an important part of restoring where we live.
Regeneration? Westfield are still here in the Whitgift Centre. Hamilton still have Centrale. Croydon is still in partnership. It’s a really important thing that we’ve been doing. I had a few meetings with them, trying to kick start the regeneration of the town centre, get that underway once again and that’s something that I don’t think there’s been much pressure applied.
The old Allders building, the ground floor should come back into action, I hope by Christmas. Not as a department store but as a music venue of sorts. So greater footfall back in the town centre. They’re looking at educational uses for the office block in the middle of Whitgift Centre and also some office use as well. So they are looking at how they can revitalise centre.
We are looking to government for levelling-up funding, for about a £20 million grant to clean up the town centre. Get that connection going between East and West Croydon, creating a sense of place between the two stations, so that again we feel that pride, that will encourage others to invest and work in the town centre.
Crime. Last year, we tragically lost five young lives and that’s something we don’t want repeated. We work very closely with the police. It’s not an issue here in Kenley, thankfully, although we did have a stabbing earlier in the year in Purley. Thankfully, it wasn’t fatal. But there’s no room for complacency.
In Croydon town centre we want to introduce a Public Spaces Protection Order that will give police additional powers to remove alcohol and drug abusers, and offer help with addictions. Without it they have to actually be behaving badly or causing problems before the police can intervene. We want to give help, but if they refuse help, we need the power to remove them.
Housing, in Regina Road for example, I think we all saw the terrible conditions tenants were living in. A year on, nothing much has happened. We have a tenants’ charter but from what we hear they are being ignored.
Croydon has had its difficult times, but it will get better. It may get worse before it gets better, but it will get better. We’ve got amazing communities north, south, east and west. We have faith groups, we’ve got amazing stuff going on and I think working with those groups, working with communities, is how are we going to mend Croydon, and put Croydon back on the map for the right reasons.
I think a great future lies ahead of us. We’re going through a difficult patch, but I think we can get back to a Croydon we all love and cherish.’