Perry said: “It does not feel fair and consistent in line with the lower levels of intervention placed on other councils.<\/p>\n
“I will not allow our residents to carry the cost of historic failure. I will not support any proposals that would destroy vital local services or impose further council tax increases above the government cap.”<\/p>\n
Perry also said the council would “engage with the government-appointed team constructively”.<\/p>\n
He added: “We will welcome their advice, challenge, and support, and we will continue to put Croydon’s residents at the heart of every decision we make.”<\/p>\n
Croydon Council became the first London borough in two decades to effectively go “bankrupt” back in 2020.<\/p>\n
It went on to declare bankruptcy for a third time in November 2022.<\/p>\n
Perry promised to address the borough’s \u00a31.4bn debt burden when he was elected in 2023.<\/p>\n
Recent cuts include the closure of four libraries in November 2024 and a restructure of the authority’s Youth Engagement Team.<\/p>\n
Council tax in Croydon has increased by more than 26% since 2022.<\/p>\n
The Conservative-led council attributes its financial problems to a surge in homelessness and social care demand, along with rising costs for children’s placements.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Perry said: “It does not feel fair and consistent in line with the lower levels of intervention placed…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":269801,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[13,12,14],"class_list":{"0":"post-269800","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-stories"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114869608297840514","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/269800","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=269800"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/269800\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/269801"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=269800"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=269800"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=269800"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}