Croydon Council: the pain for taxpayers’ continues

The Local Government Chronicle reports that “Croydon may need higher 2020-21 bailout amid ongoing turmoil”.  Ever since Croydon went into de facto bankruptcy in November last year, we have seen a succession of bad stories for the council, including bumper councillor allowances, accusations of bullying, bumper executive pay, and the disgraceful condition of flats in Regina Road.

Now we hear “Significant sums” are still being queried by auditors in Croydon LBC’s 2019-20 accounts – with the auditor having sought advice from a QC over one outstanding issue – while a number of “significant risks” remain over the current year’s budget”

The Chronicle reports: “concerns around the approval of a £30m refurbishment budget for the council’s Fairfield Halls arts centre, to be paid for through the transfer of land to Brick by Brick to be developed and sold” and that “there are “a number of significant risks, amounting to £26.6m, which could negatively impact on the outturn position” – even before any accounting adjustments needed for the Fairfield Halls development are taken into account” compared to reserves of just £7.4 million.

It has now been almost 10 months since we first spoke of the imminent de facto bankruptcy of the council.  We now have to ask, what has changed in that time?  How have the finances of local taxpayers’, and the needs of service users been protected?  Why has it taken 10 months for these issues to come to light?  We want to know why weren’t the fully extent of the problems made clear when the councils finances were first recapitalised, and how can we fell confident we will ever see an end to this ongoing failure of governance?

Full Local Government Chronicle article – https://www.lgcplus.com/finance/croydon-may-need-higher-2020-21-capitalisation-direction-amid-ongoing-turmoil-18-06-2021/

Brexit vote – 5 year celebratory drinks

On the 23rd of June, 2016.  The people of the United Kingdom – and Gibraltar – went to vote…  and 17,410,742 of us voted to leave the EU. 

We have now regained our nations independence and fully left.  In commemoration of the 5 years since the vote, we’re proposing to go for drinks in what during the campaign became Croydon’s Brexit central, the Skylark.

We don’t yet know what lockdown restrictions we will be operating under.  As such we’re not able to book an area, however we propose to be at the Skylark (34–36 South End, Croydon, CR0 1DP) on Wednesday June 23rd from 7pm, and will operate under whatever rules we need to.  Feel free to come and join us.

Pubcast 16 – A Year in Review

Mike & Dan meet up in the Foxley Hatch in Purley, to discuss the achievements of the Croydon Constitutionalists in our third year and our hopes for the year ahead.

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Year in review 2020 – https://croydonconstitutionalists.uk/pubcast-11-a-year-in-review/

Year in review 2019 – https://croydonconstitutionalists.uk/pubcast-7-our-inaugural-year-in-review-pubcast-7-our-inaugural-year-in-review/