Perry’s pile: the books dumped outside Broad Green Library by contractors who the Mayor admits were working for Croydon Council
More crass mismanagement at the council allowed squatters to occupy the vacated Broad Green Library. But it was council contractors who caused the most startling damage. By KEN LEE, Town Hall reporter
Jason Perry, the failed Mayor of Croydon, yesterday resorted to deception as he attempted to pass the buck for the dumping of hundreds of council-owned books outside Broad Green Library.
The council had already issued a statement from the Mayor, in which he said he was “absolutely furious about the disgraceful scenes… books dumped in the street like garbage”.
Mayor Perry called this act “outrageous”.
He said: “I have demanded immediate answers as to how this was allowed to happen.” The truth is that it was Mayor Perry who allowed this to happen, with contractors working for the council trashing the library books and dumping them in the street.
By yesterday, Perry was forced into making a little video for social media, in which he tried to spin his way out of the latest disaster of his own making.
“I’m absolutely dismayed and disgusted at the way this building has been treated by squatters in recent months,” Perry began, trying to suggest it was the squatters who had been behind the book dumping.
For while the building had indeed been occupied by squatters after the library closure late last year, in fact it was contractors working for Perry’s dysfunctional council who trashed the library’s stock of books, dumping them in massive piles outside the library when conducting a clearance last week in the latest crass example of mismanagement and bungling under the Mayor’s failed administration.
Passing the book buck: failed Mayor Jason Perry at Broad Green Library yesterday
“It’s just absolutely terrible what has happened to this building,” Perry continued, blaming others for his own council’s failings to manage, secure and maintain a valuable council property.
“And yesterday we saw even worse scenes, of books being thrown out on the pavement,” said Perry, still trying to insinuate that this was related to the squatters.
Except that it wasn’t. As piss-poor Perry knew only too well.
“The way that these books were being treated was just unacceptable,” Perry said, a sense of shock in his voice. Even he, it seemed, could not believe what he had seen.
For here came the rub: “And we will be dealing with our contractors accordingly,” he said.
Because the trashing of thousands of pounds’ worth of council-owned books was entirely the doing of contractors Perry’s council had sent in to Broad Green Library, supposedly to tidy things up.
“Books are precious,” according to Croydon’s Mayor. “They shouldn’t be treated in that way.”
It was only prompt action from residents, salvaging what they could, that reduced the loss and damage to many of the library books after they had been so carelessly tossed aside.
“This is a sad episode,” according to Croydon’s sad, impotent Mayor.
In his nasty little video nasty, Perry referred to how the building – almost a year since he had it closed as a library – is to re-open for “community” use. Much like its community use when it was a library, but one which Perry failed to find a funding solution at his cash-strapped council.
Broad Green Library cost £101,727 a year to run. Perry trousers £82,000 a year as the executive Mayor of Croydon. Earlier this year, not long after closing Broad Green and three other of the borough’s public libraries, Mayor Perry awarded himself a pay rise.
Overall, the four library closures will save Croydon Council less than £500,000 per year. In three years under Mayor Perry, Croydon’s spending on agency staff has risen from £14million to more than £54million per year.
Fly-tipping: Perry’s council had failed to act promptly on reports that the ex-library site was being used as a rubbish dump earlier this summer
It was these outrageous spends on agency staff, including paying an agency more than £720 per hour for one consultant, which may have prompted government-appointed inspectors to describe Perry’s council spending as “runaway”, and see Commissioners appointed to take over the running of the council from the failed Mayor.
Perry failed Croydon’s libraries, and his council’s poor management of its assets, such as Broad Green Library, has seen more costs incurred.
Had there been a properly considered and planned handover of Broad Green and other closed libraries, the squatting and dereliction of the building might have been avoided. By June, locals were reporting the Broad Green Library site as a location for fly-tippers, with Perry’s council slow to clear up, and failing to take any enforcement action.
The omnishambles over the dumping of the library’s stock of books has simply made an already bad situation worse. Perry has spent the past month claiming that his council is well-run, and that there is no need for the government to send in Commissioners.
Confronted with “Perry’s Pile” of discarded books, the Mayor has been forced to apologise, though he has failed to take responsibility for his failures that led to the “appalling” situation he had helped to create.
“The situation we had yesterday, of books just being tossed on to the pavement, is just not acceptable and for which I personally apologise, because I just do not feel that is the way for people to behave.”
This weekend, residents and opposition councillors have reacted with anger at the book dumping, and at Perry’s buck-passing response.
“The Mayor’s furious,” said one Katharine Street source, “at his own incompetence.”
One resident posted on social media: “So sad to see after our local library has been closed down leaving children with nowhere to enjoy books like they once could, that all the books from Broad Green Library are being dumped outside like rubbish, when they can be given to those in need or children centres, schools or hospitals.”
Another posted a response to Perry’s self-serving Facebook video: “You could have sorted the problem before it started. Now you are saying you are the good guy in putting it right.”
Labour Town Hall sources said: “The Conservative Mayor closed the Broad Green Library. He needs to take responsibility for the actions following the closure.”
And another said: “Mayor Perry described it as ‘an outrageous lack of respect for our community’, and he is right: an outrageous lack of respect for our community perpetrated by him and his utter disregard for the things that actually matter to our community, like proper library services.”
Read more: Mayor Perry lies to BBC over his closures of Croydon libraries
Read more: McMahon acts after serious concerns on ‘aspects of leadership’
Read more: Panicked Perry admitted to Rayner: I can’t balance the budget
Read more: Agency spend scandal: Perry blasted for ‘ridiculous shambles’
If you have a news story about life in or around Croydon, or want to publicise your residents’ association or business, or if you have a local event to promote, please email us with full details at inside.croydon@btinternet.com
As featured on Google News Showcase
Like this:
Like Loading…