Vote for a cleaner and safer Croydon on 22 May

Streets across Croydon North are overflowing with dumped rubbish and litter.  Road surfaces are crumbling and pavements are left to fall apart.  There is a fly-tipping crisis in many areas with reports of dumped rubbish more than doubled since the last council elections, and yet Croydon’s Tory council didn’t prosecute a single fly tipper last year.   An independent resident-led commission reported this year that nearly 8 out of every 10 Croydon North residents are dissatisfied with the level of fly-tipping seen under Tory control.

There are also concerns about the growing menace of violent gangs and anti-social behaviour, but the Tories response has been to close every police station in the area and cut police numbers to below the inadequate level seen just after the riots.  While claiming there’s not enough money to sort these problems out, the Tories have prioritised building themselves a multi-million-pound new glass-and-steel HQ that has cost every Croydon household £1,000.

There’s real hope Croydon could see change after the coming elections with the outcome on a knife-edge between Labour and the discredited town-hall Tories.  Labour has committed to clean up Croydon if they win the council elections in May, with more prosecutions to stop fly-tipping, improved levels of street sweeping, free collection of bulky waste, and changes to make recycling easier.  Labour would also reverse the council’s support for police cuts, launch a major house-building programme, and take action against slum landlords who leave tenants to live in squalid and overcrowded conditions.

Under the Conservatives, Croydon has one of the highest levels of council tax in London, with bills now higher than at any point in Croydon’s history.   Croydon residents pay higher council tax than in every neighbouring borough, so there’s strong support for Labour’s pledge to freeze council tax to help hard-pressed household budgets.

Croydon MP Steve Reed is urging residents to vote for change on 22 May.  He said: “the Conservatives have shown they are unfit to run our town hall.  Council tax is at record levels yet basic services like street cleaning are substandard while the Tories waste money to build themselves a gleaming new HQ.  The only way to make change happen is to go out and vote Labour on 22 May for a council that will clean up Croydon after all these years of Tory waste and failure.”