Today is the one year anniversary of my election as the first ever Executive Mayor of Croydon.
I will always be grateful for the support that Croydon's voters gave me in that election. I have never taken this support for granted.
In the past year, I have done my utmost to deliver on the pledges I set out, to restore our borough to a place where we are once again proud to live, work and visit. We’ve made a lot of progress, despite facing some of the biggest challenges:
- We have started to tackle the finances, through difficult decisions around Council Tax and working with Government on a long-term solution to the £1.6bn toxic debt burden.
- We are re-visiting our Local Plan and have removed SPD2 - Labour's Planning Design Guide - to protect the unique characteristics of our local areas.
- We are cleaning up Croydon - removing graffiti and improving street cleaning and waste management.
- We are working closely with Police and our local communities to tackle the root causes of crime and make our borough safer for everyone.
- We are making headway with resolving issues at Regina Road, and ensuring all our tenants and leaseholders are treated with the respect they deserve.
- We continue working with local business and key partners to regenerate our town centre and restore pride in our borough, and remain committed to providing a pool and associated leisure facilities in Purley, and
- We have taken major steps to hold those that bankrupted our borough to account.
Over the coming years I will continue to focus on ensuring we become a council which balances its budget, listens to residents, and carefully focuses available resource on the core services our residents need.
We are London’s largest, youngest and greenest borough and I know that we can be London’s best borough. I look forward to working with you to achieve that.
