The campaign against the directly elected mayor’s plan to impose a 15% increase on the Croydon council tax is gathering steam as the GMB Union announce their march demanding fair funding for Croydon.

Members of the GMB Union, as public sector workers have been particularly hard hit by the freeze on local government funding by central government. Public sector wages have failed to keep up with inflation for more than a decade resulting in local government workers finding it difficult to keep up with rising prices. The proposed cuts in this year’s council budget and the 15% council tax rise means that Croydon Council workers and other public sector workers are being hit by a double whammy.

Kevin Smith, President of Croydon Trade Union Council is urging members of the public to join with local government workers on Saturday to show their opposition to the cuts in central government funding and the 15% council tax increase. He says ‘Croydon Council has had a tough time. The Tory austerity policy has decimated Croydon’s local government funding and Council workers now have wages that are only a fraction of the worth they were in 2010. Mayor Perry is now making Croydon residents pay for the mistakes of his government’.

Mr Smith added ‘The Mayor should go back to Michael Gove and ask when are the government going to fund Croydon fairly? He should pursue the shortfall in Croydon’s central government funding we have missed over the last decade and demand an immediate increase in funding to similar levels to our neighbours in Lambeth. Hammering the people of Croydon with a 15% hike is not how Croydon’s financial problems are sorted out’.