Transport for London has frozen £2.067million in local transport funding for Croydon after discovering the council had removed the wands along a controversial cycle lane.
TfL discovered on Instagram that Croydon Council had removed the vertical posts used to separate cyclists from motor vehicle traffic.
“Boroughs cannot use public funding to deliver a scheme and then unlawfully decide to remove it,” London’s TfL funded Walking and Cycling Commissioner Will Norman told the Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS).
TfL has confirmed funding will only resume once the council has repaid the full amount it spent on the segregated London Road scheme, which Mayor Jason Perry said endangered cyclists and blocked emergency vehicles.
While the council has agreed to repay TfL, Croydon West MP Sarah Jones said “Mayor Perry’s repeated disregard for process has left Croydon residents paying the price.”
The funding freeze was triggered when TfL spotted Mayor Perry’s Instagram post in May, which showed the council had dismantled the London Road cycle lane. The scheme, which segregated cyclists from traffic with protective wands, had received £234,917 of TfL’s Local Implementation Plan (LIP) funding since 2020/21.
TfL allocates LIP funding across all 32 London boroughs, which must submit bids to finance local transport and road safety upgrades.
The council also failed to submit the required notification under the Traffic Management Act before removing the lane.
Mr Norman told the LDRS: “It is right that the council is required to repay the TfL funding that was spent on the cycle lane they removed without consent. Funding for their Local Implementation Plan (LIP) has been paused and any future support will be subject to a revised plan being agreed.
“This should send a clear message to all boroughs: if you accept TfL funding, we expect you to deliver the projects that funding was intended to support and follow the legal processes.”
Croydon is now revising its Local Implementation Plan submission following a request from TfL, and has committed to repayment of £234,917. Its LIP funding will be released once TfL has reviewed the revised submission and confirmed it meets the fund’s requirements.
The London Road incident marks the second time Croydon removed wands from a TfL segregated cycle lane. Back in 2024, the Conservative-led council removed wands along Brighton Road following complaints from local businesses about how they restricted parking bays and caused trip hazards.
Mayor Perry echoed the same concerns when announcing the removal of the London Road scheme in May, saying on social media that the wands were impeding local roads, causing congestion, limiting bus movements and in some cases holding up emergency vehicles.
He also claimed they were dangerous for cyclists as the wands prevented contractors from cleaning the lanes. “They had to go, and I took decisive action to remove those wands,” he said.
However, Sarah Jones MP believes the Mayor’s actions have jeopardised transport and safety improvements in the borough. She said: “Funding for safer crossings, better bus journeys, improved cycling infrastructure and road improvements has now been put on hold because of the Mayor’s catastrophic failure to work constructively with TfL.”
Ms Jones told the LDRS that the current freeze will hold up several upgrades in the borough, including: £1.35 million earmarked for Healthy Neighbourhood schemes, including new zebra crossings and contra-flow cycle lanes, £286,000 for bus priority improvements, £60,000 for cycle parking, and funding for road redesign work at Portland Road.
Ms Jones also highlighted what she saw as the wider failures by the council, including the recent unapproved redesign of the Dingwall Road/Lansdowne Road scheme near East Croydon. She also pointed to the highly publicised High Court ruling in March, where Croydon’s Low Traffic Neighbourhoods were deemed unlawful because they were introduced to generate revenue rather than for safety reasons.
In response, Croydon’s Cabinet Member for Streets and Enforcement, Councillor Alasdair Stewart, said the council remains in “routine discussion with TfL” on funding, and thanked them for their “constructive approach”.
He also hit back at Croydon West’s Labour MP, saying: “It takes some nerve for Sarah Jones to lecture Mayor Perry about competence or delivery.
“Jason Perry has spent four years cleaning up the mess left by the last Labour council, securing investment and delivering improvements that residents and businesses actually want and are already feeling the benefit of, from the new Wellesley Road crossing to improvements on Dingwall Road and George Street.
“Ms Jones has been a Croydon MP for almost a decade, her residents may reasonably ask what she has delivered of comparable significance before she issues another party-political attack.”
Cllr Stewart added: “Jason Perry and Conservative councillors were elected to listen to residents, not rubber-stamp schemes they have made clear over many years they do not want. We will continue standing up for their priorities.”
