BusAndTrainUser Verify

Saturday 1st February 2025

Photo courtesy Inside Croydon

Bus shelters in Croydon have been in the news again this week with online media reporting TfL is to “install, maintain and clean new bus shelters across more than 100 locations”. In fact 114 brand new shelters are destined for the Borough.

Why the big news story? That’s because bus shelters in Croydon are a very sore subject with both council tax payers and the Council.

Along with Camden Council, Croydon is one of only two London Boroughs with responsibility for bus shelter provision and back in 2021 the Council, which has been described in one media report (Inside Croydon) as “the bungling Council”, had over 100 perfectly serviceable bus shelters but they were all removed as part of a deal that turned sour.

It sounded just the job for a BusAndTrainUser Verify so I paid a visit to Croydon earlier this week to see what the situation is on the ground.

The 2021 deal, which was supposed to generate £6.8 million in income for the cash strapped council, was with a company called VALO Smart City. According to the company’s website, it is a “partner with cities, local authorities and transport authorities to integrate assets such as bus shelters, digital displays, benches, bicycle docking stations, EV charging, rubbish bins, street lighting and much more.” The website contains persuasive images of smart looking shelters to woo potential local authorities into what a “smart city” could look like with swish digital information displays, and of course, prominent advertising panels with their lure of a shared income stream for the company and council.

Except there was one problem. Rather like the time when Secretary of State for Transport, Chris Grayling, famously awarded a lucrative ferry contract to a company with no ships in 2019 for a possible ‘No Deal Brexit’ scenario, “the council awarded this contract in 2021, to Valo Smart City which had no track record of delivering a contract like this in the UK and has failed to deliver a single bus shelter in our borough” according to a statement issued by Executive Mayor of Croydon, Jason Perry, in October 2023, adding “the worst of it is that all the existing bus shelters were removed leaving residents without shelter and facing a third winter out in the cold”.

Mr Perry, who was elected to the Mayoral position in May 2022, explained to residents in 2023 “many attempts have been made to arrange a working plan that would deliver the shelters; timelines have been shifted, negotiations have taken place, and none of this has resulted in a satisfactory outcome. Our residents have waited long enough.” He went on to confirm “the council is taking immediate steps to terminate the contract with Valo Smart City and we have informed them of our intent to pursue damages.”

Photo courtesy Inside Croydon

The warning signs were there. VALO’s website contains just one “VALO case study”, which coincidentally features“Smart Croydon” where it claims “a partnership between VALO Smart City and the Borough of Croydon is creating new bus shelters across the borough bringing a new iconic design, free Wi-Fi, and digital bus countdown screens at every Council-owned stop.”

Except it isn’t and hasn’t. Inside Croydon reports: “Valo had never built a bus shelter before. Nor had any evidence of selling a single ad in this country.” Mayor Perry also admitted none of the Borough’s bus stops, which had perfectly serviceable shelters before they were removed four years ago, have seen the promised “iconic design” replacements.

Before

Even more galling, VALO’s website still includes before and after mocked up images showing how `iconic” the replacement would have been on a sample street in Croydon.

After

The £6.8 million contract with Valo Smart City UK Ltd reportedly also included 60 roadside advertising columns (all previously fitted with power supply) in addition to around 110 bus shelters.

Photo courtesy Inside Croydon

Valo Smart City UK was born out of the Valo Smart City Corporation, set up in 2017 by Isaac Sutton in New York City, USA “to focus on smart energy saving products such as LED lighting”. The UK company was incorporated in August 2020 with a registered address in Brentford just prior to the award of the contract. The registered office changed in 2021 to a Regus serviced office suite in Lansdowne Road, Croydon and again in 2022 to offices in Hinckley, Leicestershire. The last set of company financial accounts for year ended December 2021, filed late in February 2023, show cash at bank and in hand of just £660 and a net loss of £342,981.

Accounts for year ended December 2022 should have been submitted by 30th September 2023 so are 16 months overdue. Companies House reported in November 2023 “Compulsory strike-off action has been suspended”. Inside Croydon reports the company “has been taken to court, twice, for unpaid bills worth tens of thousands of pounds”.

All credit to Steven Downes and the Inside Croydon team for their relentless investigative reporting into this sorry and miserable saga. There’s also a video available on the “CronxWatch” YouTube channel relating the story of the ‘£500,000 Croydon Bus Stop Scam’ which is worth a watch and includes more exposing background to Isaac Sutton’s business affairs.

Wandering around the Borough on Wednesday it was easy to spot those bus shelters which have always been provided and maintained by TfL, because they were still there in position. They’d stood outside the erstwhile contract Croydon had with J C Decaux which it ended in 2021 in favour of the VALO deal. The TfL shelters are at busy stops including outside Thornton Heath railway station…

… and Dingwall Road, close to East Croydon station.

In other prime locations which are shelter-less…

… I spotted tell tale signs TfL’s bus shelter rescue mission is about to bear fruit…

… with markings on pavements indicating where the replacements will be sited and as the lead photo to this blog shows, TfL’s contractors are at work around the Borough installing the 114 new shelters.

TfL are spending £3.2 million on the new shelters which will all be installed by the end of March bringing much relief and welcome shelter for Croydon’s bus passengers including at the busy bus stops outside East Croydon railway station…

… and no thanks to VALO who’s image of what it would look like never materialised.

Unfortunately the new shelters won’t necessarily be fitted with real time departure displays even if ones they’re replacing had such information.

Croydon Council are attempting to move on from the experience…

… publishing a list of all 114 sites where shelters will finally reappear, thanks to TfL.

Hopefully, it’s learned a lesson in how not to award a contract.

You get a measure of just how dodgy the whole thing was from VALO’s claim its website will be regularly updated…

… but inevitably makes no reference to the Croydon deal being terminated.

Other local authorities be warned.

Don’t be fooled by the glossy messages and a promise the company can “transform a city’s utilities, infrastructure and other municipal assets into a connected digital platform to integrate and deploy Smart City services.”

It can’t.

Roger French

Blogging timetable: 06:00 TThS

30 thoughts on “BusAndTrainUser Verify”

  1. Outside of London and the main towns you are lucky to find any bus shelters and even luckier if you find one with a bus timetable

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    1. Durham County Council is excellent.All bus stops have a timetable case regularly updated.I n addition most bus stops also have shelters.Durham city bus station has electronic information which is updated.

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  2. Thanks for this salutory tale, which will, I trust, have a happy ending! I have to say that my own limited experience of how well TfL do with bus stops is a trifle mixed – especially re signs about where to catch your bus when ‘this stop is temporarily closed’; bur the stops and shelters themselves are usually good

    Is there a check-list somewhere for provision of bus shelters, bus stop information, and other stuff to ‘make the ‘whole bus-experience’ better for passengers? Bus Users UK’s website have a ‘Guidance’ section which has a link to a report by the Campaign for Better Transport (sponsored by ‘trueform’ – another contracting company, hopefully better than Valo) which does have a list – at the very bottom. Nowhere did I find any reference to your own excellent obiter dictum that a prospective passenger should be able to see very quickly whether the next bus to arrive will will be useful for them.

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  3. A sorry tale indeed …. but what happened to due diligence before awarding the contract?

    Of course, we’ve seen, and are still seeing, the same lack of forward investigation with the myriad of DRT contracts being awarded, even after the tales of woe about expensive operations carrying tiny numbers of passengers.

    And they want to give more powers to local government to run buses? When will the lessons be learned??

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  4. Interesting story. I wonder what the history is behind Croydon and another being the only London boroughs that provide shelters – what’s different about those boroughs?

    One of the TfL shelters is next to a garden wall of what was my parents’ house, and in LT days they used to get a postal order for 2/6 (I think) from LT for that privilege. I wonder if that arrangement still applies!

    BTW, the town in Leicestershire is Hinckley, with a c; without a c is Hinkley Point power station

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    2. @Anon 07:42 – over the years a number of London boroughs have had contracts with other suppliers for bus shelters. I can certainly remember non-LT shelters in Lambeth and Lewisham, to name but two.

      Malc M

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  5. Well, at least Croydon can be proud of the Inside Croydon website and CronxWorks YouTube, both excellent examples of investigative journalism (aided and abetted by Bus and Train User in this case – well done).

    Sir Sadiq is the knight in shining armour coming to Croydon’s rescue!

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  6. Beware the Snake Oil Salesman! A number of the same type tried to run bus companies in the early days of deregulation, which gave ammunition to those who opposed it.

    But why on earth were TfL not cashing in if shelters can actually make money? Croydon Council has an appalling reputation for mismanagement, so this situation is hardly a surprise.

    Terence Uden

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    1. It used to be the case that TfL’s predecessor (LT Adshel) effectively had to bid to local councils for permission to provide the shelters. A number of councils let contracts to rivals (JC Decaux was one such), presumably as the councils got a greater share of the advertising revenue.

      Googling it now has led me to unearth this article, relating to a court battle in 1999 over who could provide shelters in the London Borough of Hillingdon: More wins legal challenge to £10m Adshel deal in London

      Malc M

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  7. The only surprising thing about this sort of thing, sadly, is that it’s no longer surprising. We need a public enquiry to prevent this sort of thing happening again, or at least until the next time this sort of thing happens.

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  8. I suppose if you are responsible for infrastructure then maybe you should at least attend one of the annual sales conferences on things bus related.

    Of course Croydon does have a lot more shelters – the bus stations at Addington Village, East and West Croydon come to mind, along with a few in the Forestdale area (ironic as that was an area for many years TfL didnt serve with assorted private operators finishing with Metrobus operating services.

    I have used the “electric ink” stop flags somewhere in London – was it Waterloo ? and although they are useful they were a bit dark and one needed countdown to assist as to the next buses.

    One mini-gripe about TfL shelters is that a lot dont have the local area map or a bus map fitted where it should be useful

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  9. See also this weeks “Wimbledon and Wandsworth” Times. which has lead story on bus services showing Morden with reference to delays , cancellations and curtailments of the 154 bus , mainly in the Croydon/ Roundshaw area – noting that Roundshaw has lost its direct 455 service to Wallington (Station) in recent times too.

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  11. I wonder what the Council commercial team’s due diligence process involved. Personally I would be looking for evidence of contracts with other councils, and also bidders’ financial records.

    I read in the Guardian recently that the majority of local councils haven’t had their accounts signed off for years.

    https://www.theguardian.com/society/2024/nov/26/watchdog-refuses-to-sign-off-uk-public-sector-accounts-over-unreliable-data

    Peter Brown

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  12. As others have said, Croydon Council should have done “Due Diligence” but they clearly didn’t. Just the fact that the sole director, Mr. Sutton” was of retirement age should surely have raised eyebrows let alone all the interesting encounters that he appears to have had with US regulatory bodies that can be found via Google.

    Of course the Council are now between a rock and a hard place as they would probably need to go after Mr. Sutton in the US which would not be cheap. It can be done, my company had a customer that went broke unexpectedly because the holding company had syphoned off funds to prop up their failing business in Spain. We couldn’t have done much about that but luckily for us another creditor was owned by the Saudi Arabian government who had the lawyers and resources to retrieve the missing money. Whether Croydon Council are prepared for that sort of fight remains to be seen.

    Nigel Turner

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  14. It would be interesting to know how much money Croydon Council had already paid to this company, and if they have any chance of getting it back!

    It’s no wonder so many councils up and down the country are in such financial difficulties if they are awarding lucrative contracts such as this one without doing proper checks and due diligence.

    And has anyone lost their job as a result of this?

    Stu – West Midlands Bus Users

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  15. Tower Hamlets also has a contract with an outdoor media company for a number of bus shelters. I’m not sure how well these shelters are maintained and how the contract is managed. Graffiti is a major problem in that borough too

    Martin W

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  16. Interesting article. £3.2m for 114 bus shelters is circa £28k each. That is quite a sum. Must be some mistake here surely? £10k is a standard cost elsewhere. Maybe there is a lot of tech in the new shelters.

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  18. Just one of many outsourcing disasters at Croydon. They handed their libraries over to building firm Carillion who then went bust. They handed £5m to an IT consultant, who then gave their Head of IT a six-figure salary job. They outsourced their bin collection to Veolia, sacked them and then gave them a new contract which they promptly failed to deliver on.

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  20. The legal argument mentioned above over shelter ownership in Hillingdon and the presence of various cross-border non-TfL routes makes getting problems relating to bus stops or shelters fixed a bureaucratic mess. Reports to TfL generally get a “contact your local authority” or “contact the operator” response. It’s only after pointing out that the bus stop is a standard TfL design or the shelter has TfL posters, or that TfL did it last time, that they eventually cave in and take responsibility.

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    1. In general TfL only maintain the bus stops within Greater London. There are a few small exceptions such as around Waltham Cross where TfL maintain the stops from the border to the bus station

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      1. Generally, TfL maintain their own bus stop signage & shelters in areas where they are the predominate operator, such as in Ewell, Leatherhead and Banstead, Surrey, while in larger towns, the county council maintains bus infrastructure, such as Dorking and Epsom, Surrey, where signage is maintained by Surrey CC. In some areas, there is both TfL and non-TfL signage, such as at Home Gardens, Dartford, Kent where there is both Kent CC and TfL Bus Stop flags.

        All bus stop flags inside Greater London and the City of London are maintained by TfL, including stops which are only served by non-TfL routes on public roads, such as in the Kingston/Surbiton area (SW London), and even on private land where TfL services stop, such as in Asda hypermarket car parks, they have TfL bus stop flags.

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  21. An unbelievable tale of woe. If this was a competitively tendered contract, I wonder how bad the other bidders must have been!

    Steven Saunders

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    1. The other bidders would probably have been good in the sense of being realistic so offered less technology at a higher price (or lower payment as often councils are paid for the right and the bus shelter provider earns money from the adverts they sell though the alternative is instead of taking income they just ask for more shelters in outer areas of housing where advertising income wouldn’t cover costs commercially) so this business will have looked like the best bid on paper but as has proved was entirely incapable of delivering in reality (which as others has pointed out is where due diligence and proper bid evaluation should push out the overly optimistic bid from people with no experience).

      Dwarfer

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  22. Its very strange that the Croydon Corporation decided to tender a contract to such a company, instead of buying into bus shelters from Trueform, who hold the contract to build & maintain most bus shelters in the UK, at least in London they do, under contract to TfL, although none of their shelters look very pretty, not that Croydon Council cares judging by the final design they approved from a company who couldn’t deliver.

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