Years of cuts, a £500m shopping centre loan, then Covid pushed Croydon over the edge | Local government

As beleaguered Croydon council declared effective bankruptcy on Wednesday afternoon, its interim chief executive, Katharine Kerswell, sent an ominous wake-up-call memo to staff: “Too many of us are still operating like business as usual,” she warned, “and are not facing up to our new reality that we are actually in a financial crisis.” The methodical…