Croydon councillors who voted themselves inflation-busting payrises will not take them for the second year running over fears it would be “inappropriate”.

Members of the borough’s ruling Conservative cabinet have instead vowed to reinvest the £27,000 saved to help off-set the £70m of service cuts it will make by 2013.

Council Leader Mike Fisher, whose current “wage” will eventually rise from £53,224 to almost £65,000, said the money could be used to part-fund one of six under-threat libraries in the borough, keep voluntary services running or ploughed into schools.

He said: “This is a normal situation for me - in the five years I have been leader I have only ever had one pay rise, and that was 1.5 per cent.

“What we said (last year) was we would keep the whole thing under review.

“At a time when local government pay for our staff is frozen we thought it was inappropriate for us to take any increases.

“It will go into the pot along with everything else, so it could be used to part-fund a library, it could be used to voluntary sector grants, it could be used to put back into schools or school improvement.

“This is nearly £30,000 that is now available to the council to improve or not make cuts to services.”

The controversial payrises were voted through by Conservative councillors last June - just weeks after the council announced swingeing cuts to services across the borough.

The decision, which bring councillors pay in line with recommendation from London Councils, will see overall pay drop by £70,000 a year due to basic allowances being cut from £11,880 to £10,597.

But the leader will recieve an extra £12,800 and cabinet members more than £3,000 each if they decide to unfreeze the payments.

Cabinet members were accused of a U-turn soon after voting in the changes, after agreeing to postpone them for a year and take just 50 per cent of the rise the year after.

Pay increases voted in by council
Leader of the Council - £53,224 to £64,824
Mike Fisher

Deputy Leader(s) - £46,485 to £48,618
Dudley Mead
Tim Pollard

Cabinet Members - £43,340 to £45,377
Sara Bashford
Simon Hoar
Margaret Mead
Vidhi Mohan
Steve O’Connell
Jason Perry
Phil Thomas

Chairman of Scrutiny & Overview Committee - £40,957 to £45,377
Steve Hollands

Chief Whip (Majority Group) - £26,627 to £25,930
Terry Lenton