Croydon Labour Party have promised free school dinners for primary school children and a tax rebate for pensioners in their election manifesto.

They have also vowed to scrap the controversial plans to build a new council headquarters and use the savings to ensure council tax is frozen next year.

Tony Newman, leader of the Labour group, said they will spend just £25m over four years to deliver the promises in their election manifesto.

They aim to finance their plans by axing plans for new council offices and cutting down on the amount of money the council pays to consultants and doing away with Your Croydon, the £500,000 a year council newspaper.

Mr Newman said: “Our first action is we will not take £145m public works loan board loan. To service the loan, the council is going to be paying back between £8m and £15m a year.

“We will cut £2.5m from the £10m consultants budget. We will bring back permanent staff and axe consultants.”

He also said they would save £200,000 by capping chief officers’ pay.

Mr Newman said they would use some of the savings to build new leisure centres in New Addington, Addiscombe, South Norwood, Waddon and save Purley pool from closure.

The party are also promising a one-off rebate of £130 to pensioner households on their council tax bill if they are elected.

Free school dinners are on the menu for primary schoolchildren, which will be rolled out across the borough over three years from 2011.

This is set to cost a total of £11.5m and the party plans to increase the number of hours of free nursery education for all three and four year olds to 15 hours a week.

They have said they are committed to 24-hour policing with more police patrols on evenings and weekends.

Labour, who have always been critical of the council’s Neighbourhood Enforcement Officers (NEOs), plans to finance the extra patrols in part by saving the £900,000 a year the council spends on the officers.

They also pledge to invest in new streelighting to cut down on antisocial behaviour.

They aim to double recycling by introducing weekly collections and have said they will stop plans to build an incinerator.

Mr Newman said: “Labour’s vision for Croydon Council differs dramatically from the Tories, in the years ahead we want to see more services delivered closer to where people live and use the fast growing technology revolution to take more staff out of the office and allow flexible working from home or in local offices, we believe we should put services not new buildings first.”