Ever increasing git size on remote gitlab.com project

I have been trying to decrease the git size on the repository side (gitlab.com) project for over a month now and it has kind of mushroomed from 10 GB to 31 GB. I made the classic error uploading large binary files and only realised too late that this was not good practice.

While the local repository is around 800 MB.
At first I used the BFG tool and followed the instructions outlined here:
https://rtyley.github.io/bfg-repo-cleaner/
This decreased the local size from 10 GB to 1.1 GB, however the repo side increased to 15 GB and no matter how many times I pressed the housekeeping button, nothing changes.
My next attempt tried to delete the history:


While it decreased the local size to 800 MB the repo side mushroomed to 31 GB and is now locked.
So, my question is can I fix this in any way, or do I just create a new repo and be more careful?