#LocalElections2026: Greens make bigger inroads than Reform

Final result (after 28 wards declared):

Lab 30 (-4), Cons 28 (-5), Grn 7 (+5), LibDem 2 (+1), Oth* 1, Ref 2 (+2)

Ellie Sandover, niece of Labour PM Keir Starmer, elected to council for Bensham Manor ward

Mark Adderley, suspended by the Green Party after Labour minister Steve Reed’s complaints, is nevertheless elected to council in Crystal Palace and Upper Norwood

Labour shadow cabinet member Chris Clark loses his town centre seat to Greens

LibDems take control of new East Surrey Council

Reform wins first Croydon Council seats in New Addington South

First results in just after 11am – Labour gain from Conservatives and Croydon’s laziest councillor

In Lambeth, Greens look set to take control of MP Steve Reed’s old council

Croydon is now run by its directly elected Mayor, with Conservative Jason Perry returned yesterday for a second four-year term. Today, the count at the Fairfield Halls will determine who the 70 councillors will be that join him at the Town Hall until 2030

Welcome to Inside Croydon’s unmatched coverage of the 2026 local election count in Croydon, and across south London.

We have reporters at the count at the Fairfield Halls today, the second day of election counts, this time to determine 70 councillors in 28 wards.

Bookmark this page and keep returning and refreshing the page for our live coverage, with updates on events throughout.

Each new post will be timestamped, with the most recent postings being right here at the top of the page.

We welcome your election-day pictures and news, your comments and your observations, which you can send to us (confidentially if you prefer) by email at inside.croydon@btinternet.com

All the results are now in.

The council website has a dedicated page which lists all the results and voting here. Although they might cause some confusion by listing “Labour” and “Labour and Co-operative” parties as separate groups. And they have included Mark Adderley with the Green tally, although he is currently suspended by his party.

Click through on the name of whatever ward you’re interested in for the full vote scores.

They will show, with the election of Jack Barwell, son of Conservative peer Gavin Barwell, in Selsdon Vale and Foresdale, that it is not only Labour that has nepobabies as councillors in Croydon.

Our thanks to all members of a large team of citizen journalists, but especially to Ken Towl and Gabriel MacArthur, who provided copy, notes and pics from the count over the course of two long days.

There were various reactions to the results today, which have delivered the most fragmented council chamber in the 61 years since Croydon Council was formed.

One member of Perry’s Tory gang told our reporter, Gabriel MacArthur: “I’m quite surprised that the results have gone off in lots of different directions, very different from what I was expecting.” Even though this was exactly the kind of splintered, five-way split that pollsters had been predicting for the past six months.

“It was so bad for us in the New Addington wards.” The Conservatives lost three seats there, two to Reform, one to Labour.

“I was surprised by how well the Green Party did, compared with what we were expecting from our data.” Clearly, Conservative data was wrong.

Former MP Andrew Pelling, an elder statesman of Croydon politics, who this week was contesting his 15th council election since 1982 (see 2pm update below), on this occasion for the Liberal Democrats, said, “It will be interesting to see whether the two main parties allow the three new groups to participate in the council.

“In reality the mayoral system does give all the power to the Mayor.

“I would be interested to see if, with the limited powers the councillors do have, whether they’ll vote down the budget or the Croydon plan. They have the votes, but it probably won’t happen.

“Croydon has a very long history of a two-party council. Probably one of the strongest red-blue duopolies in London, and it’s been substantially fragmented.

“It’s obviously also a very good day for the Greens, though there will be challenges for them in that their elected councillor in Upper Norwood is suspended from their party.”

And Coulsdon resident Ben Taylor, who was elected for the first time, for Labour in Thornton Heath, said, “We’re really sad to see our colleagues lose seats, but considering the tide across London, we’re really happy to see such strong results.”

Which probably qualifies as “fair comment”, though the council results only served to emphasise what a source close to Rowenna Davis, Labour’s losing mayoral candidate, told Inside Croydon this morning: “The vote on the left split more than the vote on the right.”

For the second local elections in succession, Croydon Council encountered problems with its venue booking for the count. Fairfield Halls security started ejecting people from the venue on the dot of 5pm. “They were quite blunt about it,” said one attendee.

Perhaps they needed to make way for some darts, or professional wrestling, in the council-owned arts centre?

Still, there was quite a sting in the tail with the final few results, with the Greens winning another two seats from Labour, in South Norwood.

Long-time activist Tracey Hague and Martyn Post will both take seats in the Town Hall Chamber, as Green candidates finished first, third and fourth, and Labour big-shot Christopher Herman, an unimpressive member of the council shadow cabinet, and Stella Nabukeera both lose out.

This was the council seat where two mayoral candidates chose to try to be elected as councillors: Ben Goldstone of the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition got 85 votes and Michael Pusey, the Taking the Piss Party, fared a little better, with 388 – about one-third of the numbers required to get elected.

Ellie Sandover, the 20something niece of Prime Minister Keir Starmer, has been elected to Croydon Council to represent Bensham Manor ward.

In a week which has seen almost 1,500 Labour councillors lose their town hall seats in a bloodbath which owes much to the PM’s unpopularity, Starmer must be delighted to see a family member start off in representative politics in a safe Labour ward which, until recently, was represented by two black women who his party blocked from standing.

Inside Croydon broke the story last month of how Sandover was given the red carpet treatment over selection, overseen by the NEC and Labour’s London region, with local members denied any say in the process.

Labour’s newest celebrity councillor (anyone remember The Hon Emily Benn? No, thought not…) refused to speak to Inside Croydon’s reporter at the count.

So a good start to her four-year term.

The finish is in sight. But there’s more shocks to come…

Coulsdon Town, another Reform “target” well missed. One of their candidates here, Anna Hills, has links with far-right Britain First and attends rallies organised by Stephen Yaxley-Lennon. Then people of Coulsdon rejected her.

LibDem mayoral candidate Richard Howard had hopes of breaking through here, but the Greens again performed better here than Labour, the Liberal Democrats or Reform. Just not well enough to supplant the three Conservatives returned, including Ian Parker.

Kenley was where Reform fielded one of their more oddball candidates, David Booth, the source of the false theories about covid vaccinations causing cancer in the royals. Looks like his campaign could have done with a bit of a jab: he got just 631 votes, as the sitting Conservative councillors, Gayle Gander and cabinet member Ola Kolade were comfortable winners.

Norbury and Pollards Hill’s result is a safe Labour hold, returning the chair of scrutiny, Leila Ben-Hassel, and a return to the council of John Wentworth, a Newman Numpty (so much for Rowenna Davis’s claim of clearing them all out of the Labour group) and a close associate of MP Steve Reed.

Three Tories elected, including newcomer James Hillam, who has already a well-deserved reputation as a liar on some of the nastier social media sites. So he should fit in well with Perry’s gang.

Woodside, once the home ward of the architects of Croydon Council’s bankruptcy, Labour’s Tony Newman and Paul Scott, has seen the Greens win their fifth (well, six really, if you include Mark Adderley (see 2.15pm below)) council seat, tripling the number of councillors from 2022.

Labour’s Jess Hammersley-Rich thus becomes Jess Hammersley-Poor, and an ex-councillor. The then Jess Rich was the Labour candidate who lost a seat to the Tories in Waddon in 2022.

This was the ward with the biggest number of candidates – 18.

Amy Foster – who works as an aide to MP Natasha Irons – and Brigitte Graham were elected for Labour, while Laura Bradnam becomes Croydon’s fifth, or sixth, Green councillor.

The scoreboard (3pm, below) makes Croydon’s first Reform councillors appear somewhat lonely and remote down in New Addington South.

But, after a recount that took several hours (see 11.30am below), Holman and Kellett have been confirmed. There was no change in the 22-vote margin between former Conservative Kellett and the now former Conservative councillor Lara Fish.

But there’s a feel that that is as far as the Reform insurgence will go in Croydon this time round.

The council officials cannot cope with the nuances of the Greens having a candidate elected while suspended, so they have added Mark Adderley to the Green tally.

Reform’s first councillors, Holman and Kellett in New Addington South, now confirmed following a recount.

Elsewhere, Simon Fox, the Tory councillor in Waddon who works in MP Chris Philp’s office, has lost his council seat.

And Gill Hickson wins the LibDems’ second seat, a gain from the Tories in Old Coulsdon.

Rowenna Davis, Labour’s beaten mayoral candidate, was re-elected in her home ward.

In Thornton Heath, Coulsdon resident Ben Taylor (see 12.30pm below) finally managed to win an election, as Labour’s three new candidates were all returned. The Greens ran them close, though.

Labour’s target ward of South Croydon saw them getting closer than in previous years, but the Conservatives safely returned three councillors, including the chair of the planning committee, Michael Neal. Greens, too, polled well here.

In Sanderstead, the Tory deputy mayor Lynne Hale, cabinet member Yvette Hopley and Helen Redfern were all returned, and all managed to get more than 3,000 votes each, unusually high in local elections, but a clue to where Jason Perry’s voting strength lay.

A bad day for “Friend of Israel” Steve Reed (see Lambeth coverage at 12.40pm) just got a whole lot worse, after Mark Adderley, a Green candidate in Crystal Palace and Upper Norwood, just got elected to Croydon Council.

Thing is Adderley, a film and TV producer who is married to actor Nadia Sawahlia, was suspended by the Greens after Reed made public complaints about alleged antisemitism. Adderley roundly rejects such claims.

His suspension from the Green Party, subject to an investigation, came after he had been registered as a local election candidate, so he still appeared on the ballot paper on Thursday.

And more than one thousand people in Crystal Palace and Upper Norwood, in Labour minister Reed’s own parliamentary constituency, voted for Adderley.

Inside Croydon has confirmed with Green Party officials that Adderley was asked to stay away from the count.

Labour lost two seats in this ward, where Claire Bonham, Croydon’s only Liberal Democrat councillor in 2022, retained her seat.

A footnote to the Shirley North result is the 404 votes for former Croydon MP Andrew Pelling, these days standing for the Liberal Democrats, very much as a tokenistic “paper candidate”.

Pelling has been involved in 15 council elections since 1982, when he was elected for the Conservatives.

He was last elected in 2018, when a Labour councillor in Waddon ward, where he was suspended by the Newman Numpties because he dared to speak out about the appalling state of the reckless council’s finances.

This was meant to be one of Reform Ltd’s target seats in Croydon. But they finished hundreds of votes shy of the Conservative incumbents Sue Bennett, Mark Johnson and Richard Chatterjee.

In neighbouring East Surrey, the new unitary body which is replacing some of the old county and district councils to the south of Croydon, the Liberal Democrats have won a stonking 30-seat majority, 40 seats to the Tories 10, with the Greens on a respectable eight.

East Surrey ought to be perfect territory for Farage’s Reform, yet they managed just five seats.

This is also very bad news for Croydon Tories, such as Mario Creatura, who lives in Banstead. Creatura’s house move – he was hoping to get selected for a safe Surrey Conservative seat – meant he was disqualified for standing for election in Coulsdon Town at this year’s election.

Big shout-out to former Croydon activist, Sasha Khan, the man who took Sutton Council to the High Court over the toxic Beddington incinerator. After four years as a district councillor, Khan is now a county councillor.

First big casualty of these elections comes in Fairfield, where Labour shadow cabinet member Chris “Thirsty” Clark,loses his seat to the Greens.

Clark, a union official, was one of the Newman Numpties who somehow still got selected by Labour this year.

Clark failed to even get 1,000 votes, and was beaten into fifth place in this three-seat ward by his own party colleague, Davina Brown.

The Greens have had Ria Patel and Esther Sutton on the council for Fairfield ward since 2022, and they are now joined by Paul Ainscough, himself a former Labour activist and councillor.

The Addiscombe East Tory-Labour split ward remains the same, with Conservative cabinet member (and failed parliamentary candidate) Jeet Bains surviving for another term. Labour’s Maddie Henson – Mrs Anonyvoter for those who follow such matters – is also re-elected.

Tory defectors to Reform had been thought could undermine Bains’ vote to allow Labour to win the second seat.

In fact, Bains got the most votes in the ward – 1,199 – with the second Labour candidate, Chris Galpin third on 1,114 to Henson’s 1,148. The second Tory candidate, Richard Hoque, got 974.

But that Reform vote has not materialised. Might this be a pattern through the day?

It couldn’t happen to a nicer Zionist.

Steve Reed, the MP for Streatham (and Croydon North if he can be bothered, which is not often) is about to see his old council fall into the control of the Greens, including Martin Abrams, the Jewish councillor who was suspended by Labour for the heinous crime of voting against the genocide in Gaza.

Abrams also claimed he was bullied by the Labour group at Brixton Town Hall and subjected to antisemetic abuse. Oddly, Labour’s self-appointed Witchhunter General Reed said nothing about that misconduct.

Greens 22

Labour 13

LibDems 7

There are 21 seats still to declare.

It has been confirmed that the provisional result for New Addington South is subject to a recount, called for by the Conservatives, whose leading candidate, Lara Fish, was initially 22 votes behind the second Reform candidate, Adam Kellett.

Friday was one election count with eight mayoral candidates and a host of hangers on.

Today is 28 elections counts and more than 200 candidates, and things are getting a little crowded at the Fairfield Halls.

It’s the first time in 20 years that Croydon Council has used the council-owned arts venue for the count, which in many ways makes perfect sense: toilets, kitchens, and the Ashcroft Theatre stage for the declarations. But in other respects, not so much.

“It’s very crowded in all parts,” one of the scrutineers, party volunteers there to check that everything is in order.

“Not ideal for candidates and agents to check the counting.”

News from the Thornton Heath count.

This is a ward held by Labour, but for 2026 one of their councillors retired, another was replaced by members in a rare ward selection meeting and the third, Karen Jewett, Croydon’s hardest-working councillor (© Inside Croydon 2026) was blocked from standing by nameless, faceless Labour Party officials in the NEC and at London region.

Early indicators from this ward count are that the Greens are running second here, behind Labour, but our source at the count says, “Lots of split votes in the three-member ward.”

One of the Labour candidates in Thornton Heath this year is Ben Taylor, who has worked as the agent for all of his party’s 70 council candidates, even though Taylor has no experience of actually ever winning an election. Coulsdon resident

Taylor was his party’s parliamentary candidate in Croydon South for the 2024 General Election, but in 2022 when standing for the council, he delivered Labour’s worst result in local elections in the history of Croydon Council.

Midday: Labour 2, Conservative 1, Reform 2

Here’s the council’s official scoreboard, before the New Addington South results have been confirmed.

Holding up a sheet with “Provisional result”, a member of council staff reveals that Scott Holman, the Reform candidate who really wanted to be elected in Essex (see 3.40pm update and others in yesterday’s rolling election coverage), got more than 1,000 of his neighbours in New Addington South to vote for him, becoming Farage’s party’s first elected councillor in Croydon. Holman will have to get used to having his photo taken now.

Holman’s running mate in the two-seat ward referred to in council jargon as NAS is former Tory councillor Adam Kellett.

Kellett had 22 votes more than the leading Tory candidate, sitting councillor Lara Fish. We expect a recount might be on its way. It could be a very long day…

Unless the Tories can find another 23 votes from somewhere, which might be a bit fishy, Fish and the generally obnoxious, as well as lazy, Tony Pearson will lose their council allowances. Pearson is probably regretting not jumping into the arms of the Faragists himself now.

Kellett already knows what the work of a councillor entails. Will Holman prove up to the task? Or will he, like so many Reform councillors elected in the past year, prove to be a flake?

Conservative hold, on reduced vote share. Green vote up by 9%, to 19.6%. Will be a feature through the day of big vote increase, but not enough to make gains in terms of council seats.

Labour gain one council seat from the Conservatives, as Reform split the right-wing vote, and Adele Benson, officially Croydon’s laziest councillor (zero pieces of casework in 2025-2026 as revealed by Inside Croydon) loses her £12,000 per year council allowances.

Here’s the result of the mayoral election froim yesterday evening.

Jason Perry Cons 35,871 (-7.8%)

Rowenna Davis Labour 34,758 (-4.8%)

Peter Underwood Green 19,404 (+3.9%)

Ben Flook Reform 14,467 (New)

Richard Howard LibDem 7,815 (-5.0%)

Michael Pusey TTIP 2,597

Jose Joseph Ind 1,568

Ben Goldstone TUSC 461

* Figures in brackets relate to vote share comparison from previous local elections in 2022, based on that year’s ward votes

Inside Croydon’s unmatched live election coverage on Friday was read by almost 63,000 people (and counting) – twice as many as voted for Jason Perry, in an overwhelming endorsement of the journalism that this news website continues to provide, despite the perverse management of the council and its Mayor.

With our reporters in the Ashcroft Theatre for the count, Inside Croydon delivered the result as it happened, and almost 20 minutes sooner than the BBC. The non-local news site run from Canary Wharf by Retch published its election report four hours after the declaration.

We thank all our readers, and our loyal paying subscribers, for their continuing support, and we will continue to work to ensure that your voices are not ignored by Croydon’s failed Mayor.

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ROTTEN BOROUGH AWARDS: In January 2026, Croydon was named among the country’s rottenest boroughs for an EIGHTH time in nine years, in Private Eye magazine’s annual round-up of civic cock-ups