#LocalElections2026: Live coverage from the Croydon count

It’s Conservative carnage in Sutton, and Labour losses in Wandsworth and Westminster, while the Tories cling on against Reform in Bexley. Meanwhile, Croydon’s count is just getting under way at the Fairfield Halls

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, for Croydon’s second mayoral election, which will determine our cash-strapped borough’s direction for the next four years, at least.

Have Croydon residents opted to stick with Conservative Jason Perry? Has the social media campaign run by Rowenna Davis been enough for Labour to take back control of the Town Hall? Has Reform Ltd’s Ben Flook made in-roads into the traditional duopoly?

All will become clear with the mayoral election declaration expected sometime later this afternoon, with the votes for Croydon’s 70 councillors across 28 wards delayed until tomorrow, Saturday, May 9, when we’ll be back and do this all over again….

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

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

Our reporting team includes Ken Towl and Gabriel MacArthur at the Fairfield Halls, plus Dave Burton and links to Darryl Chamberlain’s mighty GreenwichWire.

At the Fairfield Halls, where verification of the ballot papers was supposed to begin at 8am, counting actual votes has yet to happen.

It’s mayoral voting being counted today. We will have to wait until tomorrow for the ward-by-ward results.

But the elected Mayor is really all that matters in Croydon now – although someone needs to tell Professor Tony Travers, who told BBC London that Croydon has been under No Overall Control for the last four years. Or maybe that is an accurate description of Jason Perry’s time in office as Mayor.

Ken Towl has caught up with Nicholas Burman-Vince, the Greens’ campaign manager who seems “very buoyant”, says expects his party will “make a few gains”.

Labour are being “tight-lipped”.

Veteran Conservative councillor Margaret Bird (Old Coulsdon) arrives for the mayorl vote count and says that she is confident she will hold her seat despite a challenge from the LibDems. “They were so rude to people,” says Councillor Bird, who once opposed 20mph speed limits in Croydon because she thought she would not be able to drive up Coulsdon’s steep hills so slowly…

Labour MP Sarah Jones and Stuart King, leader of Labour’s Town Hall group, have arrived for the mayoral count, too. “Too early to say,” they say, in a tight-lipped sort of way.

“It does all feel very unpredictable,” Ken Towl reports.

Political guru John Curtice, the man who taught Walter Cronxite all he knows, has delivered his interim verdict.

Now what could that mean if applied in Croydon?

So here’s a turn-up.

The narrative for months has been that Farage’s grifters, tax-dodgers and racists in Reform Ltd were going to “doughnut” London, taking some key outer London boroughs, such as Havering, Bexley and Bromley.

Bexley, being next door to Kent, where Reform won control of the county council in 2025 – with predictably chaotic results – was reckoned to become the first London borough under Farage control.

Well, that didn’t happen.

The Conservatives clung on to control in Bexley, where Reform’s challenge somewhat fizzled out. Hmmm.

Indeed, in decidedly conservative (small “c”) Bexley, Labour has as many council seats as the Faragists.

Cons 26 (-4)

Lab 7 (-3)

Reform 7 (+7)

For reference, this was London’s political map after the 2022 local elections

So while we wait for the count in Croydon to get underway – a mere 11 hours after the polling stations closed – let us try to be positive.

Happy birthday Sir David, the man who invented Life On Earth.

But could even Attenborough find intelligent life in Croydon Town Hall?

Certainly, we all know very well what he would make of the Faragists’ pro-motoring, pro-oil policies that have done so much damage to our planet.

Here’s a sentence we never thought we would write: Labour has more council seats in Sutton than the Conservatives.

Labour has one council seat, after the Tories were wiped out in yesterday’s elections.

Barry “Basher” Lewis’s Liberal Democrats retain control of Sutton Council after winning 51 of the borough’s 55 council seats, up by 22.

LibDem 51

Reform 2

Lab 1

Ind 1

The Tory demise was largely at the hands of Reform Ltd, who took enough votes off the Conservatives to hand many wards to the LibDems.

Labour’s Dave Tchil in Hackbridge and Nick Mattey, the independent councillor in Beddington, both retained their seats.

In Beddington, Mattey’s independent colleague, Tim Foster, lost his seat by just 12 votes.

Janey Gould and Alison Long became Reform Ltd’s first Sutton councillors, winning two of the three seats in St Helier West in what was otherwise an orangewash of the borough.

Click here for our full report on the Sutton result, and how BBC London called the result all wrong…

Inside Croydon’s columnist and TV and radio politics pundit Andrew Fisher has made this assessment from the results in so far, with the Reform tidal wave expected in places like Bexley not quite as dominant as some predicted:

“Early indications in London councils – Westminster, Wandsworth, Bexley – appear to show the Labour/Tory duopoly holding up,” Fisher notes.

“And it is in terms of seats won, but look at share of the vote and the picture is much more mixed.

“No breakthrough yet (bigger Green targets to come), but votes splintering.”

Here’s the first result from across south London that’s in:

Crystal Palace 2 Shakhtar Donetsk 1

Palace win 5-2 on aggregate and are in the UEFA Conference League final in Leipzig on May 27, where they will play Rayo Vallecano in what will be Oliver Glasner’s final game as Palace manager.

Meanwhile, here’s the BBC’s chart of council seats won and lost across the country in declared results so far at 7,45am.

Might there be some hope to be taken for Labour in Croydon from the results from neighbouring Merton?

We had been told that this was the Liberal Democrats’ No1 target council in London, yet on a night of electoral carnage for Sir Keir Starmer’s Labour Party elsewhere, they retained control with an increased majority.

The number of council seats determines control of Merton won:

Lab 32

LibDems 19

Cons 4

Residents 2

Labour lost control of two London councils it won from the Tories in 2022, Westminster and Wandsworth.

The Conservatives are back in charge in Westminster, while Wandsworth becomes NOC – no overall control – with an independent councillor holding the balance of power.

The Tories had held Wandsworth for 44 years until 2022. Labour lost seven seats, leaving it with 28, while the Conservatives gained seven to reach 29.

In Richmond, the LibDems swept the board, winning all 54 seats.

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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