At least 15% of Croydon’s sitting councillors won’t be seeking election in 2026, while some are doing the ‘chicken run’ to stay on the council gravy train. EXCLUSIVE by WALTER CRONXITE, Political Editor
Calling it a day: Callton Young OBE
Nearly a dozen of Croydon’s current 70 councillors will not be seeking re-election in this borough on polling day on May 7, 2026, Inside Croydon can reveal.
Among the Croydon Labour “big beasts” understood to be ready to stand down are the current deputy leader of the Town Hall opposition, Callton Young, and Tony Newman’s former deputy leader, Stuart Collins.
Tory Mario Creatura, the exceptionally ambitious and even more exceptionally untalented former parliamentary candidate, is also expected to bank his final allowances payment next April.
Decisions are being made ahead of the generally secretive selection processes run by the political parties for positions on the council which, in most cases, are assured four years of publicly-funded allowances worth tens of thousands of pounds per year.
Most of the departees have chosen to hang up their purple Croydon Council lanyards for a final time, although one or two are being forced out by circumstance (some of their own making), while other councillors, desperate to cling on to what passes for power, are embarking on the “chicken run”, seeking selection in wards deemed to be “safer” for their party’s re-election chances.
And that’s before any current Labour or Conservative councillors face the prospect of being deselected by their local selection process.
Croydon’s two Green councillors and its solitary LibDem have already been reselected by their parties. But more of that later…
Campaigning is already well underway for elections that are still more than 10 months away, with the larger political parties having all declared their candidates for Croydon Mayor in 2026.
Didn’t last long: former Steve Reed aide Louis Carserides
But there is also the increasingly tricky business of electing councillors across the borough’s 28 wards.
In 2022, when the last elections were held (who can possibly forget the Katherine Kerswell-imposed nightmare of the never-ending election count?) in the immediate aftermath of the council’s financial collapse, both Labour and Conservatives encountered some reluctance among their membership to put themselves forward as candidates – even “paper” ones.
If anything, according to sources within Tory and Labour parties in Croydon, that situation has got worse, a reflection both of falling numbers of activists and growing disaffection with Trussonomics and Starmerite purges.
Labour members, in particular, were receiving increasingly desperate-sounding emails from their new borough organiser, Tom Morton, seemingly pleading with them to fill out an application form to put themselves forward. “We need hardworking candidates from all backgrounds and experiences to help Rowenna and Labour win in 2026 and put People First in Croydon,” wrote Tom. Bless.
As Inside Croydon reported yesterday, the national Labour Party itself still won’t trust Croydon Labour to manage its own affairs, with the all-powerful National Executive Committee drawing up shortlists from which members in the party’s ward branches to choose their candidates. Which is nice of them.
Cheerio: ‘Thirsty’ Clive Fraser
Labour’s deadline for submitting applications to be considered for selection was last Friday. Collins and Young are understood not to have bothered this time round.
Party sources also suggest that other sitting councillors who won’t be standing in 2026 include Louis Carserides, who has been a South Norwood councillor only since 2021, “selected” when he was working as a parliamentary aide to MP Steve Reed OBE. Carserides is no longer Labour’s Town Hall whip, and he recently resigned from his job as a special advisor at Reed’s Department of the Environment, Food and Agriculture.
Clive “Thirsty” Fraser, who four years ago was deselected by Labour members in South Norwood, isn’t even going to bother seeking the support of members in Addiscombe West.
In 2021, Fraser was deeply implicated in the ilegal hacking and data theft from this website – but suffered no consequences from the law or Labour. Working for Hounslow’s planning department must be eating into Fraser’s pub hours.
Standing down: Patricia Hay-Justice
In fact, there will be two vacancies for candidates in Addiscombe West, where Patricia Hay-Justice is also stepping down after 16 years on the council.
Hay-Justice was reputedly close to quitting as a councillor in 2022, after having had two years in the tough job of cabinet member for housing, trying to scramble from the wreckage left by Alison Butler and former CEO Jo Negrini over scandals including Brick by Brick and Regina Road.
Chris Clark, the former Labour chair of planning, is thought to be eyeing one of those Addiscombe vacancies. Green councillors Esther Sutton and Ria Patel have impressed residents in Fairfield since their election three years ago that Clark cannot be sure he will be elected in that ward for a third time.
He is now claiming that a switch makes sense as he lives in Addiscombe. Mind you, Clark lived in Addiscombe when seeking selection first in Waddon (while a sitting councillor in Kent) and then in Fairfield, as well as when he was stitching up comrade Jose Joseph over a by-election selection in 2019. Whatever happened to Caragh Skipper?
Fox on the chicken run: Cllr Simon Fox, here with Jason Perry, is looking to stand in another ward
Another doing the “chicken run” is thought to be Simon Fox, a first-term councillor and the only Conservative elected in three-seat Waddon ward for almost a decade.
Given Waddon is where Labour’s mayoral candidate Rowenna Davis is a councillor, Fox appears to have assessed his chances of re-election as poor. Fox, who works in Croydon South MP Chris Philp’s Westminster office, has been noted as sniffing around safer wards in Purley.
Some of Labour’s departures reflect a final clearing out of the Newman Numpties who crashed the council’s finances, though word suggests that Brigitte Graham, a councillor for Woodside only since 2022, may be considering her position simply because of the pressures of juggling work, family and Town Hall life.
Collins has been a councillor for 32 years, including six when he was Newman’s deputy.
Going: Stuart Collins’ departure represents a politician keeping a promise, of sorts
From 2014, “Clean Streets Stu” led a (well-funded) campaign against illegal fly-tips around the borough, with some success, and a series of regular prosecutions and impounded vehicles crushed.
But the deals agreed with Violia proved very expensive, as he allowed the rubbish contractors to remove more than 1,000 street bins (to reduce their costs), and the Broad Green councillor’s personal opposition to the Viridor incinerator at Beddington Lane evaporated once he took office.
Sources close to the councillor say that his decision to stand down is not politically motivated.
“He’s promised Angie,” said the source, referring to Collins’ wife. So a sort of political compromise, then.
Long service: Tory councillor Maria Gatland
Young’s decision to stand down as a Thornton Heath councillor ends a frustrating and ultimately disappointing foray into politics. Young is a former senior civil servant who was integral to the drafting of the MacPherson Report, following the inquiry into the brutal murder of Stephen Lawrence, which reached the brave conclusion that the Met Police was institutionally racist.
The Tory departures indicated so far seem to be genuine retirements. They include Maria Gatland, the South Croydon/Croham ward colleague of Jason Perry who has been well-regarded in her cabinet duties for children’s services, but who is now in her late 70s and has done more than 20 years on the council.
Others understood to be standing down include Sue Bennett (Shirley North, who was first elected in 2006), Richard Chatterjee (also Shirley North, a councillor since 2002), who is going out in a blaze of Trumptonesque fancy dress as the civic mayor, and keen videographer Simon Brew (Purley and Woodcote), a relative lightweight having been on the council only since 2014. Brew’s vacancy may open the way for Fox, who now lives in the area.
Creatura will hardly be missed by anyone at the Town Hall, neither Labour nor his Tory colleagues. His frequent absences when he was Tory group whip even earned him the nickname “WINO”: whip in name only.
On his way out: Mario Creatura, then a mere parliamentary aide, giggling as he passes a homeless person in 2014 with Boris Johnson
Even Jason Perry didn’t appear to rate Creatura, who was never handed a lucrative council cabinet role under the Tory Mayor.
After years of coining it from publicly funded appointments, the former gobby fac totem to Gavin Barwell and sometime head of tweets for Prime Minister Theresa May, pursued his own political ambitions, unsuccessfully.
Moving his family home to Banstead to seek selection for a Tory seat in Surrey backfired, because as well as not being selected for the 2024 General Election, it meant he disqualified himself from standing for election in Croydon (unless he suddenly acquires a “business address” in the borough, although that seems unlikely).
As Chris Clark’s chicken run suggests, the Greens are going all-out to secure all three Fairfield seats in 2026, with Paul Ainscough, a former Labour parliamentary candidate, completing their trio of candidates there.
Likewise, in Crystal Palace and Upper Norwood, where the presence of busy Claire Bonham has impressed residents, the Liberal Democrats are said to be focusing their election efforts there with candidates Nigel Dingley and Yusuf Osman (a disabilities rights campaigner and accessibility adviser to Croydon Council).
Veteran LibDem activists Gill Hickson and John Jefkins have been seleccted to contest Old Coulsdon ward.
Read more: Labour councillor’s Friends of Israel pose starts selection row
Read more: #TheLabourFiles: Source of hacked data worked for Evans
Read more: Boycotts and resignations in rows over Labour selections
Read more: #TheLabourFiles: MP Reed, Evans and the Croydon connection
- If you have a news story about life in or around Croydon, or want to publicise your residents’ association or business, or if you have a local event to promote, please email us with full details at inside.croydon@btinternet.com
As featured on Google News Showcase
- Our comments section on every report provides all readers with an immediate “right of reply” on all our content. Our comments policy can be read by clicking here
Inside Croydon is a member of the Independent Community News Network
Isn’t this a lot of speculation on the conservative side. I haven’t seen anything about them starting their selection process yet.
No, it isn’t.
The Tories are notoriously secretive about their selection process (such as it is), even with their own members. Anyone might think they’d rather the public didn’t know about the people they are putting forward for public office.
I agree, it’s probably their own secret internal process.
But surely that means that nobody actually knows if people like Simon Fox are moving. I’ve been watching his videos as a Waddon resident and he seems pretty committed to living and standing there.
He’s moved. You wouldn’t expect him to share that with the people he’s supposed to represent after giving all the old Perry blather about living here man and boy, would you?
And he’s moving.
Our Town Hall sources know what’s going on.
Fox has to switch wards. He only got elected in Waddon in 2022 because Andrew Pelling split the vote. He knows that. His Tory bosses know that.
I thought he only got elected on alphabetical order. He has no other demonstrable talents.
Will we cope? Can we carry on? Oh it appears that nothing has changed.
By the way, yes I can confirm I’m not going to be a ‘paper candidate’ again. I’m sure my…ahem… 600 supporters in Sanderstead will be gutted!
Was it you who had your post about the Young Tories deleted from nextdoor by the Tory treasurer?
Probably. The Mayor’s son rules it in a manner that would make Goebbels blush.
Please: it is Mayor Perry’s little Willy
Little Willy is on the nextdoor “review team”, but he’s no longer Chairman of the Croydon branch of the Hitler Youth – oops – Young Conservatives
I met Simon Brew at one of his surgery meetings in Tesco. He said he’s standing again. How do you know he’s standing down?
You are aware that politicians tell lies?