While incumbent Mayor Jason Perry hasn’t (yet) issued a manifesto, his election leaflet sets out what he considers the six key bits of his record, under the title “Lots done. Lots more to do.”
He’s fucked the finances, not fixed them!
And that’s despite hiking our Council Tax by 33% since 2023.
Next up on Perry’s list is “Croydon Town Centre”, about which Perry says, “Businesses are opening… slowly but surely, the town centre is coming back”. The new shops in the Allders building are certainly open, but five times as many shops closed in the Whitgift Centre in 2025 than Westfield opened on North End.
As befitting of a Labour candidate, Davis advocates a more active interventionist approach to “Get our town centre back” by evicting “corporate squatters” to make way for “real developers”. Perry, as you’d expect from a Conservative, is happy to leave it to the market, claiming, “Westfield has unveiled its plans to revamp Centrale, with further plans for the Whitgift Centre coming soon”. It’s always “coming soon” with Westfield.
Davis says she will set up a Land Commission “to take action on the worst 50 stalled sites in the borough”. One solution would be a Land Value Tax on land with planning permission, to encourage developers to actually develop, but that would require national legislation. So Davis advocates “sending in environmental, safety and planning officers to inspect derelict sites, check on any breaches of the law and enforce them”, which suggests that if you don’t develop, you’ll be harassed until you do.
But Davis also raises the prospect of “reducing Section 106 criteria”, which usually safeguards public and community interest. This doesn’t sit well with Davis’s commitment to be a “people first” Mayor of Croydon.
Streeting visit: the Labour Health Secretary opened the facility in New Addington, not Croydon’s Tory Mayor
Perry claims “new NHS facilities”, with a photograph of the New Addington Community Diagnostic Centre.
Sadly for our hapless Mayor, this was funded by a £14million investment from the NHS Croydon Trust. The NHS is funded by central government, so the Tory Mayor is trying to take credit for funding from the Labour government.
In fact, the facility was opened by Health Secretary Wes Streeting on January 16 this year – something local Labour MP Natasha Irons happily posted on social media.
“Purley Pool on the way” declares Jason Perry in his leaflet. But where is it?
In 2022, when he was running to be Mayor, Perry pledged to re-open the pool. Four years on, and it’s still “on the way”. Perry’s lack of delivery makes Royal Mail look good by comparison.
Perry also states he is “protecting parks and green spaces”. From what?
Inside his gatefold leaflet, Perry explains, “I oppose Labour and Reform’s plan to build on Croydon’s precious Green Belt”. Now there’s a debate to be had about what the current Labour government has termed “the grey belt”, bits of the Green Belt which are not really green spaces. What has not been proposed – from either Reform or Labour, to be fair – is to build on parks.
The scaremongering is a bit rich, since during Perry’s term in office, he’s been caught out trying to sell off council-owned land, public open spaces and heritage buildings, such as Heathfield House.
Finally, Perry would like credit for “opening new family hubs”, but even the most cursory investigation exposes the fact that family hubs are central government-funded (by the previous Conservative and current Labour government).
Fly-tipping has increased massively in Croydon – giving our borough the unwanted title of fly-tipping capital of England. Davis in her manifesto pledges a “Clean Croydon” through deterrence with more CCTV, fines and crushing the vehicles of offenders – though how CCTV will be funded and who will enforce fines is another matter.
Her plan for free “Big Skip Days” is practical and pragmatic, since much of the fly-tipping occurs because the council has withdrawn free bulky waste collection, and hiked charges. A practical and cost-effective policy.
Davis’s pledge for a “safe Croydon” also reflects a bit of carrot and stick, with keeping more police in Croydon, alongside support for drug and alcohol addicts to get them off the street – again a practical policy, if the funding can be found. Councils’ public health budgets were slashed during the austerity years.
Intriguingly, she also promises “a new co-operative store giving residents cheaper groceries”. Davis’s pledge seems to be modelled on a similar commitment made by Zohran Mamdani, who took office as Mayor of New York City in January of this year.
American import: Davis’s manifesto has borrowed from Zohran Mamdani’s campaign in New York
Mamdani promised during his election campaign to establish municipal grocery stores that would “buy and sell at wholesale prices, centralise warehousing and distribution, and partner with local neighbourhoods on products and sourcing”.
Some were sceptical that the New York Mayor, with considerably more powers and funding than a Croydon Mayor, could deliver these grocery stores. Many will be even more disbelieving that Davis will be able to do so.
Like Mamdani, Davis is not afraid to wade into foreign policy debates either: “There is a genocide happening in Gaza. I do not believe the council’s pension fund should be used to support arms companies that are supplying Israel at this time.” She’s right, and a principled and moral stand should be applauded.
Davis’s other commitment to help with the cost of living is rather more prosaic: “no more insane 33% Council Tax hikes”, pledging Council Tax will never rise by more than 5% a year, as Perry did with his 15% hike in 2023.
And that is the battle.
For the birds: some of Rowenna Davis’s proposals seem fanciful, at best
Perry wants to stand on his record, but that is weak – Purley Pool isn’t open, town centre redevelopment remains years away and the council’s finances aren’t fixed. Perhaps that’s why he offers only a leaflet, not (yet at least) a manifesto?
The problem with writing a manifesto, though, is you can roam too wide. Croydon is in dire financial straits – and some of Davis’s ambitions, like a punk festival and aviation festival (an air show?), are probably not priorities right now (and I love punk!).
There’s also room for errors to creep in, like getting the ownership of Fairfield Halls wrong, and strangely advocating for “a potential culinary school, a train drivers’ school, a university and further campuses”, yet strangely not mentioning Croydon College, the art school or London South Bank University.
But Davis at least sets out a decent vision for Croydon. Whether she can fully deliver it with limited powers and even more limited finances remains to be seen.
- Andrew Fisher has also interviewed Liberal Democrat candidate Richard Howard and the Green Party’s candidate, Peter Underwood, will be facing Fisher’s questions soon
- Conservative Mayor Jason Perry has refused to face public scrutiny
- From 2015 to 2019, Andrew Fisher was the Labour Party’s Director of Policy under Jeremy Corbyn
- Fisher is also the author of The Failed Experiment – and how to build an economy that works, and now writes columns for InsideCroydon, the i newspaper and is a regular pundit on BBC and Sky News programmes
Andrew Fisher’s recent columns:
- Perry has stabilised council finances in state of perpetual crisis
- Reform backs policy that could see children killed on our roads
- In one-hour interview, pandering PM Starmer offers no answers
- Now even Mayor Perry agrees we need to Fund Croydon Fairly
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