- Reform wins first Croydon Council seats in New Addington South, subject to a recount
- First results in just after 11am – Labour gain from Conservatives and Croydon’s laziest councillor
- In Lambeth, Greens look set to take control of 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
12.40pm: Greens look set to take control of Steve Reed’s Lambeth
It couldn’t happen to a nicer Zionist.
Funded by Israel supporters: Steve Reed OBE
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.
By lunchtime today, the scoreboard at The Oval cricket ground, where Lambeth is holding its count, looks like this:
Greens 22
Labour 13
LibDems 7
There are 21 seats still to declare.
12.30pm: Getting crowded in Fairfield Halls as more attend the count
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.
Crowded house: the Concert Hall at the Fairfield Halls is not ideal for an election count, according to one volunteer at the count
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.
11.30am: Reform wins first council seats in Croydon
Reform gains: a provisional result suggest Reform has won two council seats in New Addington South
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?
11.20am: Park Hill and Whitgift
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.
11.15am: New Addington North
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.
11am: Now where were we?
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
Read more: ‘The vote on the left split more than the vote on the right’
- 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.
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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
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Looks like the 2026 Toss-car award to Adele Benson was enough to scupper her chances
Why is Croydon fucking last to do everything? Once again the slowest borough in the UK. Pitiful shambolic fuck-wits all.
Most of London’s councils with Mayors have done the two-day split.
Lambeth, which doesn’t have the excuse of having #ABitLessShit Mayor, is still counting today.
Many authorities are saving money on the count by not having to pay overtime for overnight counts.
Adele Benson should pay her council allowances back. She has robbed Croydon of almost £50,000. What a bone idle cow.
Scott Holman – the racists are on the March – a dark day.