Rowenna Davis campaigns in Croydon town centre for Croydon Council Elections 2026
Rowenna Davis, Labour’s mayoral candidate in Croydon, met the reporter at East Croydon this week and said Croydon’s town centre is a prime focus of her campaign for the croydon council elections 2026. Her pitch lands in a borough that has moved through Conservative, Labour and no overall control, with finances still hanging over the contest.
Davis, a former schoolteacher, Croydon councillor, journalist, author and associate partner of the think tank Global Future Foundation, is trying to turn that focus into momentum before voters choose the next mayor and council shape. Labour may find the mayoralty easier to win than a council majority, but the path for both main parties remains difficult.
East Croydon campaign focus
Davis said Croydon’s town centre is the prime focus of her campaign, centering her pitch on the area most closely tied to the borough’s public image. In her social media output during the campaign, she said, “Croydon’s becoming a ghost town”.
The town centre backdrop is not abstract. The Whitgift Centre has been associated with Croydon since its foundation in the late 1960s, and the article describes it now as pretty much a retailer-free zone. Davis’ campaign is leaning into that visible decline rather than treating the election as a broad party exercise.
Croydon’s shifting control
Croydon Council had Conservative majorities from 1968 until 1994, then Labour ran the council for three terms after 1994. Control moved between the Conservatives and Labour in this century before No Overall Control was reached in 2022.
After the 2022 election, a Conservative directly elected mayor headed a deeply split councillor intake. Jason Perry won the borough’s first mayoral race by a narrow margin, giving the Conservatives the mayoralty without settling the wider split on the council.
Finances after the pandemic
Croydon’s council financial problems emerged during the pandemic when Labour was in control, and those problems were inherited by Perry. The borough now heads into the 2026 contest with finances still part of the political argument, alongside the difficulty both parties face in building a majority.
The campaign also has to contend with the way Croydon is described in the public mind, linked by the article to the burning down of a family furniture store during the 2011 London Riots and to terrible and tragic youth violence. Davis is asking voters to look at the town centre as both the symbol of the problem and the place her campaign wants to start.
