Croydon residents voted in favour of a democratically elected mayor by almost 4 to 1 in the referendum on 7th October. The majority was much larger than the Labour council’s leadership prediction of 2 to 1. Votes cast were 47,165 For and 11,519 Against. The low turnout of 21% of eligible voters was expected, partly due to the vote being carried out in isolation and not part of local elections. The election of a new mayor will coincide with local council elections on 5th May 2022.
In an email DEMOC Chairman Gerry Meredith-Smith said ‘Today is a historic day for our borough – because today Croydon voted for change. Next May, we WILL have a democratically elected mayor.’ He thanked all those who supported DEMOC.
Electing a mayor is the final stage of a tortuous three part process. First DEMOC needed a percentage of the electorate to vote for a referendum, which it achieved with 21,000 votes; second it had to win a majority in the referendum, which it did, 4 to 1. The third stage, the election of a mayor, is now obligatory.
The current Leader of Croydon Council, Hamida Ali, has stated, ‘When I became leader last year, I promised to open up the council and give residents a stronger voice. That’s why yesterday we held a referendum to give our community the chance to have their say on how the council is run in the future.’
A curious statement, as the council’s Labour leadership campaigned against a directly elected mayor and had no option to hold a referendum because of the vote for one by residents. Posters depicting the burning of a £20 note, claiming an elected mayor would be a waste of money, seemed somewhat ironic, given the council’s woeful record on fiscal matters.
DEMOC has stressed it is not party political and an elected mayor might be from any political party or an independent. Whoever is elected next May, it is hoped they will be a voice for all Croydon residents and go some way to ‘levelling up’ representation for the south of the borough, particularly in the realm of development and planning decisions.
An elected mayor will have plenty of challenges. Croydon Council is effectively bankrupt with debts of £1.5bn. In addition to the hundreds of redundancies and severe cuts already made, it is planning further cuts to services, reported to be around £38m, as well as more job losses. Perhaps most troubling for the current leadership was that in every ward across the borough, a majority voted for an elected mayor.