Based on national prevalence data, an estimated 48,000 adults in Croydon are living with common mental health conditions such as anxiety or depression. Mind in Croydon supported over 15,000 people last year (a 57% rise). In February 2026, the NHS trust that delivers all of Croydon's mental health care was downgraded by inspectors from Good to Requires Improvement. When they looked inside, they found nearly 600 people waiting for community mental health support, including 160 urgent cases not being seen in time.
Croydon goes to the polls on 7 May 2026. I've spent the past week going through every manifesto, press statement, council report and campaign page I could find for the four confirmed candidates, using Gemini Deep Research and Claude to help surface and cross-reference sources, plus my own searches to verify. This is where each candidate stands.
The four candidates are: Jason Perry (Conservative, incumbent), Rowenna Davis (Labour), Richard Howard (Liberal Democrats), and Peter Underwood (Green Party). The election uses first-past-the-post for the first time. Nominations close 9 April, so further candidates (including a widely expected Reform UK entry) may yet emerge.
The money problem
You can't understand any of this without understanding the debt. Croydon carries roughly £1.4–1.6 billion in general fund debt, the legacy of Brick by Brick, the Fairfield Halls refurbishment, and years of financial mismanagement. Debt servicing alone costs £86 million for 2026–27. That's about 30p in every pound of council tax revenue. The council needed a further £119 million capitalisation direction from central government just to balance this year's budget. That's not a grant. It's permission to borrow more.
This is why preventative mental health services have been cut. Council Tax has gone up 33% over four years. In 2022, Mind in Croydon lost £380,907 per year in council funding, which forced the closure of its employment support and welfare benefits services.
Whoever wins will have almost no discretionary money. Any mental health strategy has to work through NHS partnerships, grant funding, the voluntary sector, and cross-agency work. That's the reality.
Jason Perry (Conservative, Incumbent)
Perry has done more on mental health as mayor than any of the other candidates have promised to do. But he's not campaigning on it.
His 2022 manifesto committed to reviewing the borough's mental health strategy with SLaM, Mind in Croydon, and the CCG. He's followed through on several fronts.
In November 2022, he convened a Croydon Mental Health Summit with Sir Norman Lamb, the Director of Public Health, and the Head of Mental Health Commissioning. The summit's breakout sessions focused on barriers to access in the community and signposting and treatment in primary care. Its findings fed into the South West London Mental Health Strategy and Croydon's refreshed Joint Local Health and Wellbeing Strategy 2024–2029, which lists mental health and wellbeing as its first priority.
In October 2025, his Cabinet introduced the Multi-agency Self-harm and Suicide Prevention Strategy 2025–2028. The numbers are significant: a 29% reduction in suicide deaths since the 2018–20 baseline and a 52% decrease in hospital admissions for self-harm.
In January 2026, his Cabinet endorsed £6.2 million in government funding for Family Hubs through to March 2029, which includes perinatal mental health support as one component. This is how he tends to work: securing external grant funding rather than spending council money, and tying early intervention to long-term cost savings.
He's also championed the Ethnicity and Mental Health Improvement Programme (EMHIP), which provides culturally sensitive counselling for Black, Asian, and minority ethnic communities. "These new culturally sensitive counselling sessions will help even more people in Croydon to talk openly, without judgement, which supports good mental health," he said. In March 2026, he attended the opening of new counselling suites at Mind in Croydon's Purley Road site and praised it as an example of pooling resources without direct council tax expenditure.
His administration's 2024 Public Health Annual Report endorsed Creative Health: using community arts (painting, ceramics, music, dance) as preventative mental health strategy. A dedicated Creative Health team was established in September 2024. He's also pledged to achieve Dementia Friendly borough status.
What's missing. No updated mental health manifesto for 2026. No public response to the SLaM CQC downgrade, despite its direct implications for Croydon residents. His administration did implement the Mind in Croydon funding cut, though that budget was set by the outgoing Labour administration in March 2022. His opponents argue that the sustained council tax rises, closure of community assets, and removal of the Welfare Rights Team have done their own damage to the borough's most vulnerable residents. His 2026 campaign focuses on financial stabilisation and crime, not mental health.
Rowenna Davis (Labour)
Davis has the strongest grassroots community engagement on mental health. But she hasn't said much about NHS services.
She's the bookmakers' favourite (6/5 at time of writing), backed by 82% of Croydon Labour members. Before becoming a councillor she was a secondary school teacher in Croydon, and after that Chair of the Scrutiny and Overview Committee from 2022 to 2024. Her approach to mental health is clearly shaped by working directly with young people.
Her broader platform, "People First," frames mental health as a public health issue that can't be separated from housing, crime, education, and economics. In 2020, before becoming a councillor, she co-organised the Croydon Covid-19 Mutual Aid Mental Health First Aid initiative, securing 1,000 free training places. Applications came from more than 40 mental health organisations, as well as churches, mosques, colleges, businesses, schools, and charities. "There's lots of studies that show that people who've never had mental health problems are now feeling really vulnerable, and even lonely," she said in a profile that year.
She's also connected basic municipal services to community mental health. During campaigns on Croydon's fly-tipping crisis, she highlighted residential blocks going up to seven weeks without bin collections, describing it as a "mental health toll" on communities who feel abandoned by the state. Her point: you can't separate civic dignity from psychological wellbeing.
She's gone hard on Perry's budgets, pointing to over £53 million on agency staff in 2024–25, arguing this was money taken directly from frontline mental health and children's services. She's lobbied nationally for Croydon's debt to be written off or restructured: "If Croydon's going to stand on its own two feet we need that debt written off or restructured because it's crippling."
What's missing. Her campaign website has no dedicated mental health section. I couldn't find any public statement on SLaM's CQC downgrade, NHS Talking Therapies, community mental health teams, or how she'd engage with the NHS system as mayor. Her work sits at the community and political economy level. She hasn't addressed statutory clinical provision.
Labour national context. The Labour government passed the Mental Health Act 2025 (Royal Assent December 2025), the biggest reform since 1983, and has committed £473 million in mental health capital infrastructure and £120 million for mental health emergency departments. NHS Talking Therapies funding is secured through 2028–29. Davis hasn't publicly connected any of this to her local campaign.
Richard Howard (Liberal Democrats)
Howard has real personal experience with trauma, and his party has the strongest national mental health platform. But it's hard to tell how much of that has made it into his local campaign.
He's a former Army bomb disposal operator and stood for mayor in 2022, finishing third with 10.4%.
He's spoken publicly about the psychological toll of his military deployments, including survivor guilt and severe isolation during Covid. "Not all of these effects are visible," he's said. In July 2025, he took part in a charity boxing event for the Felix Fund, which supports the mental health of bomb disposal personnel and their families.
His wider proposals focus on bringing services closer to residents: Access Hubs in libraries to deliver council services locally, and a "Day 1" task force on housing disrepair. His party's national platform includes mental health hubs and school mental health champions (see below), but there is no confirmed evidence that Howard has adopted these as personal mayoral pledges.
His wider platform treats housing as a primary mental health issue. He's highlighted Croydon council housing appearing on national television for conditions described as the worst ever seen. He also proposes redefining affordable housing by local neighbourhood income.
What's missing. Beyond the above, I couldn't find mental health content on his campaign website or in recent local press. No response to the SLaM CQC downgrade or NHS Talking Therapies provision.
Liberal Democrat national context. The Lib Dems passed a comprehensive "Whole-Person Mental Health" policy at their March 2026 conference, the most detailed national platform of any party. Mental health check-ups at key life stages, walk-in youth hubs in every community, free NHS prescriptions for chronic mental health conditions, a "No Wrong Door" principle in law, £400 million in additional funding, an independent Mental Health Commissioner, integration of talking therapies with debt advice. Whether Howard has adopted any of these locally hasn't been confirmed.
Peter Underwood (Green Party)
Underwood hasn't made any specific mental health pledges. But his background is relevant, and his economic arguments have mental health implications.
He stood for mayor in 2022, finishing fifth with 6.5%. His campaign focuses on democratic reform, council transparency, environmental protection, and restoring community services.
His most concrete contribution came through the Green Group's budget amendment in February 2026, which proposed a pay freeze for staff earning over £100,000. The argument: protecting senior management pay while cutting frontline services is a public health liability. His group pointed out that the council's published pay ratios were misleading because they excluded contractor costs, and that over £53 million on agency staff should be redirected to in-house roles.
His advocacy for restoring libraries, youth services, community centres, and arts provision is relevant to community wellbeing, though he frames these as democratic and community issues rather than mental health ones.
Green national context. The Green Party's 2024 manifesto included a 28-day access target for mental health therapies, a counsellor in every school, mental health funding on par with physical health, and restoration of the public health grant to 2015 levels. BACP specifically praised the school counsellor and 28-day pledges. There's no evidence Underwood has adopted these positions locally.
Notable gaps
Two areas where none of the candidates have taken a public position.
The SLaM CQC downgrade. In February 2026, SLaM was downgraded from Good to Requires Improvement, with nearly 600 people on community mental health waiting lists and 160 urgent cases not being seen in time. No candidate has responded publicly. The mayor can't fix this directly: SLaM is an NHS trust accountable to NHS England and the CQC, and services are commissioned by the South West London Integrated Care Board. But the council chairs the Health and Wellbeing Board, has a statutory scrutiny committee that can hold NHS providers to account, and the mayor has a platform.
NHS Talking Therapies. Croydon's NHS Talking Therapies service, delivered by SLaM, offers CBT and counselling with waits of two to three months. Demand is rising. No candidate has addressed waiting times or how the service connects to community need.
How the candidates compare at a glance
| Perry (Con) | Davis (Lab) | Howard (Lib Dem) | Underwood (Green) | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Concrete actions | Summit; EMHIP; Suicide Prevention Strategy; Family Hubs funding; Mind Purley Rd opening | MHFA community training (1,000+ places) | Felix Fund charity (veteran MH) | Green Group budget amendment |
| MH pledges for 2026 | 2022 pledges only | None confirmed | None confirmed locally (national party platform only) | None confirmed |
| National party MH strength | Moderate | Strong (in government) | Very strong | Very strong |
| SLaM CQC response | None found | None found | None found | None found |
| NHS Talking Therapies | No position found | No position found | No position found | No position found |
My assessment
The borough is facing serious mental health pressures: a downgraded NHS trust, a voluntary sector buckling under rising demand, and years of austerity. Here's how each candidate's record stacks up.
Perry has the strongest record. The Suicide Prevention Strategy delivered measurable results. The EMHIP programme addresses ethnic inequality in access. The Mental Health Summit actually led to policy. But he has no updated manifesto for 2026, and his administration's austerity has taken its own toll.
Davis has the deepest community engagement. Her framing of mental health as inseparable from housing and economics is coherent. But she hasn't engaged with the NHS system, and her campaign website doesn't mention mental health at all.
Howard brings genuine personal experience with trauma and has made accessible community-level proposals. His party's national platform is the most detailed of any. But how much of that has filtered into his 2026 local campaign isn't clear.
Underwood is making a structural economic argument: that the council's internal financial inequities are themselves a public health problem. There's force in that. But he hasn't connected it to mental health directly, and has no clinical or community mental health policies.
Hustings are expected in April. If mental health matters to you, ask the candidates directly. I'll be there.
Find out more about each candidate
- Jason Perry (Conservative) — Croydon Conservatives
- Rowenna Davis (Labour) — rowennadavis.co.uk
- Richard Howard (Liberal Democrats) — Croydon Liberal Democrats
- Peter Underwood (Green Party) — Croydon Green Party
Sources
- Croydon Council democracy portal
- Mind in Croydon reports and impact data
- CQC inspection — South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust (February 2026)
- Croydon Director of Public Health Annual Report 2024
- Croydon Director of Public Health Annual Report 2022
- Croydon Conservatives
- Rowenna Davis campaign
- Croydon Liberal Democrats
- Croydon Green Party
- Liberal Democrats policy portal
- Inside Croydon
- South West Londoner
- LabourList
All candidate positions verified against primary sources where possible.