Croydon Mayor Election 2026: Result and Mental Health

Jason Perry was re-elected Mayor of Croydon on 8 May 2026, receiving 35,871 votes. Rowenna Davis received 34,758, a majority of 1,113 for Perry. The official turnout was 40.99%.

Croydon Council's official result recorded the full vote as follows:

Update, 14 July 2026: The analysis below is preserved as a snapshot of information checked up to 22 March 2026, before nominations closed. It covers the four candidates confirmed at that stage, not the final field, and does not retrospectively assess policies published later in the campaign.

Pre-election mental health snapshot (22 March 2026)

At the time of the original research, national prevalence data suggested that an estimated 48,000 adults in Croydon were living with common mental health conditions such as anxiety or depression. Mind in Croydon reported supporting over 15,000 people in the preceding year, a 57% rise. In February 2026, the NHS trust that delivers most of Croydon's mental health care was downgraded by inspectors from Good to Requires Improvement. Inspectors found nearly 600 people waiting for community mental health support across the trust, including 160 urgent cases not being seen in time.

I reviewed the manifestos, press statements, council reports and campaign pages available for the four candidates confirmed by 22 March, using research tools to help surface and cross-reference sources and checking those sources directly. The four candidates covered in this snapshot are Jason Perry (Conservative), Rowenna Davis (Labour), Richard Howard (Liberal Democrats), and Peter Underwood (Green Party).

The money problem

The March snapshot started with the council's finances. Croydon carried 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 was budgeted at £86 million for 2026–27. That was about 30p in every pound of council tax revenue. The council needed a further £119 million capitalisation direction from central government to balance the year's budget. That was not a grant, but permission to borrow more.

This financial pressure formed the context for cuts to preventative mental health services. Council Tax had risen 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.

The analysis therefore treated NHS partnerships, grant funding, the voluntary sector and cross-agency work as central to any credible mayoral mental health plan.

Jason Perry (Conservative, incumbent at the time)

Of the four candidates covered in March, Perry had the most substantial record of action on mental health as mayor. It was not a prominent theme in the campaign material reviewed by that date.

His 2022 manifesto committed to reviewing the borough's mental health strategy with SLaM, Mind in Croydon and the CCG. By 22 March 2026, his record showed follow-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, including perinatal mental health support as one component. This reflected an approach based on external grant funding and early intervention rather than discretionary council spending.

He had 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 such as painting, ceramics, music and dance as preventative mental health strategy. A dedicated Creative Health team was established in September 2024. He had also pledged to achieve Dementia Friendly borough status.

What had not been found by 22 March. No updated mental health manifesto or public response to the SLaM CQC downgrade had been found. His administration had implemented the Mind in Croydon funding cut, though that budget was set by the outgoing Labour administration in March 2022. His opponents argued that sustained council tax rises, closure of community assets and removal of the Welfare Rights Team had harmed vulnerable residents. The campaign material reviewed at that point focused on financial stabilisation and crime rather than mental health.

Rowenna Davis (Labour)

Davis had the strongest grassroots community engagement on mental health among the four candidates covered. The material reviewed by 22 March said much less about NHS services.

Before becoming a councillor, Davis was a secondary school teacher in Croydon. She later chaired the Scrutiny and Overview Committee from 2022 to 2024. Her approach to mental health drew on work with young people and community organisations.

Her broader "People First" platform framed mental health as a public health issue connected to 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 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 felt abandoned by the state. Her argument was that civic dignity and psychological wellbeing could not be separated.

She had criticised Perry's budgets, pointing to over £53 million spent on agency staff in 2024–25 and arguing this was money taken from frontline mental health and children's services. She had also 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 had not been found by 22 March. The campaign website checked at that point had no dedicated mental health section. I found no public statement on SLaM's CQC downgrade, NHS Talking Therapies, community mental health teams or how she would engage with the NHS system as mayor. The material focused on community and political-economy questions rather than statutory clinical provision.

Labour national context at the time. The Labour government had passed the Mental Health Act 2025, which received Royal Assent in December 2025, and committed £473 million in mental health capital infrastructure and £120 million for mental health emergency departments. NHS Talking Therapies funding had been secured through 2028–29. No public connection between these policies and Davis's local campaign had been found by 22 March.

Richard Howard (Liberal Democrats)

Howard brought personal experience with trauma, while his party had a detailed national mental health platform. The March snapshot could not establish how much of that platform he had adopted locally.

He is a former Army bomb disposal operator and stood for mayor in 2022, finishing third with 10.4%.

He had 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 had 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 focused 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 included mental health hubs and school mental health champions, but no confirmed evidence that Howard had adopted these as personal mayoral pledges had been found by 22 March.

His wider platform treated housing as a primary mental health issue. He had highlighted Croydon council housing appearing on national television for conditions described as the worst ever seen. He also proposed redefining affordable housing by local neighbourhood income.

What had not been found by 22 March. Beyond the points above, I found no further mental health content on his campaign website or in the local press reviewed at that time, including no response to the SLaM CQC downgrade or position on NHS Talking Therapies.

Liberal Democrat national context at the time. The Lib Dems passed a comprehensive "Whole-Person Mental Health" policy at their March 2026 conference. It included 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 and integration of talking therapies with debt advice. Whether Howard had adopted any of these locally had not been confirmed by 22 March.

Peter Underwood (Green Party)

No specific mental health pledge from Underwood had been found by 22 March. His economic and community-service arguments nevertheless had mental health implications.

He stood for mayor in 2022, finishing fifth with 6.5%. The campaign material reviewed in March focused on democratic reform, council transparency, environmental protection and restoring community services.

His most concrete contribution by that point came through the Green Group's budget amendment in February 2026, which proposed a pay freeze for staff earning over £100,000. The argument was that protecting senior management pay while cutting frontline services was a public health liability. His group said the council's published pay ratios were misleading because they excluded contractor costs, and argued that spending on agency staff should be redirected to in-house roles.

His advocacy for restoring libraries, youth services, community centres and arts provision was relevant to community wellbeing, though he framed these as democratic and community issues rather than mental health ones.

Green national context at the time. 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. No evidence that Underwood had adopted these positions locally had been found by 22 March.

Gaps identified in the March snapshot

Two areas stood out where none of the four candidates covered had taken a public position by 22 March.

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 across the trust and 160 urgent cases not being seen in time. No public response from the four candidates covered had been found by 22 March. The mayor could not 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 public platform.

NHS Talking Therapies. None of the four candidates covered had published a position on how the mayor would scrutinise access to Croydon's NHS Talking Therapies or connect the service with community support.

How the four candidates compared on 22 March

Assessment as published in March 2026

The original assessment was written against serious mental health pressures: a downgraded NHS trust, rising demand on the voluntary sector and years of austerity.

Perry had the strongest record. The Suicide Prevention Strategy reported measurable results, the EMHIP programme addressed ethnic inequality in access, and the Mental Health Summit led to policy. No updated mental health manifesto had been found by 22 March, and his administration's austerity had taken its own toll.

Davis had the deepest community engagement. Her framing of mental health as inseparable from housing and economics was coherent. The material reviewed by 22 March did not engage in detail with the NHS system.

Howard brought genuine personal experience with trauma and made accessible community-level proposals. His party had a detailed national platform, but the snapshot could not establish how much of it had entered his local campaign.

Underwood made a structural economic argument that the council's internal financial inequities were themselves a public health problem. The material reviewed had not connected this directly to clinical or community mental health policy.

This assessment is retained as a dated record of what could be verified before nominations closed. It is not a claim about the final campaign or the policies of every candidate who ultimately stood.

Campaign sources used for the March snapshot

• 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: Mayor of Croydon election 2026 results
• 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

The pre-election candidate positions above reflect sources checked up to 22 March 2026 and were verified against primary sources where possible.