Croydon Central

[Deleted]

Fun fact: Gavin (now Lord) Barwell wrote a book called 'How to Win a Marginal Seat' before losing here in 2017.

[Davıd Boothroyd]

The wards no longer match up with the constituency boundaries, after ward boundary changes in 2018.

[timrollpickering]

"Croydon Central" is a poor name for the seat at both ends. At the western end the boundary runs down the middle of North End, Croydon's high street, and the seat doesn't contain the Centrale shopping centre, whilst the eastern end of the seat goes into the countryside to reach New Addington - the tram journey is very picturesque but hardly central Croydon. The former problem would be fixed by taking in the whole of the revised Fairfield ward, the latter by renaming the seat "Croydon East".

[Pete Whitehead]

It's quite similar to the Croydon East seat which enjoyed a brief existence between 1950 and 1955

[where2travel]

I'd not quite realised the extent of the seat's reach to the east and south (and just how little it felt like central Croydon as its focus). Does West Croydon station even make it into the seat (assuming that's the other main central Croydon station you refer to), in addition to the much bigger and prominent East Croydon station?

[Deleted]

Apr 23, 2020 21:36:24 GMT where2travel said:

I'd not quite realised the extent of the seat's reach to the east and south (and just how little it felt like central Croydon as it's focus). Does West Croydon station even make it into the seat (assuming that's the other main central Croydon station you refer to), in addition to the much bigger and prominent East Croydon station?

[johnloony]

Apr 23, 2020 21:36:24 GMT where2travel said:

I'd not quite realised the extent of the seat's reach to the east and south (and just how little it felt like central Croydon as it's focus). Does West Croydon station even make it into the seat (assuming that's the other main central Croydon station you refer to), in addition to the much bigger and prominent East Croydon station?

It's literally right on the edge.

[timrollpickering]

Zooming on Election Maps the boundary appears to run along the middle of the through line from Sutton and so platform 4, the tram stop and the bus station are in the seat but platforms 1 & 3 (and the remains of 2) and the ticket hall are in Croydon North.

[martinwhelton]

The West Croydon station building itself is in Croydon North with just platform 4 in Central. The railway was the boundary line up until 2010 when the boundaries were realigned to run through the middle of North End; as Broad Green took in part of the town centre. The only time that is really has been a Croydon Central seat was from 1974-83 when Broad Green was in the constituency.. It really should have been renamed Croydon East in 1997 when the currently constituted seat was created as the 1974-97 version had very different boundaries and took in the southern part of the abolished Croydon North East.

[greenhert]

Despite being a classic Conservative-Labour marginal (although it is becoming safer for Labour as time goes by), its political history is very interesting. One of its notable Conservative MPs includes Thatcherite Cabinet minister John Moore (later Baron Moore of Lower Marsh), who retired surprisingly early aged 54 in 1992. When this took in part of the abolished Croydon North East constituency in 1992, David Congdon won the selection for the redrawn Croydon Central but in fact he got the worse part of the deal because he was defeated whilst (Sir) Paul Beresford is still an MP, having represented Mole Valley for 23 years at this time of writing. Geraint Davies then surprisingly lost the seat in 2005 by just 75 votes to Andrew Pelling, who subsequently left the party following allegations of assault. (Mr Davies had another close contest on his hands when he held Swansea West by just 504 votes in 2010, amusingly enough!) Mr Pelling surprisingly polled 3,239 votes as an Independent, and Greater London is not known for sympathy towards Independent candidates. It was one of the most disappointing results for Labour in 2015 when they missed it by just 165 votes, although Sarah Jones captured it next time round. Local issues in Croydon Central as highlighted in Private Eye resulted in a rare 0.6% swing to Labour in 2019.

[heslingtonian]

Apr 25, 2020 17:45:29 GMT @barnabymarder said:

a ) I remember Moore's retirement. It wasn't that much of a surprise. He had been one of Margaret Thatcher's great hopes as someone who had good presentational skills, but he didn't quite rise as far as some thought he might, and once she left office he had no real prospects. b ) nor was Geraint Davies's defeat in 2005 that much of a surprise. Of course Pelling subsequently joined the Labour Party, and I'm pretty sure he remains a member.

He’s still a Labour councillor on Croydon Council.

[johnloony]

Apr 25, 2020 11:14:51 GMT greenhert said:

Despite being a classic Conservative-Labour marginal (although it is becoming safer for Labour as time goes by), its political history is very interesting. One of its notable Conservative MPs includes Thatcherite Cabinet minister John Moore (later Baron Moore of Lower Marsh), who retired surprisingly early aged 54 in 1992. When this took in part of the abolished Croydon North East constituency in 1992, David Congdon won the selection for the redrawn Croydon Central but in fact he got the worse part of the deal because he was defeated whilst (Sir) Paul Beresford is still an MP, having represented Mole Valley for 23 years at this time of writing. Geraint Davies then surprisingly lost the seat in 2005 by just 75 votes to Andrew Pelling, who subsequently left the party following allegations of assault. (Mr Davies had another close contest on his hands when he held Swansea West by just 504 votes in 2010, amusingly enough!) Mr Pelling surprisingly polled 3,239 votes as an Independent, and Greater London is not known for sympathy towards Independent candidates. It was one of the most disappointing results for Labour in 2015 when they missed it by just 165 votes, although Sarah Jones captured it next time round. Local issues in Croydon Central as highlighted in Private Eye resulted in a rare 0.6% swing to Labour in 2019.

It should be stated that no charges were brought; he denied the accusations; and that his departure from the Conservative Party (and subsequent defection to Labour) was because of a sequence of political and personal reasons, involving falling out with other people.

[greenhert]

Apr 27, 2020 16:13:54 GMT johnloony said:

Apr 25, 2020 11:14:51 GMT greenhert said:

Despite being a classic Conservative-Labour marginal (although it is becoming safer for Labour as time goes by), its political history is very interesting. One of its notable Conservative MPs includes Thatcherite Cabinet minister John Moore (later Baron Moore of Lower Marsh), who retired surprisingly early aged 54 in 1992. When this took in part of the abolished Croydon North East constituency in 1992, David Congdon won the selection for the redrawn Croydon Central but in fact he got the worse part of the deal because he was defeated whilst (Sir) Paul Beresford is still an MP, having represented Mole Valley for 23 years at this time of writing. Geraint Davies then surprisingly lost the seat in 2005 by just 75 votes to Andrew Pelling, who subsequently left the party following allegations of assault. (Mr Davies had another close contest on his hands when he held Swansea West by just 504 votes in 2010, amusingly enough!) Mr Pelling surprisingly polled 3,239 votes as an Independent, and Greater London is not known for sympathy towards Independent candidates. It was one of the most disappointing results for Labour in 2015 when they missed it by just 165 votes, although Sarah Jones captured it next time round. Local issues in Croydon Central as highlighted in Private Eye resulted in a rare 0.6% swing to Labour in 2019.

It should be stated that no charges were brought; he denied the accusations; and that his departure from the Conservative Party (and subsequent defection to Labour) was because of a sequence of political and personal reasons, involving falling out with other people.

That is why I said allegations not charges. The Conservative whip was withdrawn from him temporarily even though he was never charged.

[batman]

Croydon Central was formed in 1974, as a linear successor to what was then the Tory marginal of Croydon South. The parliamentary boundaries, and the terms of reference by which the Boundary Commission worked, were very late in catching up with the formation of the modern London boroughs in the mid-1960s, and when they finally did in 1974 the southernmost seat named after the London Borough of Croydon included a great deal of territory previously in the East Surrey constituency, which was thus greatly abbreviated - this territory was dominated by Purley and Coulsdon. Therefore the name change was necessary. In fact, however, while this seat was essentially when it was formed a rebadged version of the pre-1974 Croydon South, in many ways it resembles even more closely the short-lived Croydon East seat (1950-1955). Initially marginal - a later Thatcher favourite, John Moore, who had succeeded Richard Thompson in February of that year, beat off a renewed challenge by former local Labour MP David Winnick by only 164 votes in October 1974 - it became something close to a Conservative stronghold after the big swing to the Tories in 1979 for several elections, before being swept away in the gigantic Labour landslide of 1997. Since then it has been mostly marginal, returning to the Conservatives in 2005 (although the successful candidate, Andrew Pelling, left the party soon afterwards when allegations were made against him, and nowadays he is a local Labour councillor), but returning to Labour on a large swing in 2017. In the last general election, many were surprised that, far from the Tories at least eating into the 2017 majority of Labour's Sarah Jones, there was actually a small positive swing to Labour - something of a rarity in that election. Only time will tell whether a period of Labour dominance has begun or whether the Conservatives will eventually fight back to retake this socially mixed seat.

The seat can reasonably be regarded as a bit of a misnomer, since areas very close to (arguably in some cases actually in) central Croydon are not included in this seat, but some areas miles away are. Furthest away of all is the area which used to provide the biggest contribution to Labour's vote, New Addington. This is a fairly large area, large enough to have two council wards, however named. It is a mostly council-estate-dominated area some of which still feels semi-rural, and even in 1982, when Labour were wiped out in the whole of the rest of the borough of Croydon, its then two wards, New Addington and Fieldway, were fairly clearly held by Labour. In better years Labour racked up very large leads in these outer working-class council estates. Labour's grip greatly weakened once Tony Blair's initial popularity waned, however, and the Tories were competitive with Labour in the 2006 council elections. Since then, a mixture of the swing of the London-wide pendulum, and perhaps a degree of demographic change, has put Labour broadly in charge again in the area. The council estates of outer London have for many years had a more white working-class demography than those closer to the centre of the metropolis - and New Addington is just about as outer London as it is possible to get - and these voters were increasingly successfully wooed by the Conservatives after the decline in the popularity of New Labour. In more recent years, there have been signs that New Addington, like many other outer London council estates, has become more ethnically mixed, and that may well have helped Labour. The greater ethnic diversity, however, has also been a feature in much of the rest of the constituency, not just here.

Closer in towards central Croydon - which with its towering office buildings looks more like the centre of a fairly major city than that of an outer suburb - are the 2 Addiscombe wards, and Woodside ward. Woodside ward is nowadays Labour's strongest area of all, ahead of New Addington, at least in most council elections. It has acquired an increasingly large Black British population which has become an important feature in the demography of the neighbouring Croydon North seat, once a seat with marginal characteristics like this one, but nowadays it seems an unshakeable Labour stronghold. And yet it was not always like that. In 1982, when Labour was easily enough holding the New Addington wards, for example, the Tories won even more easily here, by nearly two to one. Since the Labour gain in 1986, in common with quite a lot of territory now in Croydon North, the party has not really looked back. Addiscombe is also an area where the Conservatives won regularly for a number of years, with the Ashburton ward as it was until 2018 being particularly Conservative-inclined; it is a good residential area and Ashburton ward still looked fairly safe for the Conservatives until the axe suddenly fell in the 2014 elections. Ashburton's nearest successor ward, Addiscombe East, saw a photo-finish in the last council elections, with the Tories managing to win one of its seats (but not the other) by just 8 votes; but the new Addiscombe West ward, mostly a rather less high-class residential area, is safe Labour. Closer in still is the Fairfield ward, which takes in much of Croydon's town centre (where few people live) and is named after a well-known concert hall (unless perhaps the concert hall is named after the area?). This was a safe Conservative ward for many years, with some very good-quality owner-occupied and sometimes privately rented homes; its proximity to East Croydon station, with its frequent fast trains to central London, made it attractive for many professional & managerial workers. The Conservatives have clearly suffered some losses amongst these voters in the Brexit era of recent years, particularly the younger ones amongst them, and Labour, almost certainly also assisted by ward boundary changes, won the ward remarkably easily in 2018. Probably no part of the constituency has swung so much from the Conservatives to Labour in recent years, and the Conservatives have felt the loss of their superiority there keenly.

The remaining part of the constituency, in the north-east, is the Shirley area. This is the most visibly middle-class area in the constituency with its mostly interwar owner-occupied housing, much of it distinctly higher-class than anywhere else in the constituency. Nowadays the two wards are called Shirley North and Shirley South; previously there were wards called Heathfield, and Shirley. There were rumours that even here demographic change was eating somewhat into the Conservative position, although it was acknowledged that this remained a Conservative area, and in common with many suburban wards further south there has been a noticeable increase in the number of Black electors. This change took quite a long time, however, to be reflected at the ballot box; but in 2018, while the Conservatives won both wards comfortably enough, there was a noticeable increase in the Labour vote, and neither looks as safe as it used to be, or rather would have been had the wards existed in those forms. To win the constituency, the Tories have, as an initial step, to win big in the Shirley area, and if they are unable to do that they are unlikely to win Croydon Central.

Whereas in council elections up to and including 2014 the Tories were at worst competitive in this constituency, they have now retreated to their Shirley wards and only in one other ward, Addiscombe East which is immediately to the west of that area, are they normally still competitive with Labour. Labour in contrast now seems quite handily ahead in Fairfield, the two New Addington wards and Addiscombe West, which is already a larger area than Shirley when put together; and on top of that they are way ahead in Woodside ward these days, it being the only ward in the constituency which has what might be called Croydon-North-style voting patterns. At the moment this is a somewhat unequal struggle, and the Conservatives will have to reopen the gap in their strongest areas before they can aspire to win the constituency as a whole, as currently drawn.

[finsobruce]

Nov 28, 2021 16:08:22 GMT batman said:

Croydon Central was formed in 1974, as a linear successor to what was then the Tory marginal of Croydon South. The parliamentary boundaries, and the terms of reference by which the Boundary Commission worked, were very late in catching up with the formation of the modern London boroughs in the mid-1960s, and when they finally did in 1974 the southernmost seat named after the London Borough of Croydon included a great deal of territory previously in the East Surrey constituency, which was thus greatly abbreviated - this territory was dominated by Purley and Coulsdon. Therefore the name change was necessary. In fact, however, while this seat was essentially when it was formed a rebadged version of the pre-1974 Croydon South, in many ways it resembles even more closely the short-lived Croydon East seat (1950-1955). Initially marginal - a later Thatcher favourite, John Moore, who had succeeded Richard Thompson in February of that year, beat off a renewed challenge by former local Labour MP David Winnick by only 164 votes in October 1974 - it became something close to a Conservative stronghold after the big swing to the Tories in 1979 for several elections, before being swept away in the gigantic Labour landslide of 1997. Since then it has been mostly marginal, returning to the Conservatives in 2005 (although the successful candidate, Andrew Pelling, left the party soon afterwards when allegations were made against him, and nowadays he is a local Labour councillor), but returning to Labour on a large swing in 2017. In the last general election, many were surprised that, far from the Tories at least eating into the 2017 majority of Labour's Sarah Jones, there was actually a small positive swing to Labour - something of a rarity in that election. Only time will tell whether a period of Labour dominance has begun or whether the Conservatives will eventually fight back to retake this socially mixed seat.

The seat can reasonably be regarded as a bit of a misnomer, since areas very close to (arguably in some cases actually in) central Croydon are not included in this seat, but some areas miles away are. Furthest away of all is the area which used to provide the biggest contribution to Labour's vote, New Addington. This is a fairly large area, large enough to have two council wards, however named. It is a mostly council-estate-dominated area some of which still feels semi-rural, and even in 1982, when Labour were wiped out in the whole of the rest of the borough of Croydon, its then two wards, New Addington and Fieldway, were fairly clearly held by Labour. In better years Labour racked up very large leads in these outer working-class council estates. Labour's grip greatly weakened once Tony Blair's initial popularity waned, however, and the Tories were competitive with Labour in the 2006 council elections. Since then, a mixture of the swing of the London-wide pendulum, and perhaps a degree of demographic change, has put Labour broadly in charge again in the area. The council estates of outer London have for many years had a more white working-class demography than those closer to the centre of the metropolis - and New Addington is just about as outer London as it is possible to get - and these voters were increasingly successfully wooed by the Conservatives after the decline in the popularity of New Labour. In more recent years, there have been signs that New Addington, like many other outer London council estates, has become more ethnically mixed, and that may well have helped Labour. The greater ethnic diversity, however, has also been a feature in much of the rest of the constituency, not just here.

Closer in towards central Croydon - which with its towering office buildings looks more like the centre of a fairly major city than that of an outer suburb - are the 2 Addiscombe wards, and Woodside ward. Woodside ward is nowadays Labour's strongest area of all, ahead of New Addington, at least in most council elections. It has acquired an increasingly large Black British population which has become an important feature in the demography of the neighbouring Croydon North seat, once a seat with marginal characteristics like this one, but nowadays it seems an unshakeable Labour stronghold. And yet it was not always like that. In 1982, when Labour was easily holding the New Addington wards, for example, the Tories won easily here, by nearly two to one. Since the Labour gain in 1986, in common with quite a lot of territory now in Croydon North, the party has not really looked back. Addiscombe is also an area where the Conservatives won regularly for a number of years, with the Ashburton ward as it was until 2018 being particularly Conservative-inclined; it is a good residential area and Ashburton ward still looked fairly safe for the Conservatives until the axe suddenly fell in the 2014 elections. Ashburton's nearest successor ward, Addiscombe East, saw a photo-finish in the last council elections, with the Tories managing to win one of its seats (but not the other) by just 8 votes; but the new Addiscombe West ward, mostly a rather less high-class residential area, is safe Labour. Closer in still is the Fairfield ward, which takes in much of Croydon's town centre (where few people live) and is named after a well-known concert hall (unless perhaps the concert hall is named after the area?). This was a safe Conservative ward for many years, with some very good-quality owner-occupied and sometimes privately rented homes; its proximity to East Croydon station, with its frequent fast trains to central London, made it attractive for many professional & managerial workers. The Conservatives have clearly suffered some losses amongst these voters in the Brexit era of recent years, particularly the younger ones amongst them, and Labour, almost certainly also assisted by ward boundary changes, won the ward remarkably easily in 2018. Probably no part of the constituency has swung so much from the Conservatives to Labour in recent years, and the Conservatives have felt the loss of their superiority there keenly.

The remaining part of the constituency, in the north-east, is the Shirley area. This is the most visibly middle-class area in the constituency with its mostly interwar owner-occupied housing, much of it distinctly higher-class than anywhere else in the constituency. Nowadays the two wards are called Shirley North and Shirley South; previously there were wards called Heathfield, and Shirley. There were rumours that even here demographic change was eating somewhat into the Conservative position, although it was acknowledged that this remained a Conservative area, and in common with many suburban wards further south there has been a noticeable increase in the number of Black electors. This change took quite a long time, however, to be reflected at the ballot box; but in 2018, while the Conservatives won both wards comfortably enough, there was a noticeable increase in the Labour vote, and neither looks as safe as it used to be, or rather would have been had the wards existed in those forms. To win the constituency, the Tories have, as an initial step, to win big in the Shirley area, and if they are unable to do that they are unlikely to win Croydon Central.

Whereas in council elections up to and including 2014 the Tories were at worst competitive in this constituency, they have now retreated to their Shirley wards and only in one other ward, Addiscombe East which is immediately to the west of that area, are they normally still competitive with Labour. Labour in contrast now seems quite handily ahead in Fairfield, the two New Addington wards and Addiscombe West, which is already a larger area than Shirley when put together; and on top of that they are way ahead in Woodside ward these days, it being the only ward in the constituency which has what might be called Croydon-North-style voting patterns. At the moment this is a somewhat unequal struggle, and the Conservatives will have to reopen the gap in their strongest areas before they can aspire to win the constituency as a whole, as currently drawn.

The Labour candidate for the historic Croydon South in 1918, 1922, 1923 and 1924 was Malcom Muggeridge's father Henry, later MP for Romford 1929-31.

Younger members will have to ask their parents about Malcolm!

[Robert Waller]

2011 Census

Age 65+ 12.1% 567/650
Owner-occupied 55.3% 537/650
Private rented 20.2% 121/650
Social rented 22.3% 161/650
White 61.4% 600/650
Black 17.9% 21 /650
Asian 12.5% 93/650
Managerial & professional 32.8%
Routine & Semi-routine 20.5 %
Degree level 29.6% 199/650
No qualifications 19.8% 462/650
Students 9.0% 177/650

2021 Census

Owner occupied 51.3% 489/573
Private rented 27.5% 83/573
Social rented 21.2% 124/573
White 51.9%
Black 22.6%
Asian 14.1%
Managerial & professional 35.5% 210/573
Routine & Semi-routine 19.6% 433/573
Degree level 39.9% 106/573
No qualifications 16.8% 342/573





General Election 2019: Croydon Central

Party Candidate Votes % ±%

Labour Sarah Jones 27,124 50.2 -2.1
Conservative Mario Creatura 21,175 39.2 -3.2
Liberal Democrats Simon Sprague 3,532 6.5 +4.6
Green Esther Sutton 1,215 2.2 +1.1
Brexit Party Peter Sonnex 999 1.8 New

Lab Majority 5,949 11.0 +1.1

Turnout 54,045 66.4 -4.9

Registered electors 81,410

Labour hold

Swing 0.6 C to Lab

[Pete Whitehead]

Croydon has an entitlement to 3.5 seats and consequently all three of the existing seats are over quota - all with an electorate over 80,000 (almost 90,000 in the case of Croydon North). This has necessitated the creation of a new cross borough seat combining wards from the North of Croydon with the Streatham area from Lambeth (the iniitial proposals were messy and involved crossing the boundary with both Lambeth and Merton).

Additionally there are complications created by ward boundary changes. These have forced the addition of most of the former Selsdon ward to this constituency that put it even further over quota.
The additional proposals here all benefited the Conservatives. Woodside ward which is Labour's safest ward within this seat now would have been removed along with Fairfield covering the town centre (also a safe Labour ward now). With the addition of the voters in Selsdon this would have substantially shifted the seat in the Conservatives' favour - possibly rendering it a notional Conservative seat.
The revised proposals are less drastic. Most of Woodside remains (with a small area split off) and instead the strong Conservative Park Hill & Whitgift ward is removed to Croydon South. These changes still benefit the Conservatives on balance but nothing like as much and Labour would still have been clearly ahead here in 2019.
Of course the removal of the town centre necessitates a change of name here and this seat will now be 'Croydon East' - a name that was felt by many to have been more appropriate for the existing seat, even when it did include the town centre.

2019 Notional result - Croydon East

Lab	24667	48.1%
Con	21233	41.4%
LD	3354	6.5%
Grn	1117	2.2%
BxP	955	1.9%
Majority	3434	6.7%