As one of the 12 key battleground constituencies, all eyes were on Croydon Central on election night. The Conservative win in this marginal seat spoke to the larger national result, while North and South Croydon saw no particular political shakeup. Increased support for UKIP, however, was notable.

Croydon Central saw a close race, with Conservative MP Gavin Barwell narrowly defeating Labour’s Sarah Jones by just 165 votes. Support for UKIP was almost five times what it had been in the 2010 election, and Labour and the Green party made small but significant gains.

Labour’s Steve Reed held Croydon North with a 63 per cent share of the vote. UKIP’s Winston McKenzie and the Green Party’s Shasha Khan were practically tied with approximately 5 per cent of the vote apiece. The level of support for the Conservatives barely flickered since the last election.

In Croydon South the Tories held the seat after winning there in the last five general elections. Conservative MP Chris Philp replaced Sir Richard Ottaway, who retired this year. The Lib Dems suffered significant losses of more than 9000 votes in comparison with the 2010 election. UKIP and the Greens again more than doubled their base of support, while Labour saw a respectable – if hopeless – gain of just over 3000 votes.

By David Blood, Kara Fox and Dawn Tan