There were no big surprises around Croydon overnight when the news filtered out that Councillor Andrew Pelling declared that he will be running for election as the executive mayor. Councillor Pelling will be running as an independent candidate.

Councillor Pelling has a long association with Croydon having lived here all his life. He has served as a Conservative councillor, a member of the Greater London Authority Conservative group, a Conservative MP, ran and lost a campaign to retain his seat in the House of Commons as an independent in 2010 after being expelled from the Conservatives in 2007, returned to the Council as a Labour councillor in Waddon and now sits as an independent councillor after being expelled from Labour.

Like his former Conservative colleague Jason Perry who intends running for his council seat as well as executive mayor, Councillor Pelling will also be running for his current ward Waddon as an independent. This would produce cost implications for the ratepayers should either Councillor Pelling or Councillor Perry be elected as both Mayor and a Councillor. This would create an immediate by-election for their council seat as sitting councillors are not able to be executive mayor in the authority they represent.

That being said, Councillor Pelling is familiar with multi-tasking, he juggled being a councillor, an MP and a member of the Greater London Authority at the same time for six years and was in concurrent receipt of salary for each public office.