Croydon’s two Conservative MPs have launched a campaign calling for the borough to be run by a directly elected mayor.

Gavin Barwell, MP for Croydon Central and Chris Philp, MP for Croydon South, launched a petition alongside 10 residents associations at the town hall this evening.

Mr Barwell claimed changing Croydon Council's leadership model could bridge the “stark political divide” between the north and south of the borough.

He said: “This is something I have been thinking about for a long time, I have been involved in Croydon politics for about 20 years and during all of that time, I would say, it has had a pretty unhealthy culture.

“The problem we have got is it is a very tightly contested borough politically, but there is also a very stark geographic divide with the north of the borough being solidly Labour and the south of the borough being solidly Conservative.

“The result is when the Conservatives were running the council people in the north of the borough felt that they didn’t get a fair look in a vice versa when the boot was on the other foot.”

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The MP, a former Conservative councillor for Coulsdon West, held talks with council chief executive Nathan Elvery about moving to a directly elected mayor system in February.

At the time he told the Croydon Guardian the conversation was a “fact-finding mission”.

He added: “At the moment to be the leader of the council you get chosen by a handful of your fellow councillors once your party has won a local election.

“All that person would have to do, say for example Tony Newman, to get re-elected is keep happy the bits of the borough currently have Labour councillors.

“But if we moved to a directly elected mayor system the candidates themselves would have to appeal to across the whole borough.

“I would argue that is going to create a much healthier political culture where you don’t have the north south divide.”

Croydon Conservatives frequently accuse the current administration of favouring Labour strongholds in the north of the borough.

Mr Philp, who is in his first term after being elected in May last year, said: “It is a cross-party campaign, so it is not just Conservative, and it is also a community campaign.

“For a position as important as the women in Croydon the public should be able to choose that person directly, rather than them being chosen behind closed doors by a handful of councillors.

“Because Croydon is so politically polarised we need to find a way of making sure whoever runs Croydon looks after the interests of the entire borough, not just the political interests of their own backyard.

“By having a directly elected mayor every single vote in every single part of the borough will count and that will prevent the situation where, for example, the current administration has on occasion ignored Conservative parts of the borough and of course that could happen the other way around.”

As well as the Greater London Authority, four boroughs in the capital currently have directly elected leaders - Hackney, Lewisham, Newham, and Tower Hamlets.

Croydon is currently run on a "cabinet and leader" system similar to central government.