Polling stations open at 7am on Thursday as voting begins in the Waddon byelection.

After four weeks of canvassing, the eight candidates will have just a few hours left to try and gain those all-important votes that could swing the historically volatile ward.

Waddon is the most marginal ward of Croydon Council and has seen its representation swap between the Labour and Conservative parties for many years.

In 1994, Labour won all three seats. Then, in 1998, the ward returned one Labour and two Conservative councillors, one of whom defected to the Liberal Democrats.

In 2002, Labour won all three seats, albeit with one of them scraping home with a majority of eight votes.

In the 2006 elections, Waddon returned three Conservative councillors.

There are six polling stations where voters can decide who will succeed Jonathan Driver, after the former mayor sadly died on New Year’s Eve following a bout of flu.

The polling stations are in Waddon Court Road, Near Prescott House; Old Town Youth Club, Duppas Hill Terrace; Waddon Infants School, Purley Way; Duppas Junior School, Goodwin Road; Howard Primary School, Dering Place; and Regina Coeli RC Primary School, Pampisford Road.

The polling stations shut at 10 pm.

The result of the election is likely to give a good indication of the borough’s inclinations for the local government elections in 2010 and the hotly contested seat of Croydon Central, currently held by independent MP Andrew Pelling.

The candidates are John Cartwright from the Official Monster Raving Loony Party, Mary Davey from the Green Party, Kathleen Garner from the UK Independence Party, Patricia Gauge from the Liberal Democrats, Clare Hilley from the Conservative Party, Charlotte Lewis from the British National Party, Ian Payne from the Labour Party, and Mark Samuel from the Peoples’ Choice party.