The town centre’s latest high-rise development has started marketing its properties, with micro-flats near East Croydon Station that will cost prospective tenants as much as £26,000 in annual rent.
BARRATT HOLMES, housing correspondent, reports

Black and white: Enclave, left, and Ten Degrees, right, are the massive developments at East Croydon built for the US property firm Greystar

That there is a housing crisis is beyond dispute.

And the shimmering towers of “Enclave”, with nearly 1,000 new homes, are a symbol of that housing crisis.

Just read the carefully assembled marketing package for the latest massive development at East Croydon that has just been released.

First, there was Ten Degrees, the two massive black towers, built using pre-constructed modules at 101 George Street for Greystar, the American-owned property company. At 44 storeys and 444 feet tall, the taller of the two blocks was, for a brief time after it was completed three years ago, the tallest building in Croydon.

But now Greystar have gone taller still, on a neighbouring site which was initially named College Road Tower, where using the same architects, HTA Design, and similar modular methods, they have gone to 50 storeys and 492 feet high. If you thought the wind tunnel effect down George Street was bad enough before…

Ten Degrees was quickly dubbed “the world’s tallest prefab” when it was completed in 2020, at a cost reckoned to be around £180million. It contains 546 sky-high apartments, though while it took just 35 weeks to build, it took the same period of time again for the build to receive all the necessary safety sign offs before its tenants started to move in in 2021, some of them paying almost £36,000 a year for three-bedroom apartments.

All mod cons: how the amenities stack up in Enclave

Building progress on the College Road site was, therefore, not quite so rapid, perhaps more measured, and the sign-offs coming somewhat more speedily. The return on investment will be rolling in soon enough.

For this site has 120 “affordable” homes in the 35-storey block, which is connected to its big brother where there are 817 “co-living” apartments, micro-flats, interspersed with seven floors of “amenity” spaces, including a laundrette, communal cooking areas and a games space.

A “cosy studio” in Enclave is very cosy indeed, at barely 210 sq ft floor space.

The micro-flats are so small, there’s no room for a bath – just a shower room. Although there is a heated towel rail…

Even the cheapest of these units will cost someone at least £1,525 per month in rent for a minimum 12-month tenancy.

But Enclave’s marketing blurb doesn’t mention “tenants”. The people living in Enclave will be “members”. The rent, which can be as much as £2,205 per month for one of their one-bed flats, covers a whole range of services – some of which you may never want or need – including Council Tax, WiFi connection and utilities, gym membership, yoga and co-working space.

“A membership at Enclave: Croydon provides an all-inclusive home and lifestyle,” says the blurb.

“Choose from a range of three different sized studios, some of which are adaptable, and one-bedroom apartments. There are colour palette options to choose from too, as well as views as you travel up the building.” Views from a very tall building… what a bonus!

“At Enclave, we provide high-quality apartments for rent in well connected locations. Each building has a friendly residence team available to help during the day and a night concierge overnight to ensure your safety at all times.” So its posh-end serviced apartments, then…

Pricy: the marketing blurb for Enclave reckons their micro-flats are less expensive than conventional homes, because they provide a host of services many people don’t actually need

“Our apartments have an abundance of amenities designed to suit your needs so that you can live, work, relax and socialise as you like, in the safety of your home.”

You never have to leave the confines of the Enclave tower in this somewhat Brave New World-esque Dystopian vision of future living. Sure, London Bridge or Victoria are less than 20minutes away by train from East Croydon Station for those who don’t work from home, but there’s a “bar lounge” on the 48th floor, which they say saves on the cost of an Uber, and where you can buy a drink “from the wine dispenser”. Mmmm. Lovely.

“Enclave: Croydon is fifty stories…”, says the website, meaning storeys, “with seven floors of private curated amenities. Enjoy the privacy of your own home, plus fitness, wellness, work and socialising as an extension of your studio – all under one roof with unrivalled service.

“We want to make your life easier, that’s why we’re removing the stress of utility bills and providing all-inclusive rents with 30 amenities for you to enjoy, all-in.

“…On top of all of that, included in your rent, we’ll also have 1GB WiFi throughout, a 24-hour on-site team, bicycle storage and you can enjoy a hotel-style lobby lounge that leads to your smart-home enabled studio apartment.”

Staying in: it is almost as if the owners of Enclave never want their tenants to leave its environs

With the price of an average-sized flat in Croydon now somewhere close to £300,000 (if you’re lucky), any couple seeking to buy their first home might be expected to need a deposit of £30,000 for starters. But any couple living in Enclave, even in one of their smallest of micro-flats, are going to be spending £18,300 a year in rent. Sorry, “membership fees”.

But hey, they’ll be able to use the peloton suite, wellbeing garden and the “switch-off studio”.

If only someone could come up with a system where local authorities, such as councils, could build decent-sized homes for singletons, couples or families with children, which remained public property in perpetuity, where the rents charged were affordable even for the hard-working and low-paid, for nurses and postal workers, for labourers and teachers.

If that ever happened, there would probably be little or no profit in speculative “co-living” schemes, with tiny micro-flats and sky-high rents.

Read more: Designs to replace ‘The Croydon Dildo’ set to be unveiled
Read more: Planning Inspector gives green light to another 28-storey tower

• Inside Croydon – as seen on TV! – has been delivering local community news since 2010. 3million page views per year in 2020, 2021 and 2022.
• If you want real journalism, actually based in the borough, you should consider paying for it. Please sign up today. Click here for more details

• If you have a news story about life in or around Croydon, or want to publicise your residents’ association or business, or if you have a local event to promote, please email us with full details at inside.croydon@btinternet.com

• As featured on Google News Showcase

• We offer FREE ads to community groups when they have members who are paid subscribers to Inside Croydon

• Our comments section on every report provides all readers with an immediate “right of reply” on all our content

• Our comments policy can be read by clicking here

• Inside Croydon is a member of the Independent Community News Network

• Inside Croydon works together with the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, as well as BBC London News and ITV London

• ROTTEN BOROUGH AWARDS: Croydon was named among the country’s rottenest boroughs for a SIXTH successive year in 2022 in the annual round-up of civic cock-ups in Private Eye magazine