CROYDON IN CRISIS: Long-term lack of maintenance and closures of part of the shopping mall are seeing fewer customers visiting the town centre, leaving some business owners in tears.
EXCLUSIVE by STEVEN DOWNES
Short notice: traders say they were not told of the closure of the Allders car park
Owners and managers of the few remaining businesses clinging on in the Whitgift Centre fear that the closure of one of the long-neglected shopping centre’s car parks at the end of this week could force them to close up for good.
Notices went up in what is still known as the Allders car park (the Allders store closed in 2013) to warn of the closure, which some of the few traders still operating in the centre fear will cut off all customers from their business, while also making access and egress from the centre unsafe for staff and customers.
The centre’s management intends to block off the car park both on Dingwall Avenue and at the Whitgift Centre entrance.
“I am actually in tears,” one business owner told Inside Croydon.
Angela Ferrara, who has run Bishop’s Wine Bar for 13 years, says that they were given no notification of the closure of the adjoining car park, and only found out when the bar’s window cleaner pointed out the signs.
“This bar has been here since 1982, it looks like it won’t be for much longer, as what little footfall we do get will be destroyed,” Ferrara said.
The Whitgift Centre was promised redevelopment by Westfield and the landowners, the Whitgift Foundation, in 2012. The £1.4billion scheme of retail, leisure, offices and residential was all meant to be completed by 2017.
Under pressure: the downturn for high street retailing and covid have been too much for some businesses. The neglect of the Whitgift Centre has made a bad situation worse in the town centre
But despite two schemes being granted planning permission, a public inquiry and a massive Compulsory Purchase of property in the area, Westfield have never started work on the project.
Indeed, as recently as 2023, directors of Unibail Rodamco Westfield, the Paris-based conglomerate, were predicting that it could be 2038 before any Croydon redevelopment work is completed.
Various “meanwhile” uses of the former Allders department store have been raised by interested parties, such as Croydon Mayor Jason Perry, and come to nothing. The last businesses to operate from the Allders site were all evicted from the site by bailiffs operating on behalf of Croydon Council in 2019, apparently at the request of Westfield. Since when, the building’s been pretty much left to rot, with the predictable impact on the shops, bars and restaurants left at the southern end of the shopping mall complex.
No one’s keeping the lights on: the shopping mall management hasn’t bothered to replace blown bulbs
The best that the shopping centre management has managed in the past year has been to commission some colourful art hoardings, to “art wash” the many closed shop fronts along North End.
Owners of businesses in the Whitgift Centre have been told by the shopping centre’s management that the reason for closing the Allders car park – which has remained busy with parked cars most weekdays – is because it “needs some love”, and that they have decided to focus on the shopping centre’s three other car parks.
“This makes no sense to me,” Ferrara said. “Clearly, they’re focusing on the Marks and Spencer end of the centre, and they have no interest in this end at all, be it shoppers or shops.
“I am incredibly worried about this and its effect on my business.”
Sources say that the shopping centre management intends to board up the car park area once closed, but hire expensive, on-site security, including guard dogs, day and night.
Under threat: Bishop’s Wine Bar, one of the few remaining businesses in the centre, may have to consider its future
The public still uses the car park entrance to access from Dingwall Avenue to the shopping centre. “Many people use the car park to walk through to and from the shopping centre as it’s the quickest way round to George Street,” Ferrara said.
“A viable walkway can be maintained, even with the closure of the actual car park. But I expect these to be dismissed out of hand, along with other sensible ideas.
Ferrara was given no notice of the car park closure by the centre’s management, and only found out when her bar’s window cleaner pointed it out. A meeting with the shopping centre’s management last week, after Ferrara had discovered the closure plan, has done nothing to reassure her.
“Deliveries come through there, our punters walk through there, shoppers walk through there,” Ferrara said.
“I raised quite forcefully my concerns about safety and security for my customers and especially for me walking home alone. All this was poo-pooed.
Dead zone: this walkway through the car park to the shopping centre will soon be blocked off
“I asked how they expected to get new units at this end of the centre. They said all leases are short-term as the development is coming next year.
“But I’ve heard this every year since we took over 13 years ago.
“I told them that this decision sounds the death knell for this end of the Whitgift and for us. The only suggestion I got was better lighting in the surface car park which I’m now going to have to walk through. They suggested that when I have to walk home, I should call Whitgift security and tell them I’m leaving, so they can track me on their CCTV.
“Every lowlife in town will soon twig that after 7pm when the Whitgift closes, this will be a dead area. I am absolutely livid and actually quite scared.
“I asked if they were trying to kill the Whitgift. The only reply I got was laughter.”
Read more: Mayor Perry has LOST the plot over latest Allders scheme
Read more: A month after seizing Allders, council moves just six traders
Read more: Negrini refuses questions on latest £1.4bn Westfield delays
Read more: Barwell, Brexit and Croydon’s troubled Westfield dream
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ROTTEN BOROUGH AWARDS: In January 2024, Croydon was named among the country’s rottenest boroughs for a SEVENTH successive year in the annual round-up of civic cock-ups in Private Eye magazine
Have to say, that I generally avoid the Dingwall Avenue entrance to the Whitgift. I really thought the car park was shut anyway. Everything is boarded up (apart from the old Electricity building on the corner) and the area outside the old toilets stinks and is clearly still used as a toilet by some. Plenty of room there to build half a dozen tower blocks because there aren’t enough in Croydon!
Whitgift Foundation has made a lot of mistakes and can no longer afford to run its girls’ school. Neglecting Allders and the car parks while shops closed and customers stayed away, they may now be worried that, lacking any chance of work on the shopping centre over the next few years, one of the boys’ schools could become unaffordable as well. Closing the Allders car park as well as the shop could enable that end of the site to be sold and developed, leaving the shopping centre to be farmed out or sold separately.
There is also the imminent threat posed by a Labour government, and the party has talked about removing the charitable status from private schools. Whitgift may therefore be thinking that the income from selling the Allders end of the site would fund their problems for a few years.
Sad news for the businesses at the Allders end of the Whitgift Centre, and for customers and others who did still use the car park, but as I haven’t shopped in the Centre, indeed in Croydon, for many years, I have no idea what proportion of Croydon’s population will be affected, or even notice.
Since we all shopped there several times a week, the world and its commerce have moved on, and I don’t believe this will be reversed. Groups on Facebook may express grief at how the town has gone downhill, but few who express such nostalgia still work or shop here.
Labour party policy is to introduce the VAT charge on independent school fees but it dropped its ban on charitable status.
For many Croydon parents an extra 20 % on fees will put the cost beyond reach. Croydon has a large independent school sector which will be under stress under Labour’s plan hurting Croydon’s appeal as a place to live and damaging the employment that the schools provide.
Liberal Democrat policy is opposed to the destructive VAT rise and wants to see charitable status independent schools do more to work with other schools in need and to open up facilities for wider community use.
How many people have £24,000 per year per child “within reach”?
What justification is there, has there ever been, for these large education businesses to be treated as charities and exempted from VAT?
The Whitgift Foundation provides 500 bursaries, works to support other schools, provides community access to facilities and runs the almshouses.
GDST also provides bursaries, promotes equalities through promoting girls’ education and works with other schools.
The Whitgift Foundation is a vast property business, but uses the “bursery” schtick as a cover to claim charity status and the massive tax breaks that comes with it.
It operates a “menagery” at one of its schools, where a flock of flamingos was brought in and two staff are employed for its upkeep.
The sports centre at one of its schools was half-funded by the National Lottery, yet still offers only a small amount of public access to its facilities, except for those with wallets big enough to pay the huge membership fees to its private club.
The almshouses are one aspect which does more closely resemble a charity, but they, too, are operated firmly on a business basis.
In short, huge public subsidies are being provided to a very large business, albeit one that has been badly mismanaged in recent times. Why should the tax-payer subsidise wealthy parents who choose to spend £24,000 per year (or more) on their children’s education, when our state schools are crumbling, under-staffed and under-resourced?
Or is such a transfer of public resource into the hands of the private sector official FibDem policy?
Lib Dem policy is to have the independent sector do more charitable activity.
Labour party policy is to crush Croydon parents who are not wealthy with a 20 % hike in fees and to risk more closures of some of our Croydon independent schools.
Putting Croydon first, we should defend Croydon independent schools from what is a vindictive Labour policy.
I would agree that the menagerie gives an impression of extravagance.
Come on Andrew. When charities like Eton go under, and all those poor little rich boys have to slum it with the oiks at Bash Street and Grange Hill, maybe then we’ll know that Labour went too far.
Try explaining why hard-working tax payers should effectively subsidise toffs when some people are relying on food banks and others can’t afford to heat their homes.
Strikes me that Labour are in fact not going far enough. Eton is not a charity in the traditional sense of the word.
It has an annual income of over £100m, a Head on a salary of over £300k and it charges £46k a kid a year. It’s nothing but a tax-dodging elite training camp, churning out snobs like Jacob Rees-Mogg, David Cameron and Boris Johnson, who for 14 years have waged class war on the less privileged of this country, calling it austerity. Not very charitable of them, was it boys and girls.
As for the Whitgift Foundation, it spaffed its money up the wall on dubious property ventures and then closed a girl’s school. Charity or no, you still need to respect the rules of business. Let the weak go to the wall
Yes, Old Etonians have been bad news for our nations’ governance.
Eton has a rather different financial circumstance to our Croydon independent schools.
Isn’t the Labour proposal to stop the tax exemption for the private fee paying schools?
Yet another way to kill the last remaining business, Bishops wine bar is a treasure of Croydon, a place for good company ,never any trouble. The devouted regulars now loses a place to visit a caring safe haven for all ages , The management have made diabolical decisions about Croydon centre and whitgift . This is the last place of any decency to visit. And to not even care for the manager Angie to be able to get home safely via the car park. Where the hell are all the workers going to park now . You really are killing the town centre full now. So sad that people of Croydon mostly visit other shopping centers because Croydon is so awful. Well done management with your pocket filled with your bad decisions of management. While what hope have you left for us with Bishops none and another business soon to be lost
My heart bleeds for Angie Ferrara … she has provided a haven for those who enjoy a small friendly place for a drink or two, and some company, in the middle of Croydon, for many years
… and to give her no notice of the car park closure plans is not very helpful to say the least … that is just indicative of the lack of care seen in so many places …
Is this something for Mayor Jason Perry to help with ?
(Would give him some welcome good PR … )
Not holding my breath though …
The Purley pool development will see a net loss of 374 car parking spaces. The closure of Croydon Central Car Park will put another 583 in the bin.
A good news story, brought about by the council’s successful completion of 24/7 protected cycle lanes between Purley Cross and North End, resulting in achievable modal shift towards active travel coupled with the realisation that 1 car parking space can provide secure parking for 10 bikes?
Chance would be a fine thing.
No, it shows how dire transport planning and infrastructure has become in our part of London.
I may not live in Croydon anymore but I felt that I needed to comment as I have known Angela Ferrara for a long time and want to show my support both of her and Bishops Wine Bar.
Bishops is a Croydon institution and as others have said, it is a welcoming safe haven and a friendly place to visit.
It is disgusting that business owners were not consulted about the plans to close the car park and that Ange had to find out from the window cleaner!
The Whitgift’s management should be ashamed of themselves for not giving a monkeys about the future of Bishops and Ange’s safety. I despair.
Online shopping is ruining shopping centres and of course the economy. Amazon’s app is raking profits for their host country and destroying our economy.
Last June The Grauniad reported that Amazon’s main UK division had paid no corporation tax for second year in a row, and had received tax credit of £7.7m for investment in infrastructure under Rishi Sunak’s super-deduction scheme.
Its pretax profits at the main division rose about 9% to almost £222m in 2022 as sales rose by nearly 8% to £6.56b.
At the time, Paul Monaghan, the chief executive of the Fair Tax Foundation, said “these super-deductions have not only wiped out the corporation charge for the last two years but will likely do so again in 2023 and possibly 2024.”
Amazon is currently working with Google on a project to provide the Israel Defense Forces with cloud computing facilities to help the oppression, elimination and expulsion of Palestinian people.
It’s a company renowned for treating its workers like robots and actively opposing people’s rights to join a trade union.
Amazon founder Jeff Bezos is now easing his guilty conscience by giving away parts of his ill-gotten gains to various causes.
Neoliberalism at its best
Appalling behaviour by the financial power brokers who control Croydon and yet another example of how they hold absolutely no respect or compassion for the small business holder. An institution like Bishops should be encouraged and assisted to prosper as it represents one of the last bastions of truly independent hostelry in an increasingly homogenised and bland town where the very soul of individuality, enterprise and entrepreneurialism is being drained by corporate greed, duplicity and disregard…
This news is appalling. Another hard working Croydon resident and business owner being pushed down. You people should be ashamed of yourselves. Valid concerns surrounding safety and livelihood have been raised and ignored. I’m disgusted at the lack of empathy from those in charge.
I went there a couple of times when I was working in Croydon in the 2000s and was amazed how determined they were to stay stuck in the 1950s. I was in my fifties at the time and far and away the youngest there. Still think the owners have been treated appallingly. I occasionally drop my wife off at the Wellesley Road end and it’s sordid – she feels uneasy there even in the mornings.
This is an appalling decision which will punish surviving businesses and encourage antisocial behaviour by cutting the area off as a public thoroughfare.
The area already regularly blighted by aimless, drug-smoking young vandals, and a decision like this will only aggravate the problem.
Then there’s the effect on the wine bar, which is one of the last landmark bars from the days when Croydon town centre was prosperous and civilised. At the stroke of a pen a valuable social asset could be wiped out.
That would be a tragedy and another example of poor management of civic facilities.
Bishop’s is one of the few remaining places in the town with character. It should be protected, along with the owner and the customers. Angela should have been consulted. It is difficult enough to feel safe in the town centre. Terrible decision!
Would be so nice to read about something being improved for businesses and asking customers and businesses what they would like to see happen and how that should be achieved. That would create a place we want to spend time in and show ‘investment in Croydon’.
Bishops wine bar is extremely special and so are the businesses that end of the Whitgift Centre. Those businesses should be celebrated, supported and enhanced. Would the elected Mayor Jason Perry and the relevant officers commit to meeting with the businesses to up with plan to go forward with?