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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