For a second time in as many months, Jason Perry, Croydon’s Mayor, has dropped his chips with excitement over a scheme for the old Allders building which has left residents underwhelmed and unimpressed.
Shopping centre: after 12 years, Westfield is about to deliver seven kiosks…
Having kept Croydon waiting for 12 years for the promised redevelopment of the town centre shopping malls, Westfield are now pressing ahead with a scheme that involves seven – yes seven – kiosks in the ground floor of the former department store.
“It’s better than nothing, I suppose,” one shopper on North End said today when shown details. “But it’s not much more than nothing, really, is it?”
Planning permission has been granted for the scheme barely six weeks since it was submitted – so unlike with other planning matters, when Westfield whistle, Mayor Perry and his council jump.
An essential missing detail from press releases issued by the council and Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield yesterday was that the Allders building was still in use and busy until 2019, when the council sent in the bailiffs to evict dozens of local traders who were conducting legitimate business in the building. All done, apparently, on the orders of… Westfield.
Five years later, Westfield have come up with their version of a scaled-down Boozepark for the Allders building, and Croydon Council have dutifully granted planning permission.
The seven kiosks (“kiosk” is the word used in the planning application) will, according to the propaganda department in Fisher’s Folly “revitalise the frontage of Croydon’s historic department store”.
URW said: “The North End frontage will be sensitively refurbished with minimal alterations.
“The new units are set to include five shops, ranging from 450 to 1,300sqft each, and two food and drink units at 450sqft each.
“The plans mark the first phase of improvements to rejuvenate the iconic Allders building,” according to the developers.
URW have provided no detail in respect of who they expect to take tenancies of the seven kiosks.
‘First step’: Penny Cameron of URW
A previous attempt to find a “meanwhile use” for Allders was hatched two years ago between Perry and the Paris-based developers. It provided a venue for the millionaire behind Secret Cinema.
The project flopped, with the promoter pulling out without ever getting close to staging a single show.
According to Penny Cameron, URW’s head of development, the latest scheme “is the first step of many in our plan to revive this much-loved Croydon landmark, bringing Allders back into use as a space the community can enjoy, while preserving its heritage”.
The promised attention to heritage detail – the Allders frontage dates from a hundred years ago – may be reassuring.
Croydon’s Tory Mayor, meanwhile, has again been unable to disguise how much in awe he is of big business. Perhaps Part-time Perry is hoping for a big order being placed with his own company for plastic guttering?
According to Perry, “These plans will help to restore a sense of place and pride in our historic town centre.” By seven kiosks? Seriously?
We’ll just have to wait and see… But no one is holding their breath.
Read more: Hammer blow for Whitgift Centre with new delay to masterplan
Read more: Westfield boss says Croydon scheme could take 15 more years
Read more:‘Too little, too late’: Residents underwhelmed by Mayor’s stunt
Read more: How ‘Lost’ soon became an apt metaphor for Perry’s mayoralty
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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
What a shit show. The history of Allders (where I worked in the 90s and my father in the 50s) deserves better than this. This will be interesting. Another legacy of a rotten, dirty, badly run and given up Croydon awaits. 0% of zero is zero – open up the closed shops on a service contract basis. Fed up with seeing plywood windows and piss heads.
So Shouldbeonbail-Rottonco-FredWestfield think a few kiosks will ignite this moribund extinct Retail development. Perhaps it will do as it becomes a Hub for Vape Shops and Vapers from all around the London area.
Less than two years until we can get rid of Piss-Poor Perry as mayor now (Spring 2026)…..but the evil Westfield may prove harder to get rid of ?
Get rid of Perry and get a starmer clone
We’re paying for his hefty part-time salary and a six-figure salary for our Director of Planning and Regeneration, Heather Cheesbrough, and we get 7 kiosks? And 2 for food and drink? Because the food outlets in the town centre are thriving right? You couldn’t make it up.
For any “praise” being given to URW for this, we should all note that this is in fact part of the £4m ILTA remedy for non-development of the site. This is not some grand gesture from them.