Our housing correspondent, BARRATT HOLMES, surveys some of the slow-motion developments that have been troubling residents in the south of the borough
Down tools: cranes have dominated the Purley sky line for years. Though now, they are rarely seem to be working
The developers of one of the most controversial developments in Croydon of the past decade say that, four years after they won a planning battle to build the 17-storey “Purley Skyscraper” for the local baptist church, that “adjustments are required”.
Plans for the large-scale residential development with a church and community hall at Purley Cross were first submitted in 2016.
Thanks to a Nimby-esque intervention led by local MP Chris Philp, it took a High Court case and a direction from the then Secretary of State for the proposals for 220 new homes on sites straddling a busy road to be given the green light in 2020.
Work on the tower block was supposed to start in 2022. But now, developers Thornsett are promising nothing more than an “update” in 2025.
Croydon is plagued by stalled, half-finished and failed developments across the borough, in projects which when they were on the drawing boards of various prestige firms of architects were said to be worth billions of pounds – including many millions of public money, in the form of grants from the Mayor of London.
Nearly done: developers Thornsett say that they will hand over the completed South Site to Southern Housing in the New Year
It is not just Westfield, but also the Nestlé Tower and adjoining properties which stand part-done, if ever started. There’s also what was called Beamhouse Yard, on Surrey Street, where the contractors went into receivership. Only now, with the site under new ownership, is work starting up again.
Purley was a favoured spot for developers, but most of the tall construction cranes that dot the skyline there have recently been at a standstill, some for weeks on end.
As one loyal reader put it this week, “I am concerned that three major developments in central Purley have all stalled and local councillors cannot find out the reasons why.”
One site is on Banstead Road South – not far from the Purley Baptist Church’s site – and is as yet only part-built. “The site has been locked up for several weeks,” our concerned resident says.
Public grants: some of the builds, such as this one on Banstead Road South, have received significant funding from the Mayor of London
The £24million scheme is supposed to provide 67 homes for the Optivo housing association.
According to builders Selsdon Building Contractors, it is due for completion in June 2026. “It is an on-going project,” someone at Selsdon Building Contractors said today, refusing to comment further.
Another site, at 922-930 Purley Way, where three large blocks of flats are supposed to be being built, is also locked up.
Building costs have soared in the four years since lockdown, causing developers and contractors significant issues. There is a growing view among developers in the borough that the high costs of building tall residential towers outside Croydon town centre now makes any such schemes unviable.
Earlier this week, a quick view of three Purley building sites found them all closed, no crane activity and no obvious signs of anyone working on any site at all.
Will it ever be built?: a CGI of the 17-storey Purley Skyscraper is all we have got, after nearly nine years
Said our loyal reader, “Residents like me have to put up with the disruption during these projects, many of which were granted planning permission against our wishes. Now we have the eyesore of static cranes and boarded-up building sites.
“Purley Baptist Church must be despairing that they may not get their new church and be left with an empty plot of land where there were once local businesses which had to close and buildings were demolished.”
Proposed by a shadowy firm of developers who are ultimately based in an off-shore tax haven, MP Philp has raised no objections this time round. Indeed, together with his Tory mate Mayor Jason Perry, he is unusually enthusiastic about a scheme that offers no affordable homes whatsoever.
Quite the contrast to the campaign of objections Philp raised to the Purley Baptist Church scheme with its “skyscraper”, which is now called Mosaic Place.
When Tory minister Robert Jenrick gave the go-ahead for the project four years ago, he wrote that the tower “would change the character of the town [but] it would not unacceptably dominate it or the surrounding residential area to the extent that any material harm is caused”.
Stalled: work on three residential blocks on Purley Way also seems to have ground to a halt
Jenrick’s decision letter also praised the architectural quality of the scheme, saying it “would be beneficial in terms of character and appearance and would greatly enhance the public realm in Purley district centre, as well as regenerating a long-term disused site”.
The plan Jenrick and the planning inspector considered was for two sites. On the “Island Site” there are supposed to be the “skyscraper” and other buildings providing 114 homes, shops, a new church and community hall. On the other site, termed the “South Site”, there are 106 homes in buildings between three and eight storeys.
Work began on the South Site in February 2021 and was supposed to be completed two years ago.
Only now is it inching closer to completion.
“Thornsett is proud to be partnering with [Purley Baptist Church] to deliver this project,” a spokesperson for the developers told Inside Croydon this week.
“Phase One of the development…”, meaning the South Site, “…has been completed and is scheduled to be handed over to Southern Housing early in the New Year.”
That’s the good news.
Now for the bad news.
“For Phase Two, adjustments are required to meet new legislative requirements, including the Building Safety Act, as well as to address the broader challenges the development industry has faced in recent years.” That sounds like a reference to rising costs and diminishing viability of schemes, especial taller towers.
“We are currently in discussions with Croydon Council about these alterations and aim to provide a further update in early 2025.”
And that would take us to nine years since planning permission was originally granted.
Read more: Residents’ groups reject Purley ‘pool’ plan backed by Perry
Read more: Brokenshire blocks planning permission for Purley ‘skyscraper’
Read more: Council backs Purley Pool tax dodge by off-shore company
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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
They’ll still be talking about this and the Purley Pool monstrosity in ten years and neither will be built. I hope the developers will take some responsibility and not just leave us with half built skyscrapers and derelict land on the Purley triangle – but I bet they won’t.
Planning has been a disaster ever since Negrini-appointed Heather Cheesbrough took charge. Croydon is littered with half-empty or half-finished developments and out-of-place blocks plonked everywhere. Croydon had so much potential and it’s sad to see what it’s become because of poor planning. Even the once lovely Queen’s Garden’s looks like wasteland. It takes an astonishing level of incompetence to ruin the gardens used, by and large, by Council staff during their lunch breaks. That’s what happens when planning is led by developers and not by competent planners.
It’s hardly the council’s fault if developers can’t sell.
It is if the Council is approving unsellable, over-priced flats and not, for example, affordable housing or family homes which are in short supply. The part of the purpose of planning is to ensure that what is built meets housing needs and what the market can pay without causing damage. If developers can’t sell when there is a housing shortage, then planning has failed.
Planners are not allowed to refuse applications because someone thinks the development will be unsellable.
But developers are able to shrug off their planning obligations if they can make a case that a scheme would be “unviable”.
And they reckon the planning system is unhelpful to developers…
It’s not ‘unsellable’; it may be that the price the developer thinks he needs to secure his normal return is not achievable, but it doesn’t mean that the properties cannot be sold at a price that punters are prepared to pay – the ‘sell off’ at below market rates of Brick By Brick part completed developments across Croydon for example.
Chickens coming home to roost! The massive public opposition to the Purley tower was not Nimbyism, but realism. Step by step the character of Purley has been destroyed, just as in Croydon.
Apvicus
Don’t know about ‘Apvicus’ Paul, but as a long-time Purley resident, you’ll know the chickens have definitely come home to roost here – the talkeaways are everywhere.