UNDER THE FLYOVER: In our latest podcast interview, housing specialist Fiona Fletcher-Smith, now the volunteer chair of the Whitgift Foundation’s governors, discusses the housing crisis, the closure of Old Palace School, what’s happening with the long-promised ‘kiosks’ in the Allders building, and how it will take another bail-out for Croydon before developers URW begin the redevelopment scheme which they first announced in 2012
The recently appointed chair of the Court of Governors at the Whitgift Foundation, the largest landowners in Croydon and the freeholders of the slowly deteriorating shopping mall in the town centre, says it was inevitable that the £1.4billion scheme promised by developers Westfield would need public financing to go ahead.
Fiona Fletcher-Smith is the latest interviewee for our podcast strand, Under The Flyover. As well as volunteering to chair the Court of Governors at the under-fire Whitgift Foundation, which was founded more than 400 years ago but is having to confront 21st Century global financial pressures, the Irishwoman is also the chief executive of L&Q, one of the country’s biggest housing associations.
So she is uniquely well-placed to offer insights into Croydon’s current housing crisis, as well as how what was originally presented as a vast new shopping centre to regenerate Croydon town centre has now shifted into a detail-lite “masterplan” proposing around 3,000 flats around where the Whitgift Centre stands today.
Fletcher-Smith was working at City Hall as an aide to Boris Johnson when he was London Mayor when the Westfield proposals for Croydon town centre were first unveiled in 2012. So she has been able to follow its progress – or lack of it – from the beginning.
In her Under The Flyover interview, Fletcher-Smith was asked how what was originally a billion-pound commercial scheme had somehow transformed into a public-private partnership, and where would the public cash be coming from.
“The first thing I’d say, and I base this on lots of experience around things like the Vauxhall Nine Elms development, Elephant and Castle redevelopment, and a lot of my time at City Hall, every major development is a partnership between the public and the private sector in some way or other. It has to be.
Vacant possession: the Whitgift Centre is mostly empty of shops, and of shoppers
“And I have to say that I’m so impressed with Croydon’s growth strategy. We saw Mayor Perry announce that a couple of weeks ago, and it’s really great stuff.
“He’s personally leading and championing that, which is great to see, because that partnership really matters. And it’s a partnership in terms of the local authorities setting some very clear parameters around planning, but also there are some things within that.
“So, if I’m asking that local authorities consider social and affordable housing as part of their planning policy, that [means] subsidised housing.”
After a career in the public housing sector, now with L&Q, Fletcher-Smith has a close grasp of what it costs to deliver new homes. “So for social rented housing, if we say it costs an average half a million [pounds] to build a social rent home, which is land, construction costs, everything else, the grant you get from the GLA or from Homes England, the government, the Greater London Authority, whoever you get the grant from, it will usually will cover about £100,000 to £150,000-worth of that.
“So there’s always public money going in some way.
“If you look at Vauxhall Nine Elms, the extension to the Northern Line that made the Battersea Power Station redevelopment happen, was really, again, it was a public-private partnership with some of the uplift in taxation being paid locally in business rates being used to fund part of that work to build the Northern Line.
“So the idea that anything is ever purely public or purely private is a very sort of old-fashioned idea. These always have to be done together.
“And what’s brilliant about the way Croydon Council are leading this at the minute is they see us in the Foundation working closely with URW [Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield] as enablers for what we’re all, as a local resident, we are all patiently waiting to happen.
“We see our role as enabling partner has been key part of what the Foundation does.”
And in the interview, Fletcher-Smith underscored how the Whitgift Foundation depends on its income from its property portfolio to continue to fund its charity work, with its care homes and burseries for children attending its three (soon to be two) large fee-paying independent schools.
“What we’d like is some form of partnership with URW that enables us to continue financing bursaries to continue to look at what we do for care of older people in Croydon. We can’t do that if we simply hand over all our assets.
“But the one thing I can assure you is that we will be pragmatic and hopefully innovative in how we work with both the council and URW to make it happen.
“You know, I was shopping in a North End on Friday afternoon and, you know, you can feel it. It’s coming. Something’s going to happen there.
“Something is coming there and there’s this sense that it’s real this time.”
It was in our previous Under The Flyover podcast that the CEO of the Whitgift Foundation, Roisha Hughes, confirmed that the only way that any development in the town centre will proceed is with a multi-million-pound bailout for the private scheme, with housing grants provided by the Mayor of London and central government.
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Read more: Superdry closure is the latest nail in Whitgift Centre’s coffin
Read more: Perry’s council endorses scheme for 3,000 flats in town centre
Read more: Westfield boss says Croydon scheme could take 15 more years
Our 2014 warning: Council’s in a hole, and yet they still keep on digging
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£1..4 billion cost. That is a very familiar figure, much the same as Croydon’s debt. I cannot see Croydon having much to offer other than words of support. The Whitgift Centre is a classic “Dead Mall” which has many examples elsewhere, particularly in the USA.
The failure to deliver the Westfield scheme is matched by a failed town centre development in my home town of Burgess Hill. And to much the same time frame. Both are now saying that they always needed public financing. Basically they need public money so they can show a profit, otherwise they will not develop the sites.
Angela Rayner is threatening to take land off developers is they don’t get on with building. Perhaps Croydon Council can look forward to Central Government intervention because they certainly don’t have money to spare themselves?
Can’t see it happening any time soon. The spacious stores down the Purley Way offer so much more including free parking.
A local congestion charge would soon sort that out, along with the chronic delays along the main arterial route connecting south London with the M25 and M23 and the avoidable air pollution and climate change emissions
Massive cheek expecting taxpayers to pay for Whit gift redevelopment when the council can’t even free on street parking to shoppers on Sundays
Will anyone have the guts to admit that URW might not be the best partnership for Croydon? They’ve squeezed the life out of central Croydon, their plan is terrible and they probably expect a nine figure amount of public money and let me guess, they’ll also expect none of it to be publicly owned after their awful plan is funded too.
Listen to the interview. It is suggested to FFS that the Whitgift Foundation is suffering Stockholm Syndrome.
Did she disagree?
Lovely, more money to Croydon which unfortunately hasn’t delivered on previous investments. Shouted as jewel of investment and hub of activity and only turned to be into lair of crime and failed promises. How about investing 1.5 bil into existing issues and resolving crime, housing and attracting people who care and want to live and contribute. Stop with block housing and towers, create communities
“every major development is a partnership between the public and the private sector in some way or other. It has to be”
Does it? Is it? Or could we leave things to Adam Smith’s invisible hand?
Or is that hand only for spanking the working classes?
See how the right only believe in the free market for the plebians…
The Council getting pecuniarily involved in the Whitgift Centre redevelopment sounds about as sensible as when Tony Newman bought a hotel or the Colonnades… Well meaning but utterly deluded. Councils have their role buy they shouldn’t attempt to be or to finance the private sector. Look at the pig’s ear they made of running even a really simple promotional venture like the David Lean?
Not all PPPs are a disaster but…
I’m pretty sure there was no PPPs when the Whitgift Centre was built? It was the grounds of Whitgift school which they moved out of to make a quick buck when retail was booming. If they want to save money now maybe they could move back in?
You’ve either misunderstood, or you haven’t listened to the interview.
There has never been any suggestion of Croydon Council funding the town centre redevelopment. The reason is obvious. They’re skint.
The public part of this arrangement will come from Homes England, the government agency, and the GLA. That’s why Sadiq Khan’s gofers, Dawber and Copley, have been cosying up to Croydon’s piss-poor Mayor.
Not that public money will make any difference to the pace of the development. Westfield are still saying 15 years (though no one is committing to a start date, as Fletcher-Smith swerved that one, too).
Westfield will carry on in their own sweet time. Proposals to refurb the old office blocks into student accommodation may have to be re-thought, as the bottom has fallen out of the overseas students market thanks to Labour pandering to Farage snd the racist far right.
But they’ve been given carte blanche over the detail-lite “masterplan” by Perry’s placemen on the planning committee. Let’s see if they come forward with a planning application before 2026, a year later than originally promised.
If that slips, then these new, public-funded partners, and Sarah Jones MP, should be demanding to know why.
“You know, I was shopping in a North End on Friday afternoon and, you know, you can feel it. It’s coming. Something’s going to happen there”
I was shopping in North End and thought “I cannot wait to get out of here”
Just knock down the Whitgift Centre and give us a proper high street in North End .. decent shops.. no more cheap tat rubbish . bring the buses back to North End ….. simple
From Croydon Advertiser 2017 , things to look optimistic to:
1. Westfield shopping centre. ❌
2. Proposed development of Selhurst Park. ❌
3. The second tallest building in Britain is being built here ❌
4. Boxpark and other new restaurants opening all the time. ✅
5. Cool new businesses opening ❌
6. We are a hotbed of talent ❌
7. The street art scene ✅
8. Improvements to Brighton Main Line ❌
9. Future London Borough of Culture ❌
10. Reopening of Fairfield Halls ❌
Don’t believe the lies. This has been going on too long.
Whatever happened to the Sadvertiser?
If the shops remaining in the Whitgift Centre were all shifted to be in the same area, it would look and feel more busy and attractive. As it is, we all feel uncomfortable going there. It must be unpleasant for the staff who have to walk through there when there are no customers at all. Now only the Whitgift Car Park is open, and M&S is still open, that end of the Centre could be almost welcoming, is still accessible from the tram stop and North End, and contains escalators. The area between Samuels and Allders could be closed off completely, and then customers might be less reluctant to go there. It is probably time to end the Westfield contract, so URW can escape and Croydon can start planning with another developer. Unless URW are kicked out of Croydon nothing will happen apart from meetings and press releases. I regret that the optimism heard during the interview is déja vu, and none of us believes any of it.
“[Perry’s]’s personally leading and championing…”.
We’re fucked then.
“You know, I was shopping in a North End on Friday afternoon and, you know, you can feel it. It’s coming. Something’s going to happen there.”
Yes: a stabbing in all likelihood. Certainly not anything resembling a town centre revival.
She must be smoking the same stuff as the yoof hanging around the derelict Shakespeare’s site in George Street.
“[Perry’s]’s personally leading and championing…”…. a mass business exodus away from Croydon.
Hence why cash rich companies like EDF moved their HQ from Interchange Croydon, back to Central London. Same with Fulham Timber. All recently.
“Yes: a stabbing in all likelihood. Certainly not anything resembling a town centre revival.”
Croydon Council and the police aren’t doing anything to stop stabbings but instead litter Croydon with emergency stab first aid kits . You could never make this shit up.
Recipe for disaster… The place has already rapidly declined. It is not “slowly declining” (have you even been there?!) and Perry could and should have done much more, sooner. Rubbish patting on the back from one Tory to another, all the while standing in front of what is obviously one major s**theap.