Empty shops after empty promises: with Westfield as landlords and managers, much of the Whitgift Centre has emptied of shops
More than 48 hours after trade magazine Property Week reported what Westfield had been briefing their investors about the possibility of them selling off their interests in Croydon, and there’s been not a peep from the Paris head office of Unibail Rodamco Westfield. Not even a Gallic shrug of indifference.
That’s hardly surprising. After all these years of broken promises, who would believe them?
There have been whispered denials, but nothing issued directly by the megabillion multi-national. So nothing can ever come back to bite them in the arse.
Gallic shrug of indifference: Croydon does not figure highly in URW’s priorities
Instead, Westfield have relied on their supporters in Croydon, the gullible cheerleaders for the £1.4billion project that was first promised in 2012.
And leading the way to do Westfield’s bidding (and using public resources to do so), was none other than chief sap, Jason Perry, the piss-poor Mayor of Croydon. Is he incapable of getting anything right?
Last night, Perry had staff from the propaganda department at Fisher’s Folly plaster a disingenuous statement on the council website.
The Croydon Mayor, who is within days of having his powers taken over by government-appointed Commissioners, blathered on about how town centre regeneration “remains a top priority for me”, without bothering to admit that there’s actually very little he or the cash-strapped council can do about what was initially a private development scheme on privately owned land.
Perry said: “Our partnership with Unibail Rodamco Westfield is fundamental to the town centre regeneration and they have given assurances that recent speculation around the sale of Whitgift and Centrale shopping centres is not accurate.”
What Mayor Perry fails to state to the Croydon public is that it is not “speculation”. What has been reported is what URW themselves have been briefing. But don’t expect Croydon’s over-promoted plastic guttering salesman to understand how international property financing works…
More buckets than shoppers: the Whitgift Centre has been on its last legs as a shopping centre for almost two decades now
“I will continue to work with URW and other partners in transforming our town centre and securing much-needed improvements for everyone who lives, works and visits Croydon.” Which is nice, but is nothing more than empty rhetoric from Croydon’s discredited Mayor.
Mayor Perry was not alone, though, in parroting the lines he had been given to say by Westfield.
Sarah Jones, now MP for Croydon West, who has moved her constituency office into the Whitgift Centre since the boundary changes, told Inside Croydon: “I have received assurances from Unibail Rodamco Westfield… and I have had multiple conversations with URW in recent months.
“URW is undertaking a consultation process over the next few weeks on its early designs of the site, which I would encourage people from Croydon to get involved in.”
The Whitgift Foundation, the freeholders of much of the site, including the eponymous Whitgift Centre shopping mall, appeared to have been surprised by the Property Week report.
But there is nothing incompatible with what appeared in Westfield’s investor briefings to the Foundation’s position, as revealed in Inside Croydon’s Under The Flyover podcasts, in which they admitted to seeking millions of public cash to bail-out the scheme from its long-term rut.
No progress: on Jan 31 this year, Mayor Perry posted this photo on his social media, boasting how he had ‘brought together key partners’ for the town centre regeneration project. Of those in the photo, Scott Parsons has quit his job as chief operating officer for URW and two Croydon directors have left their posts at the council. ‘This partnership will be working together regularly to deliver real progress,’ Perry said. The group has never met again
In the company’s briefing, which occurred in May, it was URW who said that they will be selling off a series of assets, with €2.2billion – £1.9billion – in planned disposals in 2025 and 2026.
As business website Capital Brief reported: “The largest brick-and-mortar shopping centre owner in Europe, URW has been struggling under the burden of the ecommerce boom, made more difficult by the covid-19 pandemic which drastically reduced demand for rental store spaces.”
And here’s the crunch for Croydon: “URW’s roadmap includes a target of reducing future capital expenditure to around €600million (£518million) per year between 2026-2028.” That means a much-reduced development budget for Croydon if Westfield were to build on the site, unless they can find other businesses, or agencies, to buy-up plots for the 3,000 flats they have schemed in to their woolly “Masterplan Framework”.
Croydon Council did, however, get someone from Westfield to put their name to a comment – a comment that is open to interpretation exactly as Property Week reported.
Adam Smith (not the economist, but “strategic development director at URW”) said: “URW is committed to working with all partners in Croydon to create a revitalised town centre including thousands of homes with URW playing the role of an urban masterplan developer.” Which is a million miles away, and a billion pounds away, from the confident promises that Westfield were making about their plans for Croydon in 2012.
Read more: Westfield looking for ‘bargain basement’ sale of Croydon site
Read more: Perry’s council endorses scheme for 3,000 flats in town centre
Read more: ‘It has to be’: Westfield scheme needs millions of public money
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Adam Smith’s invisible hand can’t even be bothered to mention retail anymore, just loads more flats to build high and cram people in. I really hope this rumour is true and it can spell the end of the URW and Perry era’s of causing nothing but destruction for Croydon. Once the URW shackles are removed, maybe Croydon can finally find development partners that actually mean business.
Is Perry brandishing his piece of paper from URW as that gullible twerp Newman did once to try and knock away the reality of their complete inactivity of redeveloping the Whitgift Centre. Yet another reminder that in practice there is no difference between Perry and Newman over this matter. Both a pair of naive tools of property developers.
At least now I can fill in a name from Croydon Labour to add to their record of complete guilessness over all this since all the original bunch are all now dead Norwegian Blues. Stand up Sarah Jones the Whitgift old girl. Demonstrating that being in a Government of all the complete lobby fodder of private business interests can be transfered to local matters with her pitifully inane comments that we have heard from both sides of the apparent Croydon political wall all before.
I take it that even the pods are now being abandoned in front of Allders since they cannot even manage to provide any opening date now in the Summer period when they were allegedly going to be opened. What a complete and utter political rabble. What a complete and utter disaster they have inflicted upon Croydon.
Piss pod Perry.
What a dogs breakfast. And Croydon and Perry could actually reverse the decline of the shopping centre by declaring some free parking days, but lack the imagination to grasp the concept.
Prepare for your council tax to be jacked up again to pay for their incompetence
He should start quadrupling business rates on barber shops, vape shops, luggage store shops, hardware shops and nail bars. CC would make an absolute fortune on fly tips and spitting too.
Quadrupling business rates on barber shops, vape shops, luggage store shops, hardware shops and nail bars will mean empty units. I don’t think councils have the power to do anything like this.
When Croydon Council are too scared to take legal action against URW ….this is what you get.
Croydon Council has no cause to take legal action against URW.
When URW failed to deliver on certain planning requirements after 10 years, they had to pay a £6million penalty. Mayor Perry gave the money to URW to build their kiosks..
“Mayor Perry gave the money to URW to build their kiosks..”
Thankyou for this info. I actually didn’t know this. So, this is basically a Mayor Perry vanity project to disguise his past failures? And Westfield didn’t come up with this idea?
Dunno who came up with the idea, though it was doubtless the product of some desperate scrabbling around to be seen to be doing something, anything, around the derelict Allders building.
It followed the dismal failure/non-appearance of Perry’s first “Big Idea”, when the millionaire behind Secret Cinema made a load of big promises and delivered the usual sweet FA.
It was still relatively early term for Perry, but the use of the fine (we did report it at the time: https://insidecroydon.com/2024/09/24/perry-allows-westfield-to-spend-6m-fine-on-own-interests/ ), which allocated some cash to a few derisory, tokenistic community grants (the Costa del Croydon may be part of the spend) was completely indicative of the council’s utterly craven attitude towards Westfield from the beginning.
URW should be done by Trading Standards for Bait & Switch Fraud.
All the people who were CPOed must feel right prunes.
“not the economist”
I know the Westfield saga has been dragging for a while, but really…