Fantasy world: gone are the expensive CGI images of a shiny new, £1bn shopping mall, as property developer PRs LCA now illustrate the latest Westfield consultation with pastel shades and soft outline sketches of what the future might hold for Croydon. Or might not
There’s a public consultation about the long-delayed Westfield redevelopment of the town centre. Yes, another one. But there’s no promises of when any work will actually begin, or end. By STEVEN DOWNES
Artwashing: Westfield/URW’s promised seven kiosks for Allders will miss their summer 2025 delivery deadline
After decades of broken promises and inflicting development blight on Croydon town centre, Westfield, in their latest guise, are running yet another public consultation over the scheme.
This time, they say, it is “the next phase” of consultation “to help shape the future of Whitgift, Centrale and Allders”. If only.
The trouble for those organising this consultation is that the Croydon public have heard it all before, and have long ago grown weary of the big promises and lack of delivery.
Even the modest revival promised for Allders, where work on seven kiosks began in September last year, has failed to materialise by summer 2025 as was promised by Mayor Jason Perry and his new besties at URW, the Paris-based Unibail Rodamco Westfield.
The kiosks – their offering still a carefully guarded secret – might open by this autumn, according to the latest guesstimate offered by the borough’s failing leadership and the megabillion multinational corporation.
Croydon business owners and the public are long past enjoying irony when it comes to Westfield and their broken promises. So the fact that the late-delivered kiosks are being paid for out of a £6million fine levied against Westfield for the late delivery of their promised £1.4billion shopping mall probably won’t prompt any laughs.
After taking residents for mugs for almost 14 years, it is looking as if Mayor Perry has been the victim of a Croydon mugging by Westfield, after the parent company briefed its investors and shareholders this spring that they might have to flog off their leasehold interests in Croydon to fill a funding hole in their ambitious scheme in Hamburg.
Headline news: Property Week‘s report, based on URW’s own briefing to investors and shareholders
Trade magazine Property Week reported earlier this month that URW’s own investor report said that the Croydon site is “being considered for ‘co-development or future disposal’.”
In February this year, URW and their architects were given carte blanche by the council’s planning department with their latest “Masterplan Framework”, as the Town Hall effectively passed the buck for their public planning responsibilities to the French development business.
As they seek other property developers to buy in to the Croydon project, as well as millions of pounds in public funding from Homes England and the GLA, even URW are making no secret of their changed role in the scheme: one of their senior suits this month described URW’s role as that of “an urban masterplan developer”.
Westfield’s timing for the start of their latest consultation was more than unfortunate, coming in the week that the government sent in Commissioners to take over the running of the cash-strapped council.
Croydon Council’s financial collapse is in some part down to the decline of the town centre, and Westfield’s failure to deliver, which has translated into tens, if not hundreds, of millions of pounds lost in hoped-for business rates, Council Tax, infrastructure levies and other revenues.
Which makes Mayor Perry’s conduct in all of this all the more dubious.
Taking care of businesses: despite the latest crisis at the council, Tory Mayor Perry has carried on attending meetings as a director of Croydon BID, alongside reps from URW
As well as his public office, Perry is the managing director of his family business and has a seat on the board of Croydon BID, the business improvement district whose membership includes some stores based in the Whitgift Centre and Centrale.
Westfield or URW have had a representative on the BID board for much of the past dozen years.
In the midst of the latest crisis in Croydon, with Commissioners due to turn up at Fisher’s Folly on Monday, next week the Mayor is giving up at least half a day of his no-doubt valuable time to attend a “Breakfast Waffle” event at the High Holborn offices of a firm of developer lobbyists, where speculators eager for their own slice of the action can “hear about the Croydon opportunity”.
The company providing Mayor Perry with this platform is LCA.
Conflicted: who is Mayor Perry representing at this event staged by PRs working for URW?
That’s the same LCA which is handling public relations for Unibail Rodamco Westfield around their latest “consultation”.
Inside Croydon has found nothing in the publicity related to this “Waffle” event that mentions that URW, the prospective developers of Croydon town centre, are clients of LCA.
According to one Katharine Street source, “This is all about the Mayor’s judgement, or the lack of it. There might not be any conflict of interest involved here.
“But there is definitely a question of in whose interests is our £82,000 per year Mayor acting here: the people he was elected to represent, or Big Business, which has already done so much damage to our town.”
It is perhaps a sign of quite how bad the state of the Whitgift Centre has become that despite there being ample vacant units available, LCA has chosen to base its public engagement for this consultation across the road in Centrale.
A second session was held today.
The consultation, LCA says, is “focused on the redevelopment of the Whitgift Centre into a residential-led, mixed-use urban heart for Croydon”. Which is nice.
And apart from the “residential-led” bit (Westfield realised about a decade too late for Croydon’s sake that the bottom has dropped out of high-street retail and big shiny shopping malls), it is all very familiar PR guff.
Centrale is to be refurbished “into a revitalised shopping centre” , while Allders (which is, inevitably, described with the misused “iconic”) is to be “reimagined”, whatever that’s supposed to mean.
There’s even a section headlined “Early delivery”. So you get the feel that this is not really serious.
“The vision illustrates a strong commitment to new public spaces, improved connectivity and sustainable, community-focused development.” Just a shame that they failed to deliver on similarly well-intentioned promises a decade ago.
Westfield’s PR agency LCA says: “Consultation attendees will have the opportunity to input into plans for the redevelopment of the Whitgift Centre, which will provide high-quality homes, a new network of green public spaces and a revitalised retail and leisure offer, supported by improved connectivity across the site.
“They will also be invited to comment on refurbishment proposals for Centrale that aim to modernise the shopping experience, improve the layout and reposition the centre as a contemporary retail and social destination that attracts major brands and enhances visitor experience.”
There’s a load more of this nonsense hyperbole to come.
Empty shops after empty promises: with Westfield as landlords, much of the Whitgift Centre has emptied of shops
“As part of URW’s ongoing development, Allders, one of Croydon’s most iconic…”, ahhh, it’s not just “iconic”, it’s now “most iconic” “… and historic buildings, will be brought back to life through the opening of new shops and food outlets in the building this autumn.”
They fail to state that the reason that Allders needs to be “brought back to life” at all is that other, mostly local, business owners were kicked out of the building by the council six years ago, on the orders of… Westfield. Yes, the Allders Outlet was a bizarre bazaar, but it provided the “meanwhile use” that Perry, the council and Westfield have so far failed to deliver.
And for a self-proclaimed “urban masterplan developer”, URW/Westfield appears to be a bit short of ideas of what to do with the old department store building.
The consultation will “give participants the chance to shape the long-term ambitions for this heritage building as a hub for leisure, education and culture – preserving its frontage while reimagining its role at the heart of Croydon town centre”. Isn’t that the kind of medium- to long-term planning and, well, “vision” thing supposed to be the domain of some kind of local authority planning organisation? Such as the council?
The responsibility for providing vacuous quotage on behalf of Westfield/URW these days falls to Adam “urban masterplan developer” Smith. His colleague, Scott Parsons, the chief operating officer, moved on from Westfield in May, after presiding over Croydon’s non-development for almost six years.
Developer cliché: URW’s latest quotage provider, Adam Smith (not the economist)
Thus Smith has come up with recognisable developer clichés: “key milestone” (much like the many previous key milestones), which will “refine” their generally woolly, detail-lite masterplan framework.
“Our ambition is to collaborate with the people of Croydon to help us design and create a vibrant, residential-led, mixed-use destination that reflects the needs and aspirations of Croydon’s communities with new public spaces, revitalised retail and leisure offers with community and sustainability at its heart,” Smith is supposed to have said – much like every other Westfield exec and spokesperson going back to the fair dink ‘um days of 2012.
For Perry, as he readies himself for his Breakfast Waffle, the town centre regeneration “remains a top priority”.
Pity poor Perry: he has so many “top priorities”, from the council’s finances, to knife crime, to his closing of libraries and the axing of kids’ lollipop crossing patrols. It must be bewildering for him to know quite where to start. Though the suspicion is that Perry’s “top priority” will always be to take the side of multi-billion, multinational developers, whether they be his mates at Westfield, or the shadowy operation behind the Polaska Purley retirement complex.
If you can bear to go through this whole consultation charade yet again, there are “interactive exhibitions” with opportunities “to comment on proposals” between now and July 30 at Unit 55 on the Lower Ground Floor of Centrale.
A total of five public sessions, amounting to just 16 hours, staged in a shopping centre basement. So much for “top priority”. The next event in Centrale is on Tuesday, July 22, from 4pm to 7pm. So you could get there after your Breakfast Waffle with Mayor Perry.
And Westfield/URW/LCA say that you can check it all out online here, until “early September”.
But don’t get too excited just yet. Try clicking on the “online exhibition” or the “survey” hotlinks on the site, “to share your feedback”, and even by today, four days into the so-called consultation, and nothing works.
In the words of Bowie: it’s just so fucking Croydon.
Read more: Westfield looking for ‘bargain basement’ sale of Croydon site
Read more: Sign up now to hear Croydon Mayor Jason Perry waffling on
Read more: Perry allows Westfield to spend £6m ‘fine’ on own interests
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
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