CROYDON IN CRISIS: With the 60-year-old shopping mall increasingly blocked off for what remains of its visitors, it cannot be long before the last remaining tenants of the Whitgift Centre give up and leave
The long and tortured process which has seen business after business retreat from Croydon town centre has taken another slow turn, as the operators of the Whitgift Centre board up more access points and remove staircases from the 60-year-old shopping mall.
Going…: temporary works barriers have been used to stop the Whitgift’s last remaining shoppers from using the stairs
Superdry recently joined the exodus from what was once the pride of Croydon town centre, following Sainsbury’s, Beaverbrooks jewellers (the branch was “no longer commercialy viable”), The Entertainer (where the manager blamed the centre’s management – Westfield), The Body Shop, Monsoon, Accessorize (another retailer gone out of business) and Camden Coffee House.
Now, it seems, the centre’s management, Westfield (in the guise of URW, Paris-based Unibail Rodamco Westfield), wants to make it even more difficult for customers to find any the traders who remain in the centre.
In May last year, they closed what is still known as the Allders car park (the Allders store closed in 2013), blocking it off on Dingwall Avenue and at the Whitgift Centre entrance. One business owner told Inside Croydon: “I am actually in tears.”
Tenants of the Whitgift Centre say that they were given no notice of the car park closure.
Going…: steel sheets have been used to close off another shopping mall entrance
Then, in December, with the centre’s management knowledge and agreement, Croydon Council shut off the Wellesley Road pedestrian underpass. Again, this was done without notifying Whitgift Centre tenants. It reduced access to the mall in the crucial trading weeks before Christmas.
Only in July did the council begin work on a replacement, surface-level crossing on Wellesley Road, something Croydon’s failed Mayor, Jason Perry, had been promising to do for almost three years. This crossing is being paid for out of fines levied by the council against Westfield for their failure to deliver on previous planning promises. The works are supposed to be finished by December (2025, it is assumed). We’ll see.
Of the seven “kiosks” promised by Westfield as “meanwhile use” in the long-closed Allders building (closed in 2019 at the request of… Westfield), there’s still no sign of them opening any time soon. They were supposed to “revitalise the frontage of Croydon’s historic department store”, and were expected to be open for trading months ago. Another Westfield broken promise…
But then, Croydon’s businesses and residents have had almost 14 years to get used to Westfield’s big promises and zero delivery – usually with the acquiescence of the borough’s third-rate politicians, red and blue, and fourth-rate borough planners and administrators.
Going…: inside the centre, works have been undertaken to block off another access point
The Whitgift Centre was promised redevelopment by Westfield and the landowners, the Whitgift Foundation, in 2012. The £1.4billion scheme of retail, leisure, offices and residential was all meant to be completed by 2017.
But despite two schemes being granted planning permission, a public inquiry and a massive Compulsory Purchase of property in the area, Westfield have never started work on the project.
Indeed, as recently as 2023, directors of Unibail Rodamco Westfield, the Paris-based conglomerate, were predicting that it could be 2038 before any Croydon redevelopment work is completed.
Gone!: the skeletal remains of a staircase was all that remained this week. Even that is doomed to disappear soon
And now, as captured in photographs this week by Inside Croydon reader Bob Johnston, works have begun in the sad old Whitgift Centre to close-up more access routes and remove staircases, making it even more difficult for anyone to reach any of the handful of traders still operating in the mall.
“This entrance is now permanently closed”, says a new sign. The “permanently” bit has a ring of finality about it.
“Please use the main entrance on Wellesley Road (just a short walk to your left) to access the Whitgift. Thank you for your cooperation.” Like people have any alternative?
As one of the last remaining traders still trying to run a business from the Whitgift Centre said: “It’s like they’re gutting a fish, but from the inside out first.
“How long will it be before the last of us give up and close up? Why should we be paying rent at all if we can’t any longer operate as a business?”
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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