Super bleak: Superdry recently became another Whitgift Centre ‘has been’ store
Destination X: just where is Sarah Jones’s constituency office?
For the past year, one of Croydon’s MPs has worked from an office deep inside the Whitgift Centre. But just where?
With the shopping centre’s managers blocking off entrances and removing staircases, we sent some intrepid contributors off on a kind of treasure hunt: to find Sarah Jones’s constituency office armed only with the address as provided on the Croydon Labour website.
The first writer we told to ‘get lost’ was KEN TOWL
Going underground: Ken Towl was an explorer in the suburban shopping centre
I got there in the end, but it wasn’t easy.
I arrived at the Whitgift Centre on a working weekday at 1.15pm and walked the length of the ground floor, and then the second floor, looking for a sign for Sarah Jones’ office.
I managed to find Bishops Wine Bar again, and this gave me hope. Bishops still has no signs to guide potential customers to its doors. It looks like it is not the policy of the Whitgift Centre to signpost its tenants.
I did, though, see a rather poignant sign in the window of what used to be the Camden Coffee House. It said “Has Bean Coffee”.
Sign of the times: Camden Coffee’s shutters came down some time ago
I manoeuvred carefully past the yellow “Caution Hazard” buckets – there seems to be more every time I visit – and I passed the closed-off escalators to Level 3 and stood looking at the facade of Superdry, another “has been” store, and took a photograph of it because it looked so bleak.
It was now 1.30pm.
A security guard came and stood by me – they like to approach when you take photos of derelict shops in the Whitgift – and so I took the chance to ask him where Sarah Jones’ office is.
He looked blank.
Corridor of uncertainty: the Caution Hazard buckets appear to be multiplying
“Sarah Jones’ office?” he asked, as if the name meant nothing to him at all.
“Sarah Jones?”
“Yes,” I said, “She’s the local MP.”
“Oh,” he said, in realisation. “The MP!”
Yes, I said.
“Do you see those fire doors?” he was pointing.
“Go through there, down the corridor, up the lift to Level 3 and it’s there.”
Level 3? But the address on the website said…
I walked along the side of Has Been Superdry till I got to a door.
It said, “STAFF ONLY NO PUBLIC ACCESS” in capital letters. Surely this couldn’t be the door the security guard meant for me to take?
Show me the way: was this really the right way to an MP’s office?
I looked back for some reassurance, and he nodded and gestured to me to go in.
Beyond the doors, I was in a service corridor with other corridors leading off. I found some stairs and then I found the lifts, big service lifts, and I rode one of them up to Level 3.
Out of the lift, I had a choice of a right or left turn. There were still no signs.
I took a right and, passing through a couple of double doors, ended up in a blue-carpeted and white-walled management suite, then on to a staircase that led to doors out on to the top of the building.
Still no sign of an MP’s office, and no sign pointing to an MP’s office.
At last, a sign: did the management really intend to turn the centre into a maze?
I turned back and returned to the lift.
It turns out that I should have turned left.
There just beyond the lift was a small sign on a blue door that said “OFFICE OF SARAH JONES MP PEASE RING THE DOORBELL” in capitals.
The Sarah Jones’s official parliamentary MP website gives her constituency office address as Unit 2150, Level 3, The Management Suite, The Whitgift Centre, Croydon CR0 1LP.
But Croydon Labour’s website says that her office is on Level 2.
No where, though, does it mention that you have to find the office via the secret door marked “STAFF ONLY” at the back of Superdry.
When I got there, I didn’t ring the bell. I felt like I was trespassing already.
Read more: Johnny Dobbyn survives a Dawn of the Dead remake
Read more: Annabel Smith takes a peek behind sad old centre’s curtains
Read more: David Morgan delves into the Whitgift’s desolate maze
Read more: ‘Permanently closed’: Whitgift Centre works mark end of days
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NOTHING ABOUT THE WHITGIFT CENTRE SURPRISES ME ANYMORE.
Turn your caps lock off, Nige. No need to shout.
At least there will soon be a crossing so that it’s quicker and easier to get to East Croydon station from the Whitgift Centre to get a fast train to anywhere else when you realise there’s nothing there.
Soon? Nothing before December – if finished on time. And they closed the pedestrian subway 10 months ago
That’s going to be my new go to excuse for being late to work..Sorry I got lost in the Whitgift centre
I like these tales!
Initially I was disappointed that your explorer had the same mission, to find Sarah Jones MP’s office.
However the route of this odyssey contained new eyebrow-raising challenges.
I enjoy the names including the ‘Corridor of Uncertainty’ with its photographic illustration of numerous, and slightly menacing, Dr Who style, hazard-painted leak-collection buckets.