Which way to turn: with staircases removed and escalators blocked off, how can anyone manage to complete their quest in the Whitgift Centre’s desolate maze?
Armed with just a printout of an address, and an incorrect address at that, we invited some of our regular contributors to set off on a quest into the desolate maze that the Whitgift Centre has become. With the shopping centre’s managers blocking off entrances and removing staircases, reaching MP Sarah Jones’s office is not as straightforward as it might be.
And for DAVID MORGAN, it proved to be impossible
I was very pleased to get into the Whitgift Centre, if only to get out of the rain.
Not everyone was so pleased, though, as I saw two employees having to mop up a rapidly growing puddle caused by one of the leaks in the roof.
“Where was Sarah Jones’ office?” I muttered to myself as I checked the address online, using my mobile phone.
Somewhere on the third floor. Not the second floor, as the address taken from the Labour group’s website said.
Refuge from the rain: though there’s little else to draw in customers to the Whitgift Centre, with its leaking roof
I went up an escalator and looked at the sad physical evidence of the decline of a central shopping location.
After wandering around for a bit, avoiding the many yellow cones, I saw one of the security guards. “Could you tell me how I can get to Sarah Jones’ office? The MP.”
For “security reasons”, I was told, she wouldn’t tell me where it was.
I carried on my quest on my own.
Up an escalator and round a corner, I spied a staircase which had not yet been ripped out. I was sure that years ago I had been up that staircase to the third floor, for a conference meeting. I couldn’t go up there now, though, because the staircase wasn’t in use.
I was surprised by how few people were about. A few shoppers, a few people hurrying through.
Wandering around a corner I saw another security guard to whom I posed the same question, “Do you know where Sarah Jones’ office is? The MP?”
“Sorry,” he replied, “I’m new here. You probably need to ask that guard down there.” He pointed to his woman colleague, the one who had given me no help on my first attempt.
Out of order: like so many things in the Whitgift Centre, the public organ does not work
I went back to check on the little maps which are supposed to help you find your way around the centre, but could I fathom out how to get to the third floor? Of course I couldn’t!
I did find the little organ, though, which had been donated or loaned to the shopping centre for passing strangers to play. So I thought I would go and play a tune or two before I left.
But there was note on the organ saying that it couldn’t be used because of “electrical issues”.
So it was brolly up and out into the rain again.
This was a quest that proved to be an impossible dream for me.
Read more: Johnny Dobbyn survives a Dawn of the Dead remake
Read more: Ken Towl takes a magical mystery tour around the Whitgift Centre
Read more: Annabel Smith takes a peek behind sad old centre’s curtains
Read more: ‘Permanently closed’: Whitgift Centre works mark end of days
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If people can’t find her office, how do we know she’s inside?
I’m not at all surprised you couldn’t find her.
Oh no! Defeated!
As a further thought, have the removal of some staircases and blocking up of some entrances been reported to and permitted by Croydon Planning, Building Control and the London Fire Brigade?
This no longer sounds like a safety-compliant building despite units still being tenanted and open, with public access.
Why not demolish the lot and rebuild Trinity School and relay the playing fields? At least Croydon would have some sort of green lung which would be a thousand times better than the desolation which the Whitgift Centre is now.
We could do with a swimming pool back in the town centre. And a community space and performance area which is not managed by the cold, dead-hand of BHLive…
Has Mayor Perry been knocking out a tune on that Organ in public view?
It would explain what has happened to it, as to everything else he has touched during his glorius time in Office.
It sounds like they are trying to make the centre as unuser-friendly as possible, so they can say it is not viable, and demolish it. There is still a need for shops; Bromley centre seems to be booming.
You get a better class of people in Bromley. A friend is closing his business in Centrale and moving to Bromley for that I reason, I think
Oh dear, another sweeping, unsubtantiable and derogatory statement.
The procrastinating plans and inactions of the corporate owners and property speculators of the Whitgift Centre (over 12 years?) determine its fortunes, not the population of Croydon Town or London Borough.
Even the Bromley Glades (and sometime ‘InTu Bromley’) had periods of voids and enticements of rent free periods, I read.
There are voids on the High St including the former Wilkinsons general store.
It’s ‘Et Tu Bromley’
If there was a half decent town centre then the people from the posher bits of Croydon such as Sanderstead, Purley, Kenley, Shirley etc would visit and spend their money and help the local economy. I assume that’s what you mean by ‘better class of people’. Just people with more money, it doesn’t mean they are any better at all.
Myers is a bit of a snob. You can guess which bit
Now, now, boys. Play nicely…