Dripping with irony: Superdry is one of the stores to exit the Whitgift Centre recently, leaving behind the yellow buckets
The number of empty retail units in the Whitgift Centre has increased by more than 50% in the past year, according to recent research.
Now under the management of Westfield, the Whitgift Centre was supposed to have been demolished and replaced in a £1billion-plus regeneration of Croydon town centre that was due to take place a decade ago.
Instead, Westfield, now part of Paris-based Unibail Rodamco Westfield, have managed to rip the heart out of Croydon, the flagship shopping mall being allowed to decay, driving away shoppers and their own tenants.
Easily pleased: palmed off with some cheap tat, Jason Perry hailed the opening of Miniso as some kind of triumph
Entrances to the shopping mall have been bricked up, making it even more difficult for those shoppers brave enough to venture inside the hollowed-out halls to find what they might be seeking.
In May last year, Westfield closed what is still known as the Allders car park, blocking it off on Dingwall Avenue and at the Whitgift Centre entrance. High parking fees are another issue deterring visitors to the Whitgift Centre.
A slew of traders – 27 in the past year – have abandoned the Whitgift Centre, many when their leases have expired.
Last month, much was made by Westfield when they opened two “kiosks” in the former Allders building, to the joy of their uncritical fans, the likes of gormless Jason Perry, the Mayor of Croydon, and Labour MP Sarah Jones, who rents office space from Westfield in the centre.
Perry snapped up a goody bag for himself, as you’d expect.
Two more of the “kiosks” are supposed to open this week, although the shopping centre managers have not yet released any details of which stores these might be, nor confirmed that they will open, as previously promised, by October 10.
Inside the Whitgift Centre, the outlook continues to become bleaker by the day.
According to figures from a little-read freesheet, there are
73
vacant units inside the Whitgift Centre as of October 2025.
That’s up from
52
as recently as June 2025.
The exodus of traders from the Whitgift Centre appears to be accelerating.
A year ago, in September 2024, the same publication reckoned that
46
units were closed or vacant.
“More buckets than businesses,” said one panel member on a recent Croydon Insider podcast, summing up the dire and deteriorating state of the sad old Whitgift Centre, where its leaking glass roof is a constant problem for maintenance crews.
Over on the other side of North End, Westfield’s other Croydon mall, Centrale, appears also to be having maintenance issues. Last week, iC reported how one entrance from Croydon’s main shopping street was fenced off because of a water leak.
More buckets than businesses: nearly 20 units in the Whitgift Centre have been vacated in just three months
Of the big-name brands who have opted to quit the Whitgift Centre, Superdry has this year followed Sainsbury’s, Beaverbrooks jewellers (the branch was “no longer commercialy viable”), The Entertainer (where the manager blamed the centre’s management – Westfield), home furnishings store Stacks, The Body Shop, Clothing Club London, Monsoon, Supercuts, Pure Flowers (one of the Allders kiosks is supposed to be a florists’), Accessorize (like the Body Shop, another high street retailer that has gone out of business), Optical Express, Zucchi, Swag Jewellery and Camden Coffee House.
The list is not exhaustive.
Only Marks and Spencer, at the West Croydon end of North End, remains as an “anchor” tenant for the shopping mall. And there are justifiable questions about how long they will remain patient with their neglectful landlords.
URW had promised to deliver their planning application – comprising mostly thousands of flats in high-rise blocks in a phased programme of works – by the end of this year, with 2028 as the earliest date when demolition or construction work might begin.
Now, Katharine Street sources are suggesting that even that slow-motion delivery might miss its deadline. Meaning there might be no traders left in the Whitgift Centre at all by the time that the tardy Westfield bulldozers finally move in…
Read more: Another Whitgift store to close – and manager blames Westfield
Read more: ‘Permanently closed’: Whitgift Centre works mark end of days
Read more: Hammer blow for Whitgift Centre with new delay to masterplan
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