EXCLUSIVE: Regular users of the gym, DIY centre or kids’ play areas at the ‘leisure park’ off the Purley Way no longer have the benefit of three hours’ free car parking. By our motoring correspondent, JEREMY CLACKSON
Shoppers and gym members visiting the Colonnades centre off the Purley Way got a nasty shock this week when they discovered that the free parking period had been reduced by half, from three hours to just 90minutes.
Busy site: a manager for operators 9Yards claimed that the changes to parking times have been made to deter ‘fly parking’
“It will make our visits to the so-called ‘leisure park’ a lot less leisurely,” said one local, who is worried that they might get hit with a hefty parking fine if they don’t rush future visits.
“Yet another way of mugging us, the little people,” said another. “All they are interested in is making money out of us in unfair ways.”
The changes were made without any notice to the public, with the parking charge signs being changed on Monday night. “It would be easy to miss them if you weren’t looking out for them,” said one of the Colonnades’ customers after a visit yesterday.
Privately developed a little more than a quarter of a century ago on the former site of the Croydon Water Palace, next to the Purley Way Playing Fields, in 2019 the Colonnades leisure park was bought by Croydon Council for £53million, with a longer-term objective of developing the site for housing.
Katharine Street sources suggested that the site might provide enough space for 600 flats, which could yield more than £150million if those homes were sold at current, average housing prices.
But in 2023, following the council’s financial collapse, Mayor Jason Perry and the geniuses who run the Town Hall flogged off the Colonnades for at least £25million less than it had been bought for just four years earlier. At the time, the Colonnades business was in profit and making (albeit modest) money for Croydon Council from the rents paid by its various tenant businesses.
Business genius: Mayor Jason Perry sold the profitable Colonnades for £25m less than the council paid
Today, the Colonnades includes a Premier Inn motel, KFC and McDonald’s takeaways, a Nando’s and Costa coffee, as well as the Oxygen trampoline park and Kidspace amusements, a Wickes DIY centre and Nuffield Health gym.
Pizza Hut recently closed its branch there due to the business’s financial difficulties nationally, and as yet, no new tenants have replaced them.
According to the website of operators 9Yards, there are at least two other vacant lots on the site.
The Colonnades can be reached by bus, but the out-of-town leisure park’s 480 parking spaces provides a fair indication that its business is reliant on visitors using their cars.
Sources who have contacted Inside Croydon maintain that the businesses based at the Colonnades were not consulted over the changes to the free parking timings, something that a manager at 9Yards today denied when approached for comment.
“Patrons will get parking tickets if they exceed 90minutes,” a source told Inside Croydon.
“As the average play party at Oxygen or Playspace is two hours, this will really affect trade.”
Another Colonnades source said, “Lots of people will be caught out by this and get a fine.” They said that after their first visit yesterday with the new, shorter free parking period, “It would be so easy to miss the sign if you regularly park there, as you might not be taking any notice.”
A third source said, “This has happened without any warning to the tenants of the retail units on site, many of whose customers will be immediately impacted. A lot of people attending Kidspace, Oxygen and Nuffield Gym, by the very nature of the business, stay for more than 90 minutes.”
Less-than-leisurely parked: changes to free parking at the Colonnades are a concern for businesses and visitors
One of the sources said that they were “suspicious” of the motives behind the changed parking regime by the management company.
“No longer can you sit and have a meal in Nando’s or catch up for a coffee in Costa after doing your DIY shop,” one local said.
“It’s really going to affect trade for the already struggling businesses.”
A manager at the Colonnades said that the change in parking hours was a “private and confidential” matter.
He claimed that the reduction in the free parking period had been taken because of what he called “fly parking”, with free spaces being used by people who were not using any of the facilities on site, but were working nearby, and who returned to their cars after three hours just to re-park before going back to work.
The manager, who refused to identify himself by name, maintained that Colonnades’ tenants had been consulted and that 9Yards is “a very thoughtful business”.
9Yards declined to provide any further comment.
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Now anyone playing football on Purley Way Playing Fields has the pleasure of nowhere to park as well as no toilets or changing facilities.
Another kick in the teeth for Sunday league football. Cheers Croydon!
If you can afford to run a car, you can cough up a few quid to park it. Want free parking? Play Monopoly. That or ride a bike
There is no way of paying for extra time you can only stay for 90 minutes. People would pay to park that facility isn’t offered
Shame the council hasn’t grasped the correlation between good parking provision and a good consumer experience (i.e more money being spent/support for local economy). A concept lost along the Purley way…
Except this has nothing to do with the council. They sold the Colonnades.
It is the private owners who have imposed these changes without consulting their tenants.
The Purley Way is frequently nearly gridlocked by drivers getting free parking at the hypermarkets, inflicting delays, toxic pollution and climate change on everyone while destroying the once thriving town centre economy
The Colonnades is and has always been a non starter, it just in the wrong place to make a significant profit for the tenants or owners, so we come to plan B which is to run the park into the ground, knock it down and build highly profitable flats. Call me a silly old sceptic if you like and you may have to wait a few years to see the flats option come to fruition, but trust me on this , that’s what will happen.
Not entirely accurate.
The Colonnades has been profitable for most of its 25 years, and the tenant businesses there have tended to do decent business, which is why the tenancy rate has remained solid.
For landlords who were allowed by Mayor Perry to purchase the site for less than half its book value, the Colonnades has until now represented what another south London wide boy might have described as “a nice little earner”.
How can you provide parking for restaurants and then restrict visits to 90 minutes? That’s deliberately entrapping people. The food can easily take 30 mins per course to be prepared. Are we expected to scoff it down quickly then run? There’s very limited public transport to that location too – it’s a little out of the way in an out of town retail park. I’ll bet Pizza Hut won’t be alone in closing their doors for good. I certainly won’t be going back to Nandos for a night out again, just not worth the hassle.