Walkabout: MP Sarah Jones (pink coat) touring the town centre this morning with the Met Police and representatives from Croydon BID. Did they drop in on Primark?
CROYDON IN CRISIS: One of the borough’s Labour MPs is accused of ‘performatively sending emails’ to a fashion chain’s CEO, when there are bigger issues in the borough, such as Westfield’s continuing delays over redevelopment
Croydon West MP Sarah Jones stirred up a social media row on Budget day when posting a photograph of the Primark store in the town centre, accusing it of being “run-down” and “unclean”.
Primark is in the Centrale shopping centre, which is managed by Westfield – or Unibail Rodamco Westfield, as the Paris-based multi-billion shopping mall operators are now known.
It is almost 14 years since Westfield first arrived in Croydon promising a £1billion regeneration of the town centre, which included rebuilding Centrale and the Whitgift Centre on the other side of North End.
The long-delayed planning application for the latest version of Westfield’s redevelopment was supposed to have been submitted this month. But the latest, best-guess estimate from insiders is that Westfield’s application won’t see the light of day until mid-2026, as the developers drag their feet yet again.
There’s been little, if anything, from the Croydon West MP about that latest blow to the borough.
State of that: Primark ‘is the least of our problems’ was one response when MP Jones posted this photo yesterday
Indeed, Jones, who has been an MP for the area since 2017, has rarely voiced public criticisms of Westfield for the development blight that they have inflicted on Croydon.
Coincidentally, the Labour MP’s constituency office, since last year’s General Election, is hidden away inside the increasingly dilapidated Whitgift Centre, effectively making her a tenant of URW.
“Our high street needs cleaning up – and it’s everyone’s responsibility,” Jones posted on her Faustbook page, with a damning photograph of the Primark shop.
“I’m calling on Primark’s CEO to sort out their shopfront on North End which is run-down and unclean. It wouldn’t be tolerated on Oxford Street, so it shouldn’t look like that here in Croydon either.”
Jones has occasionally made similarly accusatory social media posts about the state of the town centre – such as railing about the state of vandalised and out-of-order phone boxes on North End. But her Primark post is believed to be the first in which she has targeted a business trading in the borough.
“Is she posting that on behalf of Croydon’s long-suffering residents, or on behalf of her landlords?” one resident asked.
Jones’s Faustbook post drew some degree of agreement from her followers, but after her years of silence of the council’s previous Labour administration’s bankrupting of the borough, several posted comments which seemed less convinced that the MP’s intervention was appropriate or helpful.
“I think the cleanliness of the outside of Primark is the least of Croydon’s worries,” said one commenter.
Another wrote: “There’s nothing brave in sending an email.
“Rather than having a go at the retailers who are still clinging on in Croydon, how about using your influence to lobby those who abandoned it, such as Superdry Five Guys etc?
“Real change is brave – performatively sending emails is not. Croydon used to be a retail Mecca you could spend a whole day in – no longer.”
Another said: “Yeah, have a go at the only place that brings people into Croydon, why don’t you?”
“There are clear issues to be addressed but seeing local police in action working closely with businesses, residents and Croydon BID shows me that we are on the right path,” Jones said today.
Read more: Figures show how exodus from Whitgift Centre is speeding up
Read more: Planning application for Westfield scheme stalled to mid-2026
Read more: Another Whitgift store to close – and manager blames Westfield
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