The development partnership which has taken two decades to deliver a couple of office buildings, plus Boozepark and a block of flats on the nine-acre “gateway” site next to East Croydon Station, is now seeking public opinion on what they ought to do with the remaining section of land beside the railway line.
New neighbours: Stanhope-Schroders are seeking views on the fourth part of their Ruskin Square jigsaw
Things have been a little quiet around Ruskin Square since the fanfare more than a year ago when 5,000 Home Office staff, including their Lunar House immigration officials, transferred to 2 Ruskin Square.
Their civil service colleagues in HMRC have worked out of 1 Ruskin Square since 2017.
The office building at 3 Ruskin Square has planning permission, but is yet to be built.
So now it is 4 Ruskin Square, where developers Stanhope and investors Schroders are bringing forward what they describe as “emerging design proposals” for what must be one of the final pieces of their property jigsaw on Lansdowne Road.
This tranche of land is to be used for housing. Build! Baby, build!
Blank canvas: developers are inviting the public to view CGIs for this site, which sits between 1960s multi-storey car park and their new offices
Stanhope-Schroders say that they want to hear “your aspirations for the site”.
They say: “This will help us to shape the benefits arising from our proposed investment.”
There are to be two public sessions “where you can meet the team and view the early design plans for the next phase of Ruskin Square”, both to be held at The Lansdowne Building, 2 Lansdowne Road, CR9 2ER:
- Tue Dec 9, 4.30pm to 7pm
- Thu Dec 11, at the same times.
The proposals involve two residential buildings which the architects behind the scheme, Shedkm, could not restrain themselves from describing as “mediat[ing] between scales, improve permeability and enhance the public realm”.
And there’s more: “The design outdoor public spaces, new green corridors and introduces characterful spaces such as the Glade, Secret Garden, and Garden Room, all aimed at fostering a vibrant and inclusive neighbourhood.” Seriously.
The nitty-gritty is a little more prosaic, and informative. And not obviously available in the materials released in the past week by the PR agency handling the consultation.
They intend to build two blocks – which they refer to as ro2 and ro3 – which will provide 150 and 176 homes respectively, more than doubling the residential units on Ruskin Square, where 22-storey apartment building Vita was completed almost 10 years ago.
The location of R2D2, the architects say, “along with the proximity to the pedestrian bridge, will make R02 a highly visible development, with the connection to Lansdowne Walk acting as a major draw to commuters entering and leaving the city”.
By “the city”, we think they mean Croydon. By the “pedestrian bridge”, we think they mean the Bridge To Nowhere, which remains stubbornly closed off at the Addiscombe end, almost 14 years since it was all but completed.
The architects have so far failed to state how tall their two new residential blocks, R2D2 and C3PO, will be. They do, though, make a nod to sustainability with the retention of mature trees, some new planting, green roofs and climate-resilient landscaping.
Significantly, for an area around the railway station which is too often regarded as a hostile and somewhat desolate no-go zone, they are promising “enhanced permeability across the site, with active frontages and visual connections that improve the pedestrian experience along Lansdowne Road”.
And as most Croydon residents will, by now, have come to realise, Stanhope-Schroders will at least deliver their proposals long before anything happens nearby under the supervision of Westfield…
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As the Bridge to Nowhere has been a long-standing battle over who will pay for completing the bridge, surely there will be quite a bit of s.106/Community Infrastructure Levy (CIL) money arising from this latest Stanhope Schroders proposal, so can that be used to fund the completion of the Bridge to Nowhere?
The bridge is complete.
It’s just that Network Rail/Southern between them are too tight to pay for ticket barriers. Meanwhile, guess who suffers?
Ridiculous
Is this really the “last piece of the jigsaw” on the Stanhope Schroders site by East Croydon station?
When they started the long-running but continually progressing project (cf. Westfield’s total abdication of responsibility to redevelop the Whitgift Centre, and Bellway Homes’ failure to even start on the old Croydon Job Centre site in Dingwall Road), Boozepark was built as a Meanwhile Use project while they developed the rest of the site, and it was going to be the last part to have a permanent building on it…….are they not now replacing Boozepark? Surely they can just use old library film of previous occasions when drunken bums threw drinks around during England football and rugby matches, rather than allowing that to continue?!
Boxpark’s lease is approaching a renewal point.
Would you not grant them such, albeit on considerably altered terms to the very favourable deal that they got originally?
I thought we’d heard the last of this word salad when Heather Cheesbrough was dragged from Fishers Folly screaming ‘the planners operate with the highest levels of integrity’.
I’d be interested in seeing the designs. But as we know, even good design will disintegrate in the gravitational pull of the Croydon Planning Department’s incompetence.
While Schroders Capital’s UK Real Estate Fund (SREF) and Stanhope Plc have secured detailed planning consent from Croydon Council for 3 Ruskin Square, a 14-storey office building, they have not yet started this development and I suspect that in the current climate they will delay commencing any building work until they have a lead tenant signed up to taking a new lease of at least a large part of the building.
Stanhope Schroders have however transformed this part of Croydon and a large part of the old goods yard site which had been vacant for 50 years has finally been developed. As a Croydoner, I am grateful for their investment in Croydon.
I do wonder what the site would now look like though if Croydon Council had not backed an arena for the site. By the time that the Planning Inspectorate had dealt with the enquiry into the compulsory purchase order, times had changed and Stanhope’s original development proposals (including a replacement theatre for the Warehouse Theatre) never materialised largely as a result of the 2008 recession. I fear that any planning consent obtained for 4 Ruskin Square will remain unused for many years. The tide seems to have turned against the development of flats which is why there is still no activity on the 1 Lansdowne Road site or the old Job Centre site, as Jim Bush has already commented. Indeed, from memory, consent was granted for a further flats development in front of the Vita Apartments – a mirror image of that existing building – but again there is no activity on that site either. It will be interesting to see whether a new Mayor can bring about a regeneration of Croydon and the kickstarting of developments like these. The current Mayor seems unwilling even to use powers granted to him to bring empty shops back into use using the new High Street Rental Auctions legislation.
Many thanks for this and other insights, David.
The matter of the studio theatre is another grubby example of council incompetence.
Stanhope-Schroder put up a couple of million for the purpose (perhaps to be built within one of their buildings).
The then Tory council opted to allocate the cash for a studio space in the Fairfield Halls, which was never delivered. Jason Perry was in the council cabinet which made that decision.
Of course, the omnishambles of the Fairfield refurb produced a studio space in the Wreck, but that is sadly underutilised. If only there was some kind of covenant that obliged the resident company to deliver three seasons of performances per year…
Boxpark Croydon are nearly out of cash as they have been cut off from the Croydon Council piggy bank unless Lloyds inject more cash. Might be a blessing in disguise where hopefully the f&b outlets relocate to North End to reinvigorate that dead and dangerous area
You make a good point.
Newman and Negrini, when duped into giving generous grants to what they thought would be an array of boutique fashion outlets, never considered the damage competition from a Boozepark would do to the town centre’s other, established bars, cafes and restaurant businesses.
The current 40% Retail, Hospitality and Leisure Business Rates Relief scheme is set to end on March 31, 2026. It will be interesting to see how this impacts the larger units in the Boxpark. Whilst the government plans to introduce a new, permanently lower business rates system for the retail, hospitality, and leisure sectors from April 2026, I fear that they will end up paying more than they currently do – particularly as the District Valuer’s Office seems to have given the larger units in the Boxpark increased rateable values from April 2026. I worry that a number of the units will become unprofitable and will close.