Derelict site: the Good Companions was bought for £2m and demolished in 2013. The hoardings have been up around the site of the former pub ever since
Even Croydon’s planners have joined the chorus of disapproval from residents in Sanderstead, Tandridge and Warlingham over the ‘disjointed and generic’ proposals for the Good Companions site at Hamsey Green, reports housing correspondent, BARRATT HOLMES
There is a planning saga in Croydon that has been going on for longer than Westfield, but there could be a decision before the end of February for a supermarket development on the site of the former Good Companions pub at Hamsey Green.
German supermarket chain Lidl has been trying to get consent to add Warlingham to their list of sites across the country. But they have been rejected at every turn.
Objections regarding increased traffic passing two local schools, the proposals being “out of character” with the area, changes to the Local Plan and the fate of protected bats on the site have all played their part at some point.
The saga has been dragging on for so long now, some locals have become convinced that the site is cursed, a result of the double murder outside the pub in 2002…
The Good Companions closed in 2012 and was demolished with unseemly haste. Lidl acquired the site for £2million. The hoardings have been up ever since.
The first planning application was rejected by Croydon in 2013 – a time when Jason Perry was a mere cabinet member responsible for development matters in the borough – after the then deputy leader of the Tory-controlled council, Sanderstead councillor Tim Pollard, expressed “deep concerns” about the proposals, in particular the impact on traffic at the junction between Limpsfield Road and Tithepit Shaw Lane.
Lidl towers: even Croydon Council’s usually pusillanimous planners have criticised the design of the Lidl supermarket and housing as ‘disjointed and generic’
An appeal against that decision was rejected in 2014, with traffic issues and problems for delivery vehicles accessing the junction site both raised.
By 2016, Lidl had gone out and bought two semi-detached houses, 247 and 249 Tithepit Shaw Lane, on the opposite side of the road from the pub site, in an effort to resolve any concerns about delivery lorries turning into their parking bay.
A scheme which would have had a supermarket on the ground floor, a large car park outside and four flats on the first floor of the build was also turned down. The building – a massive Lidl shed, more in keeping with an industrial estate – was deemed to be “out of character” with the residential semis and Hamsey Green’s mock-Tudor parade of shops.
Further proposals, one involving a supermarket and 20 flats in 2020, and then one in 2022 providing a supermarket and eight flats, both came to nothing.
Lidl had by now become well and truly trapped in the nightmare that is the planning system.
Croydon’s Local Plan was changed in 2018 from the previous requirement of the site providing between eight and 24 flats, to the expectation that the site would now be residential only, cramming in 41 housing units. Which is not much use for a supermarket chain that had spent millions on buying the site.
But if previous proposals were dismissed as “out of character”, wait until the locals of Sanderstead and Tandridge get an eye-full of the chunky four-storey monster that has been brought forward for this county boundary site.
With the supermarket now proposed to be at ground level, it comes with 13 dwellings, including flats above the store, varying from two-bedroom duplexes (that’s a two-storey flat, what used to be called a maisonette), to three-bedroom flats, plus five three-storey townhouses fronting Tithepit Shaw Lane.
At least four of the homes will be “affordable” housing – so more than the 30% requirement of local planning rules.
Tight fit: the junction at Limpsfield Road presents significant concerns for the traffic going to the supermarket
They’ve also stuck some “amenity space” on the roof of the supermarket, too, which is nice.
This time, as if determined not to get fobbed off again, the developers have gone into a huddle with Croydon’s planning department and asked for their advice in a pre-application consultation. They’ve done the pre-app not just once, but twice – in 2021 and again last year.
There was a public consultation, too, earlier this year. Whether that had any influence at all on the final submitted scheme seems unlikely. Those that saw the plans described it as “a disaster”.
One comment on social media said: “We do not need another supermarket. It really is a case of oversupply and the design Lidl want to install is a case of overdevelopment of the plot.”
The developers also paid for their work to be given the once-over by Croydon Council’s Design Review Panel, the assembly of architecture and design sages who command top-dollar for their time and expertise. According to the council’s planning officials, that did not go well…
“The site is a highly visible and prominent location,” council planner Yvette Ralston said in the latest pre-app letter to the developers’ agents.
“It is therefore of critical importance that the proposal responds positively to the local character and streetscene… Coherent and robust design principles guiding the development have still not been established, which results in a building [which has an] appearance [that is] disjointed and generic.”
The proposal has to go through two sets of local planners.
The boundary between Croydon and Tandridge District Council is immediately south of Tithepit Shaw Lane, which means Surrey County Council is the highways authority for that road, looking out for road safety concerns around Warlingham Secondary and Hamsey Green Primary.
Supermarket traffic will enter on Limpsfield Road and exit on Tithepit Shaw Lane. The proposal has fewer car parking bays, 55, than previous schemes, plus 10 spaces for the residents of Lidl Towers, as the building may yet become known.
The application appeared on the council planning portal at the end of November. Twice as many people have so far lodged objections to the proposals than have written in support.
- The Croydon application can be found here: https://publicaccess3.croydon.gov.uk/online-applications/applicationDetails.do?activeTab=summary&keyVal=T5MCBGJLMEH00
- The Tandridge documents are here: https://tdcplanningsearch.tandridge.gov.uk/#dvRecsFound (Application reference: 2025/1271)
A decision deadline has been given of February 24, 2026.
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I think the Croydon/London & Surrey boundary runs down the centre-line of the first straight of Tithepit Shaw Lane from Limpsfield Road, so the schools and the houses on the south-side of the road are in Surrey (Tandridge). Perhaps Surrey County Council (Tandridge is not a highway authority) is the highway authority for the whole of Tithepit Shaw Lane as most of the road from the first corner and down to Whyteleafe is in Surrey(?). But the houses on the north side of that first straight in Tithepit Shaw Lane AND the Good Companions site are all in Croydon (which is why Croydon is dealing with Lidl’s umpteen planning apps).
This is a bit of a dog’s breakfast but it isn’t the most lengthy planning disaster in Croydon South constituency – I believe the hoardings in front of the old garage next to Aldi in Selsdon have been up for 20+ years. Is there any coincidence that these nonsenses exist with in the wards of Conservative Councillors who seem to have no levers to pull when it comes to influencing the street scene of their largely Conservative voting residents? And for that matter, what value can we put on the local MP, whose local input is mostly to stir up NIMBY sentiments in order to shore up his Party’s diminishing voter base.
Is the criticism ‘disjointed and generic’ what Croydon residents normally call the council’s planners? I would add one further word to this: ‘useless’.
If Croydon Planners cannot steer a simple supermarket and housingbthrough the process with a satisfactory outcome, we see how truly hopeless these planners are.
Mediocre planners in a department without a permanent head, in a council without a leader.
Good grief! All the latest planning applications are ‘generic’ and many look disjointed to me. Why pick on Lidl?
You have a point, Chris.
There was never a peep from the planners, or the planning committee, when Brick by Brick’s wannabe architects and the expensively hired-in firms produced similarly crap designs for buildings.
The issue with this scheme above all else is the site, and that junction with Limpsfield Road. The volume of traffic that the supermarket will be sending down a road on which there are two schools, and likely congestion at the junction, ought to have made the purchase of the site a no-no for a supermarket from the beginning.
I remember going to a roads consultation by Surrey at the primary school in Hamsey Green circa 25 years ago. I think the Tandridge officers who were running the exhibition and answering questions called for backup, because it looked like two oppsing groups of residents were going to start fighting. One group was from Tithepit Shaw Lane, and they wanted that road closed at the junction with Wentworth Way, making their road very quiet and forcing all traffic along the Wentworth Way rat-run. The other group were residents from Wentworth Way, who wanted that road closed at the junction with Tithepit Shaw Lane, removing traffic from the Wentworth Way rat-run and forcing it all along Tithepit Shaw Lane. I had a quick look at the exhibition and cycled back to Selsdon to leave the opposing factions of local residents to their disagreements.