Paris-based Westfield refuse to comment after Post Office forced to abandon planned move, while developers’ February deadline for planning application draws near. By STEVEN DOWNES
Refuge from the rain: there’s little else to draw in customers to the Whitgift Centre, with its leaking roof
Westfield have plans to redevelop the Whitgift Centre “earlier” than previously believed.
That’s according to the Post Office, who say that they have had to cancel the relocation of their large branch on Croydon High Street as a consequence.
Meanwhile, Westfield, who manage the tenancies of the few remaining businesses based in the shopping mall, have been accused of lying to the press about their treatment of their clients.
Angela Ferrara, who runs Bishops Wine Bar, located close to the old Allders car park, says that she has never had any explanation why the centre’s management has decided to enforce a break in her lease, effectively closing down a business that has operated in Croydon town centre since 1982.
And Ferrara disputes Westfield’s claims that they have offered her alternative premises for when she is forced to close Bishop’s at the end of June.
The Whitgift Centre management “are now stating they have been in touch with us to offer alternatives. This is an outright lie,” Ferrara has posted on social media.
Westfield were quoted in a rambling report in a little-read local newspaper as saying that Bishops “has been offered the opportunity to discuss relocating”.
Westfield, part of Paris-based Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield, has refused to provide any further comment or explanation for the sudden forced exit of Bishop’s Wine Bar and other traders in the Whitgift Centre.
Last year, Whitgift Centre tenants were told by their landlords that no development work or demolition would begin before 2028.
But the apparent acceleration of the clear-out of tenants by Westfield has disrupted the Post Office’s own cost-cutting plans.
As Inside Croydon was first to report last year, after a lip-service public consultation the Post Office wants to close its large branch at 10, High Street, close to the George Street junction. Instead, they wanted to take up space in the re-branded WH Smith in the Whitgift Centre.
Now, that proposal has had to be junked, as Westfield dick around with yet more businesses.
In a brief statement, the Post Office has announced: “The planned move of 10 High Street Post Office in Croydon to the nearby TGJones store at the Whitgift Centre is no longer progressing.
Staying put: Croydon’s Post Office on the High Street is not going anywhere, for the time being, at least
“Regrettably, following further discussions between our retail partner and their landlords…”, meaning TGJones and Westfield, “… there is earlier redevelopment plans for the shopping centre than initially believed.
“Therefore, TGJones has decided not to relocate High Street Post Office branch to its store.”
The decision will be welcomed by the many Post Office customers who objected to the proposal in the original consultation.
The Post Office says that its High Street branch “will continue to operate from its current location… for the time being, and any relocation would be subject to further six-week public consultation”.
For the changeover and relocation, the management of the branch was handed to a third-party, ZCO Ltd. “ZCO will continue to operate the branch,” the Post Office said this week.
None of which explains the “earlier redevelopment plans” for the centre. LCA, the useless PR firm that handles Westfield’s increasingly appalling public relations, refused to provide any explanation this week.
Westfield has been talking up the prospects for a £1billion regeneration of Croydon town centre for for 14 years, without ever delivering on their promises.
Westfield was supposed to submit an updated planning application – their third – by November 2024. Then that date for the presentation of the planning application slipped to November 2025.
Slow motion: after 14 years, all Westfield has delivered is six kiosks. They had previously said they would create seven kiosks in the old Allders building
Westfield’s architects had a “Masterplan Framework” given the council’s seal of approval last February.
That “Masterplan Framework” was supposed to be the start of what Westfield called its “year-long programme of engagement” with residents and businesses.
In fact, all Croydon got was nothing more than a vacuous, style-over-substance website, with little real detail. And certainly nothing resembling a planning application.
The Masterplan Framework agreement required the formal planning application to be submitted to the council by February 2026. The last time Westfield broke planning deadlines in Croydon, they were “fined” £6million – though their chum Mayor Jason Perry allowed them to use that money to open up a few kiosks where the Allders department store used to be.
Aided and abetted by piss-poor Perry, the Allders kiosks look like an elaborate gas-lighting of the whole of Croydon by the developers. For every single “kiosk” Westfield managed to open in the shell of the old Allders building, nearly five other stores quit the Whitgift Centre in 2025.
Sources on Katharine Street now say that they do not expect any new planning application from Westfield until the early summer, at the earliest, and certainly not before the local elections in May, as Inside Croydon reported last October.
Information-free zone: Westfield’s vacuous, style-over-substance website has no indication when they will submit a planning application
Such delays, and developers’ stubborn refusal to comment, only fuels speculation that Westfield have completely lost interest in any Croydon development, or there is not enough public subsidy available to them for their 3,000 flats proposal. Or a bit of both.
In July last year, Property Week magazine reported that URW’s own investor report said that the Croydon site is “being considered for ‘co-development or future disposal’.” A URW scheme in Hamburg had leapfrogged Croydon in their list of priorities.
Meanwhile, exercising break clauses with long-standing tenants and stopping others from entering partnerships with the likes of the Post Office begins to look like an effort to clear out the Whitgift Centre before flogging off the leasehold over to another developer.
Read more: Perry’s council endorses scheme for 3,000 flats in town centre
Read more: Backlash against Westfield over forced closure of Bishops bar
Read more: The MP hidden away on third floor of a deserted shopping mall
Read more: Another Whitgift store to close – and manager blames Westfield
PAID ADS: To advertise your services or products to our 10,000 weekday visitors to the site, as featured on Google News Showcase, email us inside.croydon@btinternet.com for our unbeatable ad rates
- If you have a news story about life in or around Croydon, or want to publicise your residents’ association or business, or if you have a local event to promote, please email us with full details at inside.croydon@btinternet.com
As featured on Google News Showcase
- Our comments section on every report provides all readers with an immediate “right of reply” on all our content. Our comments policy can be read by clicking here
Inside Croydon is a founder member of the Independent Community News Network
I’m sure they are just trying to cut their losses and dispose of the Whitgift/Allders site, possibly in two transactions.
Emptying the Allders end first (easily closing the pop-up kiosks run by existing Westfield tenants on a temporary basis), provides vacant possession for that end, and once all the other tenants have been evicted the former Home Office blocks and Whitgift Centre site can be disposed of.
Can anyone explain how the Council has allowed things to deteriorate this far? There must have been money involved as nobody could have been stupid enough to let this happen otherwise.
The scaffolding by the George Street side of the Allders building is being removed, and work lights in the former Allders Mall continue to blaze. Something’s afoot