Development blight: Chinese property firm R&F’s stalled £500m scheme at St George’s Walk, including the Nestlé Tower, has been a drag on the town centre for six years
Labour’s candidate for Croydon Mayor, Rowenna Davis, says that if elected in May she will look to issue a Compulsory Purchase Order on the long-derelict building site opposite the Town Hall.
Such an audacious and ambitious purchase might cost between £150million and £200million of public money, but it could finally offer the prospect of ending a development stalemate that has blighted Croydon town centre for years, stretching back to the last century.
The St George’s Walk site, including the Nestlé Tower which appears in its glowing former glory as a channel ident on ITV most days, was bought by Chinese firm R&F Properties in 2017 for £60million.
They got planning permission for a £500million scheme that included 290 flats in one of Croydon’s landmark office blocks, and a further 800 homes on what they called “The Queen’s Quarter”, on the opposite side of Katharine Street from the Town Hall and Queen’s Gardens.
Work began on site in 2018, with half of St George’s Walk, its offices and retail area, demolished. The Nestlé Tower was almost entirely surrounded by scaffolding. But work came to a shuddering halt in 2020, initially because of covid, but never resumed, as Hong Kong-listed R&F Properties ran into worse financial problems, even, than Croydon Council.
Picture perfect: the ITV channel ident features the Nestlé Tower, but does not show the dereliction to the landmark building, which has been empty for 15 years
R&F’s debts were estimated at one point at £32billion, as the Chinese property sector took a covid hit.
The Beijing government stepped in, forcing R&F to sell off some of its speculative developments, including Vauxhall Square in London. But its Croydon properties, which also include the heritage building Segas House, remain on the distressed company’s books.
“Now all we can see is a hole where our heart should be,” Davis says in a social media video released today showing her taking a bus trip through Croydon’s derelict town centre.
“People first – not profit first,” Davis told Inside Croydon.
Davis, who has been a councillor for Waddon ward since 2022, believes that only the compulsory purchase of the site by the public sector will end part of a development log-jam which has blighted Croydon all this century.
Top deck: Labour councillor Rowenna Davis in her latest campaign video
The 5.5 acre St George’s Walk site is just a short walk from the vacant Allders building and the badly run-down Whitgift Centre. This part of Croydon’s retail centre has been in its own state of limbo for 15 years, caused by Australian-, now French-owned, developers.
St George’s Walk, originally a mix of office and retail that was built in the 1960s, has been at the centre of unfulfilled promises from developers for more than 20 years, when its owners were Minerva.
In the end, all Minerva managed to do was pocket a juicy £50million profit on the sale of the land to the Chinese.
Today, Davis told Inside Croydon: “Leaving buildings in the heart of our town derelict and abandoned for years is not a ‘neutral’ private decision by developers.
“It has real consequences for all of us. It deters investment, makes people feel unsafe and stops people coming into the town centre.
“Compulsory purchase orders are a last resort. But they should be an option.
“Councils need stronger CPO powers to be able to transfer the ownership of sites like these to developers who will actually bring new homes, jobs and workspaces to our town.
“Recent legislation means that land can be bought back on the basis of ‘existing use’ price, rather than an inflated value based on speculative future development. That is a good start.
“The council obviously doesn’t have the money to buy these sites, but we should be able to transfer the land to those who will get the job done.”
Chinese takeaway: there are hopes that improved relations with China after PM Starmer’s meeting with Xi Jinping in Beijing could help resolve Croydon’s stalemate
And with her close contacts inside Downing Street, Davis suggests that she will be lobbying Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer once he returns from his trade mission to China.
“The council’s Conservative Mayor thinks a couple of publicly subsidised shops in the front of the old Allders building is enough for Croydon. It is progress, but our town needs so much more.
“We need a Mayor with the courage to go after the gaping holes in our community like the carcass of a Nestlé building I pass every day.
“I’m not afraid to do that. People first – not profit first.”
The local elections, including voting for an executive Mayor of Croydon, are on May 7.
Read more: Nestlé Tower’s fate could lie with Hong Kong liquidation case
Read more: Hong Kong finance crisis could hit £500m Nestlé Tower scheme
Read more: Davis’s big launch might have been good, if only I could hear it
Read more: Labour’s Davis tells minister Reed to fund Croydon fairly
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