Red sky in the morning, shepherd’s warning: one of the latest batch of CGIs distributed to promote a ‘weather-dependent’ Westfield consultation today, for a redevelopment scheme where since 2012 only six ‘kiosks’ have been opened. Not the scale of the tower block to the left, dwarfing the ‘iconic’ Allders building
Paris-based multi-bilion developers URW today begin another public consultation over the future of the town centre – Consultation No6 – which means that their latest planning application, already two years late, won’t see the light of day until long after May’s local elections. By STEVEN DOWNES
And here we go again, with another “public consultation” (meaning lip-service exercise) over the future of Croydon town centre.
This latest (“weather dependent”) consultation begins this afternoon on North End, as Westfield once again goes through the motions of pretending that the views of Croydon residents count for anything to them, after 14 years of multi-million-pound broken promises and the now constant development blight where there was once a thriving town centre.
By Inside Croydon’s rough reckonings, this March 2026 consultation will be the sixth public exercise staged over the future of the town centre in 14 years, after Aussie developers Westfield hijacked Hammerson’s original scheme and with landowners the Whitgift Foundation cobbled together what was initially a £1billion proposal for a shopping mall and around 600 flats.
Croydon residents embraced those plans and, for four or five years, actually believed that there was real intent behind them. They even went along with having Westfield-approved Jo Negrini as their local council’s chief executive, with spectacular results (though not in a good way).
Somewhere in Scandinavia there stands today a bare mountainside where there was once a forest, which has over the last 16 years given up all its trees to make the paper that has been used in printing the consultation documents and the resulting, never-consumated, plans for Croydon. Some scientists working for the UN reckon that such paper production and use may have contributed around 0.1% to global warming since 2010*…
It’s not as if URW, for Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield, as they are now known, even pretend that they really want to engage with the public. Their expensively hired, West End-based public relations firm (at least the third they have used to publicise and promote their work or to manage consultations since Westfield arrived in Croydon) only got round to distributing press releases about the consultation this morning, with their first session just a few hours away.
Building blocks: some of the materials distributed on behalf of URW come without any labels or captions. Is this, for instance, with at least nine tower blocks, what the developers are proposing for the future of North End?
So don’t be surprised, if you bother to turn up on North End this afternoon, if you’re the only one there. Perhaps that’s the way Westfield would prefer things.
What this all means, and what is left unsaid by the multi-billion, Paris-based business behind the scheme, is that the formal planning application which was supposed to have been submitted in late 2024, and which was then postponed until November 2025, now definitely won’t be seeing the light of day until later in 2026 – all far too late for failed Mayor Jason Perry to claim it as another of his bogus achievements.
URW call this “the next round of public consultation”. Being on-brand, this is now called “The Croydon Project”, which they say is a “vision to regenerate Croydon town centre and strengthen its role as a key destination in south London”.
We report the words that they have distributed today without further comment. Loyal readers will have seen it all before (at least five times in some cases), and can decide for themselves whether the blandishments offered now are in any way credible:
More promises: Adam Smith is the latest Westfield exec with the latest set of promises
“The Croydon Project will transform the Whitgift Centre, Centrale and the iconic Allders building alongside surrounding areas on North End, into a vibrant mixed-use destination with new homes, public spaces, shops, restaurants and leisure uses.”
It is more than a year now since Mayor Perry’s planning committee meekly rubber-stamped Wesfield’s town centre Masterplan Framework, effectively ceding some degree of planning oversight to the developers, for them to do as they think best (for themselves, obviously).
Perry, Croydon’s part-time Mayor and full-time cheerleader for big business and property developers, described it as “a significant milestone”.
Other elected councillors, members of the planning committee, were less convinced. After following the the decade-long saga of non-development, one described the proposal to build 3,000 flats and a few shops as “underwhelming”. Another criticised the outline plans for turning Croydon into a “dormitory town”, and for a lack of detail, the absence of any worthwhile new jobs and no promises of public infrastructure.
Not that that has made any difference to Westfield’s posturing today. “The evolving masterplan outlines how Croydon town centre could be transformed into a modern mixed-use destination, combining new homes with a stronger retail, leisure and cultural offer that keeps the town centre active throughout the day and evening.”
As part of the proposals, the project aims to deliver:
- Around 2,500–3,000 new homes in the town centre
- New public spaces, including a major public square on the Whitgift site
- A refreshed and modernised Centrale shopping centre
- The revitalisation of the historic Allders building
- A diverse mix of shops, cafés, restaurants, leisure and cultural venues
- Improved routes and connectivity through the town centre
So, in short, lots of flats. Westfield claim that their “latest proposals also respond directly to feedback received during earlier consultations”. All five of them?
As part of the consultation, Westfield are staging “a series of pop-up events across Croydon where local people can learn more about the proposals and share their views directly with the team”. Interestingly, this time round they are taking their roadshows on the road, to other parts of Croydon – perhaps areas where the blight caused by 14 years of the developers’ malign influence is not so obvious.
Westfield say that the events are “weather dependent”, and will take place on:
Today, 3pm to 6pm at 60–68 North End, CR10 1UJ
Tomorrow, Mar 13, 10am to 1pm – New Addington Market, CR0 0JD
Tue Mar 17, 2pm to 6pm – Norwood High Street and Norwood Junction Station
Thu Mar 19, 11am to 2pm – Surrey Street Market, CR0 1RJ
Westfield is claiming that “progress is already underway on the project”, citing the six kiosks they opened where the Allders department store used to be (before they ordered Croydon Council to clear it of the bazaar traders who were operating in the building). Five times as many businesses moved out of the Whitgift Centre in 2025 as the number of kiosks that were opened.
The six kiosks were paid for out of a £6million fine, raised by the planning authority, Croydon Council, against Westfield for their failure to deliver on one of their earlier, approved, planning applications.
Empty space: Westfield like to emphasise the ‘new public square’, positioned at the foot of their residential towers (no heights or storeys are given) in their CGIs
“The Croydon Project aims to reimagine Croydon town centre and restore its role as the economic and creative capital of south London,” according to Adam Smith, the latest exec to be appointed to front up the Croydon non-development.
“Our ambition is to create a thriving mixed-use destination with new homes, public spaces and a vibrant mix of retail, leisure and cultural activity that reflects Croydon’s energy and creativity.”
Smith’s official comment also includes the phrase “long-term regeneration”, which translates as this whole scheme could be another 10 years, at least, before it is completed. If it ever begins.
Smith said: “This long-term regeneration will bring new life and investment to the heart of the town centre. Community feedback will remain central, with this next round of consultation giving local people the chance to help shape the evolving masterplan.”
Just as they were told their feedback in five previous consultations would shape the developments that never ever started.
For those who have to work for a living and so are not able to attend any of Westfield’s patronising pop-ups, the proposals can be seen online at TheCroydonProject.co.uk.
* Some of the facts in this paragraph may be made up. It is not April 1 yet, but anything claiming to offer the public a say in the development of Croydon town centre inevitably leads us towards thoughts of “All Fools’ Day”.
Read more: Planning application for Westfield scheme stalled to mid-2026
Read more: Westfield reveal consultation and more delays on ‘masterplan’
Read more: Perry allows Westfield to spend £6m ‘fine’ on own interests
Read more: Westfield boss says Croydon scheme could take 15 more years
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ROTTEN BOROUGH AWARDS: In January 2026, Croydon was named among the country’s rottenest boroughs for an EIGHTH time in nine years, in Private Eye magazine’s annual round-up of civic cock-ups
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This is an on going Lego game with alterations as you go along I must admit plastic bricks seem to work better the passing go sign you at least should have a pkt of smith’s crips wrong flavour with a bitter taste I bit like peri peri Sauce.
I don’t think this is right for Croydon
Why are they even bothering with a sham consultation process a few weeks before elections in Croydon? Surely they would be better off waiting until they see whether the next mayor and bunch of councillors are as lame as the outgoing failed Mayor?
Or perhaps it doesn’t matter as Croydon Council have no control over their future, and the council puppets dance to the tune of the faceless Government Inspectors (bureaucrats), who seem to do nothing except cost more money that Croydon can’t afford to pay them?
It kinda fits in with Perry’s false narrative that “something” is happening – that might also explain taking the fake consultation to New Addington and Norwood Junction.
But are they really kidding anyone other than the terminally gullible?
Poor London
flat price performance will create challenges for financing the development.
I genuinely don’t understand why they are bothering to pretend anything is happening, not a single person (other than Perry) believe this nonsense.
The embarrassing thing that the council spent millions of our money on a crossing to the doors of the Whitgift, I can only imagine this was to please URW somehow. Only for them to repay us with further delays…
The people of Croydon deserve so much better than this, I’m amazed there aren’t protests against this sham of a company
I would have moved the bus garage on the Whitgift centre site and built apartment homes on the bus garage site to blend with the rest of buildings in Dingwall road and then the offices nearside that are empty convert in to homeless box apartments and health well being centre.
From centrale shopping center I would have a walk over link up above and replicate and pedestrianize below and one way road system less pollution just a idea?
Problem with that, Michael, is that Westfield/Whitgift don’t own the bus garage.
Let it never be forgotten that these were the Scrooges who banned Croydon Male Voice Choir from conducting its Christmas charity sings at the centre. Plus a shout-out to the St Nicholas Centre in Sutton, who welcomed the choir with open arms last December, and have already asked the choir which dates it would like to reserve for its Christmas 2026 charity appearances.
Why can’t Perry just tell URW that Planning Permission will be withdrawn, and find another developer? We might have had some respect for him if he had done this years ago, but now he just looks like a gullible fool who has killed off our town centre by doing nothing and giving in to URW. Croydon should have nothing more to do with URW, who appear to want nothing more to do with Croydon.
There has not been a current/live planning application on the site for around five years, so “withdrawing” is not an option. Not that that is ever an option for a planning authority.
And the council does not own the site, so it is not theirs to award to another developer.
But yes, there is a sense of Stockholm Syndrome, with the Whitgift Foundation, who do own the site, “captured” by the developers.
This is the wholesale failure of the private sector model of development and yet they do not bear the risk of the accruing financial losses. The Whitgift Foundation must rue the day they ever took the advice of Gavin Barwell to follow his expanded development route as their whole financial basis faces the consequent risk of long term failure. What other parts of the Whitgift activities will have to be terminated?
The time wasting by the developers to maximise their returns after the local authority has bent over backwards to facilitate them and the surrounding area faces another decade of blight and decline as a consequence with the negative effects falling on the declining Council finances. It demonstrates that trusting the Private Sector does not mean the best result for the Public interest and this over grandiose project should have been broken up a decade ago.
There is no mechanism to make Westfield move and it shows why the public interest can only be served with some procedural counterveiling power to prevent this perpetual blighting happening all over again as it has continually done over the last few decades.
So we can’t trust the private sector Derek? We certainly can’t trust the ‘public sector’, in the amoeba-like shapes of the failed Conservative and Labour administrations. So, is there ANYONE we can trust? I’m running out of ideas …
When you remove the element of risk from the Private Sector and transfer it into the public and voluntary sector it really isn’t private risk taking capitalism anymore is it Chris, but some form of lets impolitely say model of extortion. Your caricature of the situation has you winning both ways, but the fact is this was a development initiated by the Whitgift Foundation with co-operation from the Council to economically redevelop the central Croydon area to the apparent benefit of all it’s citizens and the benefit of the Whitgift Foundation by a Private Profit making Company. Currently there is no chance of this occurring for at least another decade. It’s not a matter of trust and gushing emotions anymore, but of action.
Imagine if the people running the Council after May were foolish enough to go for a plan like this. Just a bunch of generic tower blocks. How does this turn Croydon town centre into a place that people want to go out of their way to visit? If the plan is to add essentially the best part of over 6000 people to the area (plus thousands of others elsewhere), how is straining infrastructure going to be improved? Sure, let’s wait over a decade for this pile of crap to be built. OK, the last generation of politicians created a housing crisis, that doesn’t justify approving this.
“Hey ChatGPT, please draw a hyper-optimistic, saccharine urban fantasy where everyone inexplicably enjoys a sanitized public square. Cramp a few overly geometric, multi-coloured apartment blocks and towers together, making sure they look both modern and vaguely European-ish. Scatter impossibly cheerful tiny trees, some random artificial greenery on balconies, and a variety of people who all have perfect posture and are engaged in either table tennis, giant chess, or lounging on strangely clean beanbags. Add lots of pastel umbrellas and string lights to signal fun, culture, and inclusivity. Make it feel like nobody actually lives here yet it’s bustling with perfectly diverse, socially responsible, Instagram-ready citizens, all under a sky that has no pollution and only soft clouds. Emphasise the illusion of community and vibrancy while everyone is basically staged.”
Yeah. That’s about the strength of it. Well done
Thank you. To be fair, my description was just as AI generated as the image it was describing.
They’ve just had a data breach so maybe they lost the results from the first 5 consultations! Good to see the Council engaging a partner that’s er.. as safe as microflats
Data breach! I got an email from them saying as much but it seemed to have something to do with their ‘loyalty programme’. No idea I was on their dodgy database. Are they planning something in my back garden?
Don’t panic, Chris. If Westfield have plans for your back garden, it will never get built…
Would someone also do something with that open building site which is St George’s Walk & Nestle building as well? How can a 250,000 sq ft site just be left there in a London town centre? I keep dreaming that the council would get a company like AEG or Live Nation to build an Entertainment Venue for 8,000 there, it’s got to be better than selling the land to a CHINESE Developer that went bankrupt! Our council politicians no matter which party, are absolutely useless.
Don’t you read, or listen to, Inside Croydon, Matthew?
https://insidecroydon.com/2026/02/12/daviss-valentines-message-ill-mend-croydons-broken-heart/
https://insidecroydon.com/2026/01/29/labours-davis-looks-to-cpo-the-hole-in-the-heart-of-croydon/