After more than 15 years of non-development, Paris-based developers are seriously considering building a data centre close to the town centre’s conservation area, as they crank up plans for 45-storey tower blocks.
By STEVEN DOWNES
High rise: URW has never got any closer to regenerating the town centre than issuing new GGIs
Fifteen years after Westfield first appeared in Croydon offering a £1billion fantasy of a glitzy new shopping mall with a few hundred homes, the now Paris-based multinational wants to build up to 4,000 flats and an energy-guzzling data centre on the site of the Whitgift Centre.
That’s four times as many flats as Westfield were granted permission for in 2018, as the shopping mall specialists have increasingly moved away from developing shopping malls.
The exact figures for the proposed number of new homes, mostly in tower blocks of up to 45 storeys along the Wellesley Road, have yet to be confirmed because the company’s latest planning application won’t see the light of day until “early 2027” – almost three years later than Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield promised.
What ought to alarm existing residents and businesses in the town centre, after having endured more than a decade of development blight and the hollowing-out of most of the shops from the old Whitgift Centre, is the inclusion in the developers’ outline proposals of potential for a data centre.
Data centres are built to house computer systems, servers and networking equipment that store, process and distribute digital information in the AI age. They are controversial in residential areas because of the constant noise generated by the centres’ cooling fans, leading to residents living nearby reporting chronic sleep deprivation.
Data centres’ low-frequency hum or vibrations can be heard up to one mile away, though the sound can sometimes travel twice as far under some conditions.
Data centres also consume massive amounts of water for cooling – as much as 5million gallons a day – putting domestic supplies under severe strain.
They also cause similar stresses for the local power grid, which can drive up electricity rates for nearby households.
What developers URW are calling “The Croydon Project” (“A bold, long-term vision to restore Croydon as the economic and creative capital of south London,” according to the very people who have done much to bring Croydon to its knees) begins a public consultation from October 8.
This will be the seventh time that Westfield or URW have “consulted” the Croydon public over their plans for Croydon. None of the previous six, the most recent held in March this year, have resulted in a single brick being laid or wall demolished. Although as landlords, Westfield have been undertaking a thorough job of driving out long-standing tenants from the Whitgift Centre.
Previous Westfield predictions, in 2023, that the regeneration scheme could take as long as 15 years are now beginning to look ludicrously optimistic.
From this…
… to this: how the latest URW plans appear, with skyscrapers of up to 45 storeys. And, somewhere, humming all day and all night, a data centre
As Inside Croydon was first to report, URW bought the Whitgift Centre freehold from the Whitgift Foundation in July in a £31.5million deal.
That deal meant that URW has acquired the majority of Croydon town centre for little more than £100million – a cut-price bargain considering that Hammerson had paid close to that amount in 2011 just for the Centrale mall.
In 2023, URW bought out Hammerson’s 50% stake in “The Croydon Partnership” for £70million. The suggestion then was that URW could now plough ahead with their latest scheme. And then… as usual, nothing much happened.
In March this year, they were talking about 2,000 to 3,000 flats, built where the Whitgift Centre now stands. The latest tweaks to that proposal were revealed in a pre-application meeting with the council’s planning committee, where the quantum is now 3,000 to 4,000 flats.
URW told councillors that this version of their plan is financially viable. Which ought to be good news all round, as the developers shouldn’t have any problem delivering 30% affordable housing as required in City Hall’s London Plan, as was their excuse for not pursuing their 2018 scheme, when they were proposing just 1,000 homes.
Viability: URW’s Adam Smith
Sources in the housing industry suggest that multi-million-pound grants from Housing England and the GLA ought to secure one or two blocks of social housing within the scheme overall. as URW focuses on building “luxury apartments” to make their cash.
It is now two years since Tory Mayor Jason Perry’s council gave URW control of their own masterplan framework, effective free rein over how they are to put together the vast regeneration project. Perry, Croydon’s part-time Mayor and full-time cheerleader for big business and property developers, described it then as “a significant milestone”.
Other councillors, members of the planning committee, were less convinced. One described those proposals of thousands of 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.
The latest progress report fails to report much progress. Nor is there much by the way of detail.
Pub hub: The Forum, in the Whitgift Centre, must be rare in having an escalator to the entrance
URW director Adam Smith ruled out including a leisure centre or swimming pool in the development, because of cost. But they will include a patch of green space (“Whitgift Park”) and a concert bowl-style area, with capacity for 2,000, which they have dubbed “The Forum” – perhaps a nod to the old Ind Coope pub that was built within the 1960s shopping centre.
No mention was made of how The Forum might be managed, or funded, nor what impact it might have on existing venues, such as the council-owned Fairfield Halls.
Despite North End still getting footfall of 20million per year – those people not deterred by the Met’s Live Facial Recognition cameras – Smith’s company’s profit margins required greater emphasis on residential rather than retail or commercial development.
The flats would come in four blocks of 30 to 45 storeys along Wellesley Road. Three towers of 15 to 25 storeys would sit towards the centre of the site, stepping down to a 12-storey building and lower-rise blocks to reduce the impact on the conservation area.
“Viability is absolutely critical,” Smith told the committee.
“This the most efficient masterplan we can come up with to make sure it is as viable as possible.”
Red sky in the morning, shepherd’s warning: one of the latest batch of CGIs. Note the scale of the tower block to the left, dwarfing the ‘iconic’ Allders building
Previous iterations of the plan had suggested converting the locally listed Centre Tower, former offices which have been vacant for many years, into low-cost accommodation, perhaps student accommodation. This was held up as an example of environmentally sustainable development.
Those lofty ideals appear likely to be abandoned – “Viability is absolutely crucial”, as the man from the multi-billion corporation had insisted – with Smith saying that while demolition was not confirmed, retaining the tower might not be an option.
As the report to the planning committee states, “The outline proposals are currently for a residential-led mixed-use scheme with open streets and public spaces with a range of uses including in the region of 3,000 to 4,000 new homes, mixed commercial space (including retail, food and beverage, leisure, community, culture and workspace) and potential for wider uses such as education, hotel and micro logistics hub and/or data centre.”
Read more: SOLD! Westfield in £31.5m deal to buy Whitgift Centre freehold
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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If the huge amounts of “water” used by data centres is just for cooling, it doesn’t need to be drinking water (= clean water), so surely the wastelands of Beddington are a better site for a data centre, with power supplied by the Viridor fume-belching incinerator, and water from the Beddington sewage works.?
Ai cooling water is all closed loop. A lot of water is saved actually. I learnt this from the Truman Brewery news
The idea of a town centre data centre seems bizarre. There are plenty of industrial areas around Croydon where such a facility could be sited if it’s really needed.
On the other hand, I may be in a minority, but I love the idea of 45 storey apartment blocks. Tall buildings are one exciting aspect of modern day Croydon. The more, the better!
Adrian, I think the majority of people don’t understand your sardonic humour. Or maybe you really mean it (lol) ?!
Had a conversation about this last week. If URW can’t find any big luxury brands and high end restaurants downstairs to justify the super expensive flats they intend to build…they will struggle to sell any appartments. Building a data centre isn’t a surprise and thought they would announce something like this along with wework style office spaces, but it shows URW’s lack of confudence in the entire residential project. Building a data centre isn’t a bad idea as it may atttract an Anthropic or Openai to establish a secondary outstation in London. Also they will invest large in the area since the average employee there is paid $1.5m a year too.
we live in a world of take take take we need our Croydon to be revitalized not built like coffin blocks don’t worry they get the councils backing as usual let alone do we need 4000 flats its right the home office i wonder?
With a few exceptions, town centres in the UK are dying or already dead, like Croydon.
The reality is there is no demand for retail space but there is a huge demand for accommodation.
As for data centers: Nobody is going to ever build a data center in the heart of Croydon. That is probably just there to grab the attention of investors.
“Nobody is going to ever build a data center in the heart of Croydon”
Besides, the tall buildings planned will diminish solar panel energy output which virtually all data centres use these days. The most sensible thing URW should do is minimize the flat projects before they incur giant losses . They can get away with White City and Coppermaker Square flats because of the universities nearby for rich student accomodation but the same trick will not work for Croydon.
As an idea, they could build a giant underground data centre anchored by a tech giant and above build a giant mall where every thing is powered by solar and the mall is heated from excess heat in the winter. The substantial consistent rent revenue achieved from the data centre/ offices and free energy during winter offset any potential inconsistent retail rent revenue. Just copy the Apple / Battersea PS approach .
It’s a shame the ruins of the Whitgift Centre couldn’t be cleared to allow Trinity School and its playing fields be rebuilt on its site. At least there would be something of a green lung for the people of Croydon for their benefit, better than the desert we now have.
Some may think I am being facetious. Given the way the well-remunerated people have made such a complete mess of the centre of Croydon, my proposal is no worse than any of theirs which have never come to fruition.
While the data centre sounds like the usual case of developers chucking every current ‘growth area’ idea at the site to see what might stick, the specific question of water use isn’t one to worry about here. Data centres in some much hotter, dryer places use evaporative cooling, where cold water is (more or less) poured on to overheated equipment to boil off the heat, and evaporates as big plumes of steam. It can really strain water resources. However that just doesn’t really work in the UK, we have nice cool air (by data centre standards) so generally just use normal refrigeration systems in a closed loop system. Lots of other reasons this seems a daft idea – it’s neither a location right next to businesses who really care about latency, nor a cheapish site with strong power and network access – but water isn’t one of them.
Instead of building flats for a property market on the slide, or fantasising about a data centre or a new shopping centre, neither of which will ever be seen, let’s go for the one big thing that’s guaranteed to be a success. A prison.
Labour plan to build 14,000 “prison places” by 2031, the Conservatives want to see 50,000. There’s nowhere better to do this than slap bang in the middle of the London Borough of Croydon. “HMP Whitgift” has a nice ring to it, don’t you think?
It would create jobs, boost the local economy and help us sleep soundly in our beds, knowing that all the local villains are behind bars
You’re using up our April Fools material in October, Arf.
Local prisons for local people. That would make a good election campaign slogan.
Why not knock down all the the buildings up from the Council Offices to the end of Wellesley road- build a state of the art hospital with everything you need and an infrastructure that can cope for the next 50 years. When this is done knock down Mayday and build flats there. This constant playing with flats/shops is just a joke and waste of time – as can be seen from the last 15 years
I would keep Mayday where it is. Of course it’s an architectural carbuncle but then as the old Workhouse it wasn’t meant to look nice. The main building is however mostly solid brick and functional. I suspect if they built a new hospital with modern building methods like RAAC it would develop concrete cancer or something and fall down within 10 years…. Knowing how things are these days…
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Ah the old let’s put in a totally unacceptable application then when everyone’s used up their outrage on the worst bit we’ll take it we’ll put in one for all the tower blocks anyway strategy.
These days it’s a data centre. Usually it’s a nuclear power station, an abattoir or a waste transfer station.
One of the reasons for putting Power stations by the coast is the thermal efficiency of any heat engine is controlled by the Carnot cycle and therefore the logical solution is to put your power station by a river or the sea as this lowers the effective bottom temperature in the cycle … or something. I imagine this was why Croydon Power Station was down by the river Wandle… Anyway…I imagine similar principles apply to cooling centers and therefore a better place to put one would be by a river… Or the sea… Or … Something…
Croydon as likely to get a new shopping centre as Purley is to get a new pool.
What a glorious revolution our useless tub of lard Mayor has brought to the borough.
“One of Britain’s largest property firms has paused construction at a £3.6bn development in London as it struggles to find buyers for its apartments.British Land, listed on the FTSE 100, will not go ahead with the second phase of construction in Canada Water”
“A billion-pound redevelopment of Lewisham Shopping Centre has been paused because of “exceptionally challenging economic conditions”, according to the centre’s owner.”
Two cancelled residential projects in London this year. URW stop lying to the people of Croydon! They do not want flats …neither does London! They do not deserve more lies and stringalongs from URW. URW does not have sufficient cash flow (€1.2bn) to finish this huge project unless it spends all of it.
I’m a person of London and of Croydon and I very much want more flats. Homelessness is a serious problem. Not just people sleeping on the streets but also in overcrowded households.
More flats mean more council tax for the broke council. They mean more money in the local economy generally. If they enable URW (or anyone else) to build Croydon a decent shopping centre to attract not just local customers but also visitors, then I’m fully in favour.
My issue is the time it is taking to get anything decided. Mayor ppp should be telling URW to get on with the job, or sell out and let someone else have a go.
Adrian. URW have already released a Q3 report stating tenant and footfall revenues up with shopping centre vacancies improving. There is also a ‘Unpacking Data & AI: the Westfield approach’ organised in London at Westfield Stratford City on December 3, 2026. So it looks very much like we will be getting a data centre.
Also ever since Westfield Croydon was announced costs have since doubled. Any more delay will see costs spiral more. Lewisham were set to build 1774 homes and a shopping centre at £1.7bn, so i imagine URW Croydon would cost more with 4000 homes.
Lets buy it back at what URW paid for it in the beginning and make sure we don’t muck it up again at least URW get their money back and muck off for good.