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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