Category Archives: CPO
Westfield consult public for 6th time and deliver more delays
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 … Continue reading
Charity formed last October buys two Old Palace buildings
The Rise School of Excellence has paid £750,000 for two buildings on the site of the former girls’ fee-paying school, as Croydon’s biggest landowners, the Whitgift Foundation, continue to dispose of their properties. By GENE BRODIE, education correspondent The piecemeal … Continue reading
Planning application for Westfield scheme stalled to mid-2026
EXCLUSIVE: ‘”Rome wasn’t built in a day”, but it never took this long’. More broken promises from the Paris-based developers as their housing scheme for the town centre is delayed again. By STEVEN DOWNES Their planning application was supposed to … Continue reading
Old Palace sale completed – for £2.3m less than asking price
A special school operated by Serenity will begin to operate from the historic Old Town site from next month, after the sale was sealed by Croydon’s biggest landowners for £4.7m. By GENE BRODIE, education correspondent The Whitgift Foundation last night … Continue reading
£1,000 per day ‘Interim Adam’ was Kerswell’s personal pick
CROYDON IN CRISIS: Residents are stung twice for recruitment costs of head of planning, at a crucial time for Westfield development and review of London and Local Plans. EXCLUSIVE by STEVEN DOWNES Adam Wilkinson was handed the position as Croydon’s … Continue reading
Crisis for Perry as Interim Adam resigns council planning job
KERSWELL’S CHAOTIC COUNCIL: A journeyman council director notorious for charging fees of £1,000 per day and taking massive pay-offs has quit as Croydon’s head of planning, following an investigation by this website. EXCLUSIVE by STEVEN DOWNES Adam Wilkinson, the journeyman … Continue reading
Interim Adam gets council job as HMRC winds up his company
CROYDON IN CRISIS: The council’s most recently appointed planning director was given the role while a company where he was sole director was being wound up in the High Court, an iC investigation has found. EXCLUSIVE by KEN LEE, Town … Continue reading
£1,000 per day ‘Interim Adam’ lands Croydon planning job
CROYDON IN CRISIS: The council has made no announcement about who has taken over the borough’s top planning job, but this website has discovered that Heather Cheesbrough’s stand-in replacement is an ‘interim specialist’ who has pocketed more than £500,000 in … Continue reading
Foundation sells Old Palace site to Serenity special schools
CROYDON IN CRISIS: Old Palace girls’ school closes in July, with the owners having sold the site, but for less than the £7m guide price. EXCLUSIVE By STEVEN DOWNES The Old Palace private girls’ school site will likely become home to … Continue reading
Negrini enjoys her centre stage return pitching for Mayor Khan
Like Banquo’s ghost, Jo Negrini has returned to haunt Croydon after her latest jaunt to the south of France for the annual “booze and hooker fest” – or prestigious international property conference – that is MIPIM. When “Negreedy” was the … Continue reading
Ex-planning chief’s rose-tinted view of Croydon developments
It appears that Heather Cheesbrough, Croydon Council’s former “director of planning and sustainable regeneration”, has been busy trying to rewrite history since leaving her £130,000-plus job earlier this month. An internal council memo gave the reason for Cheesbrough’s departure as … Continue reading
Council planning chief Cheesbrough set to take ‘career break’
EXCLUSIVE: After nearly a decade in charge of Croydon’s planning department, one of Jo Negrini’s closest colleagues is to leave Fisher’s Folly. By our Town Hall correspondent, KEN LEE Heather Cheesbrough, Croydon Council’s “director of planning and sustainable regeneration” (try … Continue reading
Foundation sets £7m price tag on Old Palace’s listed buildings
CROYDON IN CRISIS: The Whitgift Foundation, the borough’s biggest landowner, is now flogging off the Tudor palace home of the charity’s founder. It might not be an ‘easy’ sale. By STEVEN DOWNES “For sale with vacant possession”. The estate agent’s … Continue reading
Waiting for Westfield leaves us Urban Room for improvement
With not a moment to lose, KEN TOWL dashed down to the Whitgift Centre to try to discover what the multi-national developers might have in store for the town centre, amid their models made of cereal packets and design briefs … Continue reading
Westfield wants to build five times as many flats in town centre
CROYDON IN CRISIS: The one-time shopping mall developer is shapeshifting its business towards residential property, but appears in no hurry to action any of its promises after more than a decade of blight to North End. By our housing correspondent, … Continue reading
Westfield appoints firm that oversaw King’s Cross scheme
Westfield has today begun what they call “a year-long programme of engagement”, before the Paris-based shopping mall developers finally put together a planning application, by our reckoning the third, for what was once a £1.4billion regeneration scheme in Croydon town … Continue reading
Westfield reveal consultation and more delays on ‘masterplan’
CROYDON IN CRISIS: After being crushed by developer blight for more than a decade, the town centre faces an even longer wait for the big reveal of Paris-based multi-national’s latest proposals. By STEVEN DOWNES It could be more than a … Continue reading
Builders brand Gove’s latest CPO reforms as ‘desperation’
Our housing correspondent, BARRATT HOLMES, on how a ‘very un-Conservative’ policy shift has probably come too late to save Croydon town centre New powers handed to local authorities by the Conservative Government could, just, open the way for Croydon Council … Continue reading
What will the ‘new’ Westfield deal really mean for Croydon?
STEVEN DOWNES outlines some of the likely consequences of this week’s announcement that Paris-based Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield have bought out their former partners Hammerson for the redevelopment of the town centre In all the flurry of civic excitement over the announcement that … Continue reading
Westfield seals deal to buy Hammerson out of town centre
Westfield’s parent company has this afternoon confirmed that they have bought out Hammerson, the owners of the Centrale shopping centre, from their half-share of the Croydon Partnership, the joint venture which has inflicted a decade’s worth of development blight on … Continue reading
Westfield non-developers facing £5m fine for failed supermall
CROYDON IN CRISIS: Council concedes it is virtually powerless over land-owners and developers for long-delayed regeneration scheme, as influential scrutiny chair admits her committee is not convinced things will change. EXCLUSIVE by STEVEN DOWNES The company formed 10 years ago … Continue reading
£81,000 part-time Mayor takes on yet another directorship
Almost three months since he was appointed to the board of the town centre’s Business Improvement District, creating ‘clear conflicts of interests’, Jason Perry’s declarations have yet to be updated by the council. By KEN LEE, our Town Hall reporter … Continue reading
Mayor Perry has ‘second thoughts’ about investing in Croydon
‘Things are going to get worse before they get better,’ said the borough’s £81,000 per year part-time Mayor last week, as he begins to find his Town Hall task a bit of a struggle, reports WALTER CRONXITE, political editor Jason … Continue reading
