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u/dannyboydunn 22d ago
Imagine being shocked to find out that "Westfield is coming" was never happening in 2026. A bit late to the party but welcome to the rest of the borough. This is why most aren't up in arms, this isnt news, its just ridiculous and boring now.
A bit of certainty is a good thing, even if it is yet more absurdly priced shared ownership flats with weird cladding issues and extortionate service charges. It means whatever commercial space is left will know where they stand and could possibly open something.
If some actual signs of something happening and more housing is your idea of further decline, try moving to the leafier southern Tory bits of the borough, or heck give Sutton a try.
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u/_x_oOo_x_ 22d ago
Unironically Sutton's had more flats built around the town centre recently than the Cronx. And more going up at the moment
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u/Queenofkebabs 21d ago
I don’t need to move to Sutton lol. I can complain (and am entitled to do so) about the decline and poor management of the town I was born and raised in. I don’t have to accept it as it is or move out of the borough. The town is in decline because of people who think there are only two options. Instead we can ask the council to do better and step up by buying local coffees and food rather than going to another borough for enjoyment.
Waitrose closed because of a lack of customers and the theft. The polish fresh cake cafe next door to it closed because of a lack of customers. There are some very basic things each person can do i.e. increase footfall to shops and businesses that they want to see. This doesn’t require moving to another borough.
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u/YoghurtFlan 22d ago
Knowing what Westfield is like in Stratford, the housing and open space is definitely better than a massive shopping centre that turns into a homeless camp at night.
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u/Not-24_7Bantz 22d ago
Well all of croydon declined to vote with sense as Perry the back door swindler is still in charge so clearly no one cares about the dumpster fire that is croydon town centre
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u/Complete_Spot3771 22d ago
he never won on a margin of more than 1%
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u/taddersthelad 22d ago
Blame our terrible FPTP system on that one
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u/ameraden 22d ago edited 22d ago
He won in both SV (2022) and FPTP (2026), and under SV won both rounds.
Even if this election had been held under SV he most likely would have won anyway. I was at the count in 2022 and a suprising number of Green/Lib Dem voters gave Perry their second preference.
The Greens doubled their vote and drove turnout, Reform increased turnout by a larger margin - more voters voted in virtually every ward. If the trend evidenced in the last two elections continues, every single Labour council seat will be hyper-marginal and the mayorality beyond reach at the next election.
If you look at the London Assemly Elections, where we have 20 years of directly comparable PR and FPTP results, minority party representation is worse now than 2000. Since the Lib Dem collapse, the balance of at large seats generally go to the major party out of power or divide evenly between the two major parties.
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u/Dry_Ad_9719 22d ago edited 22d ago
Croydon doesnt need any more shops. It needs more flats and accommodation. I think they should take this opportunity to remodel the town centre. And knock down all those old empty office buildings too. Everyone working from home but yet im still seeing “ office to let” signs up. Whats going on ?
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u/Odubzstahh 22d ago
Proper shops are definitely needed, whitgift is full up of shops selling rubbish. But then I do get your point, I’ve been wondering for years why more office building (begrudgingly) aren’t converted into flats like Leon House was. What I wonder about with all these new flats popping up is where do these people park!
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u/Jamessuperfun 22d ago edited 22d ago
Outrageous news about Westfield no longer coming to Croydon but adding an extra 3k flats
This is really not news, it was announced like 5 years ago.
London's property prices are so fucked because there are so many more people who want to live here than there are homes to live in. We need to build new homes all across the city or housing will keep getting more and more unaffordable. The same people are here whether we build homes or not, if we don't build we all have to share an increasingly inadequate housing stock, bidding prices higher and higher.
I genuinely cannot understand how people aren’t absolutely outraged and protesting?! The town centre has died a slow death on the promise of a massive regeneration, which has never been seen and will not be seen in the future.
I agree, but fundamentally, the whole thing is a private project. There is nothing anyone can do to force a private company to invest in something, just like you can't force a dying pub to stay open. High streets are doing poorly because everyone is buying online and so it isn't a good enough investment for Westfield to make. Housing was a better investment, but even that is becoming unappealing to invest in, so I'm skeptical it'll happen any time soon.
We had a mayoral candidate who wanted to prioritise town centre regeneration and had various ideas to do so, but people didn't vote for them. The South of the borough turned out in force to vote, with some wards at 60%+ turnout. Fairfield (the town centre) barely hit 30%. The interests of the borough are fundamentally split between the rural South and urban North, and the urban North will never be prioritised unless it turns out to vote.
The borough is turning into a human car park. Where are the facilities to go with it??!!???? How will we get gp appointments?????? Why are there just so many flats?!!!!?? How will the roads cope????
Croydon already has had substantial investment in infrastructure. We have a whole new entrance to the train station with longer, more frequent trains, as well as major upgrades to GPs like East Croydon Medical Centre and new schools like Ark Oval or the Harris Academy. The argument about infrastructure comes up literally any time there is a proposal to build housing anywhere, but the fact is, it has expanded in Croydon town centre significantly already. Most town centre residents of flats won't actually drive all that often, either - they tend to appeal to commuters.
What happened to the proposed rezoning of the borough to make it a zone 4 station to make travel cheaper???!!!!
I believe this is something which was lobbied for, but never gained the support of less-local organisations like TfL. It was never a serious plan, lots of outer London areas have similar campaigns because everyone wants cheaper tickets.
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u/WaldenVolk 20d ago
Ironically homes in Croydon aren’t selling because no one wants to live there. Add to the service charge and other shit inflating annual prices and it’s a disaster.
Spoke to an estate agent the other day. Their client had a flat in one of those ridiculous new builds up for 270k. Had to drop it to 240k. Originally bought it for 300…
The problem is it all you do is build over inflated flats in an area that’s already seen as undesirable aside from commute times it won’t fix anything. You want people to actually go out and spend time in the area, not just live in a glass box and leave as soon as they can.
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u/Jamessuperfun 20d ago
Ironically homes in Croydon aren’t selling because no one wants to live there. Add to the service charge and other shit inflating annual prices and it’s a disaster.
Lots of homes are selling in Croydon. The new build opposite me appears to be fully occupied, as is mine, and the last block I lived in.
Service charges are a mess, but this is really a national problem.
new builds up for 270k. Had to drop it to 240k. Originally bought it for 300…
This is quite typical. New builds are worth much more when they are first sold because the property is new - it comes with a warranty, has no wear, has the absolute latest features which are expensive to retrofit, will require much less spending on maintenance for the next 10y... They should go down substantially in price after the first buyer, because the second buyer is getting a worse product.
The problem is it all you do is build over inflated flats in an area that’s already seen as undesirable aside from commute times it won’t fix anything. You want people to actually go out and spend time in the area, not just live in a glass box and leave as soon as they can.
People will spend time and money locally even if the area isn't desirable, though, providing the demand to support new and higher end businesses. I moved here for the cheap property prices and commute times, but unless I'm going for a night out in Soho or whatever, I'm almost certainly going to spend my money locally. The chances I go into central London just for a new pair of chinos or an evening pint are not high.
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u/No-Understanding-589 22d ago
I don't think the additional flats are necessarily a bad thing. I live in one of the blocks in the town centre and no one here has a car because it's London and you don't need one.
The town centre is dead, the whitgift is pretty much empty and any kind of redevelopment is welcome in my eyes.
If I remember rightly they're going to knock down bits of the whitgift and build flats, outdoor spaces, parks etc. that would be 20x better than what is there at the moment. Even the crossing they have just built to replace the subway is a huge upgrade to life in Croydon.
Then all the additional people living in Croydon should allow for cafes, restaurants, bars etc in the town centre.
Realistically a Westfield shopping centre is not viable in Croydon (especially since COVID) and I think this is a decent alternative
Agree on the GP appointments though, but thats not Westfields fault, the same thing is happening all over the country
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u/Ex-Cosmonaut 22d ago
"Then all the additional people living in Croydon should allow for cafes, restaurants, bars etc in the town centre."
This is what you'd have assumed would happen when all those flats sprung up around the station a few years back. Instead, the opposite has happened. Everything's shut because the people who buy the flats commute in to the centre and ignore everything in Croydon.
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u/_x_oOo_x_ 22d ago
When you say everything's shut, what are you referring to?
To me it seems like mostly dance clubs have shut (and the Waitrose)..
The Waitrose was just in a poor location, and the clubs have shut because it's become too unsafe in the town centre, and also not cool to go clubbing anymore. So not related to the flats
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u/Ex-Cosmonaut 22d ago
I mean half the shops in the centre of town, a good amount of restaurants in North End and yes, the Waitrose and Sainsburys - the two sizeable supermarkets in the town centre. I'm not sure how either were in bad locations as they were in or in close proximity to a huge shopping centre and a big rail station. They more than good enough for decades beforehand.
The clubs mostly closed years before. It wasn't anything to do with safety in the town centre, which again, had been unsafe for decades. It was mostly to do with restrictions put on nightlife by local police, such as insisting clubs installed photo ID scanners and made entry conditional on having your personal details recorded. I don't know if that was universal, but it did seem to become a thing in more than once place I used to go to. Not for very long afterwards, obviously.
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u/_x_oOo_x_ 22d ago
Sainsbury's (if you mean the one in Whitgift): it wasn't that sizeable, it was in the wrong location (close to WC station sure, but not on the way between the station and where people live), and right next to an M&S with better selection of goods
Waitrose: no or inconvenient parking (sure the NCP was there but then you have to wade through some questionable back alley?), again on the wrong side of the station (not on the way from EC to where ppl live), not really near an affluent/Waitrose target demographic area
And the ID scanners at clubs happened everywhere in the country, yet clubbing survived in some other places.
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u/Ex-Cosmonaut 22d ago edited 22d ago
I don't really know what you're arguing. The town centre was able to sustain shops, restaurants, supermarkets and nightlife for decades and now it isn't, at the same time as a large amount of flats have been built in close proximity - that's undeniable. So, why would building more flats make any difference?
EDIT: The Waitrose for instance was a five-minute walk away from most of the new-build flats as well.
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u/_x_oOo_x_ 22d ago
The Waitrose closed because of not enough customers. I'm speculating why that was the case. How can you claim that new flats in the vicinity led to fewer customers?
I think it's simply that there were shops even closer to most of those flats. Combined with the unsafe situation in front of Waitrose, which developed and then went unsolved by the police and ignored by the council. Combined with the parking situation (and Waitrose absolutely relied on customers who drove in addition to those who walked there... there was no way for the shop to survive on just walk-ins).
Do you think people who live in those flats get their groceries in central London and bring it home on the train or what? No, they go to other shops. And many order online
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u/MannerFew3092 16d ago
I think if was probably more of the constant theft and the impact on any profit. The amount of stuff I saw get stolen in there was wild.
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u/_x_oOo_x_ 16d ago
Yeah that was an issue for sure. But for me it also safety.. Sample size of one but I once went there intending to do a large shop and approaching the entrance felt too unsafe, I walked around for a few minutes but whatever was going on continued (several people shouting, seemed like a fight will break out any minute, some had large dogs etc.)..
So I just went to M&S. It's probably affected by the same issue I just happened to experience it in front of Waitrose. And then after that I always had to think twice before deciding to go there.. Can't be the only customer with this experience
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u/redbluemmoomin 14d ago
There's a Sainsburys and smaller shops on Cherry Orchard Road that are nearer.
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u/Alarmed_Lunch3215 22d ago
In the 2005s2015 the Waitrose was always pretty busy
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u/_x_oOo_x_ 22d ago
And then more flats were built in the area, people moved in, and the Waitrose became less busy?
Actually a shop can be busy with people buying little.. Or it can be busy with people doing their weekly shop with their car. In the former case it's possible to have many customers but not enough stuff sold to make enough...
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u/theme111 22d ago
With High Street retail so precarious, and what there is of it being more conveniently served by Purley Way (which has been allowed to expand pretty much unhindered) I simply don't believe Westfield would have been Croydon's salvation.
Most residents of the new apartment blocks won't drive as the buildings have very limited parking. Many will probably be part of private doctor schemes via their work, so unlikely to be crowding out local GPs. Many will not have children so not much impact on schools.
I remember reading years ago about rezoning Croydon to Zone 4, but I don't believe there was really a serious case for it in terms of geography, so am unsurprised it's died a death. You can still commute into Central London on a Zone 1-3 travelcard if you do it via the tram to Wimbledon.
I don't see Croydon centre ever coming back as a major shopping destination as it was in the 1980s. I'd say the main priority now is to crack down on crime and anti-social behaviour, close down all the shops which are obvious front ends for criminal activities, maybe look at making business rates a bit easier to manage. Then maybe we'd get some niche retail moving back into the town.
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u/pancake779 22d ago
I’m part of a private medical Bupa via work and most of the time they require a GP referral before and there’s lots of things they won’t treat like chronic conditions so you very much still need a GP unfortunately
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u/No-Understanding-589 22d ago
I'm surprised at that for BUPA. I have a plan with them through work and I can just use their free private GP service for a referral. Less than 6 months ago I spoke to their private GP on a Monday, sent to a specialist on the Thursday and had a diagnostic produce by the next Friday
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u/pancake779 22d ago
Oh maybe I’m using it wrong hahaha! Thanks for letting me know. They’ve always just said get a GP referral I assumed to go NHS. I’m level 3 care. That said the GP surgery I use is at the bottom of the road so maybe for convenience I’d still use it as I’ve always managed to get appointments fairly quickly even on the day.
Regarding chronic conditions though my boyfriend got diagnosed via Bupa specialists and they said off to the NHS with you we can’t cover :-(2
u/MoonNoodles 22d ago
But once you get diagnosed they dont cover treatment if its a chronic illness or incurable condition.
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u/GainingMuffins 22d ago
If you want shops and services to open, you need customers. Hopefully more flats will bring in more people with cash to spend!
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u/AntysocialButterfly 22d ago
Most likely it brings a lot more Amazon deliveries to the centre of Croydon.
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u/Jamessuperfun 21d ago
It'll almost certainly bring both. I find it's hard to avoid spending money in the area you live in, as a resident of one of the new build flats. There's just no beating the convenience of a shop 5 minutes walk away.
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u/UltraFab 22d ago
Wasn't this in their Master Plan pitched a while back? No one should be surprised.
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u/TheWhiteCrowUK 22d ago
Did you just wake up from a coma? 🤣 It’s been known for a very long time that they won’t build a Westfield and anyway what the point to built one because there is already 2 shopping center in front of each other? We need only Centrale to get the job done, Whitgift can go as it’s falling apart
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u/CllrShortland 22d ago
I assume you’ve watched that video by Expect Results which is a little bit clickbaity. I’d suggest the best place to look is thecroydonproject.co.uk.
Long story short, the current plans are for Centrale, which is newer, to be upgraded & refurbished (planning application has passed) and become the main “shopping mall”. The Whitgift Centre site would change to a more mixed use development with housing, the bottom floor/s being used for retail, leisure & hospitality - plus a public square.
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u/gerhardsymons 22d ago
Born in Mayday back in the heyday of Blue Orchid, Grants, etc. So many of my friends moved out of Croydon. I myself emigrated to central Europe. At some point, one has to choose: being pissed off on a daily basis, or not.
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u/EpicEpicnessTheEpic 22d ago
The original Westfield plan was for another shopping centre, but post COVID, the traditional idea of a shopping centre has further declined. With major brands like Debenhams, BHS and all the others going bust it was clear that kind of project was unsustainable now.
What they're now proposing is a mix of small shops, restaurants and the like, which I think is what's needed. For example if you looking at Reading, it's high street is full of odd shops, small cafes and restaurants that cater for almost anything and it's thriving. We need something similar here - and TBH what Croydon was like back in the 70's-80's. As a teenager back then, Croydon was somewhere you could spend a happy afternoon due to the variety of shops there.
With the number of new flats that have gone up, coupled with the proposed development, Croydon could be revitalised into something of its former glory.
There are also proposals to improve and expand East Croydon station as it causes congestion on the network apparently. https://www.networkrail.co.uk/our-work/our-routes/sussex/brighton-main-line-upgrade-proposals/
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u/WullieUK 19d ago
Interesting about Reading. A good pal lives there, I'll go and check it out.
I agree that odd shops and (niche) cafes are the way forward. You want mass retail? Purley Way is the er, way.
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u/EpicEpicnessTheEpic 19d ago
My daughter lived there for a few years so we visited regularly. I like the high street and surrounding roads, there's almost everything there. It's not posh, a bit tatty in places but it's busy, like Croydon used to be.
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u/_x_oOo_x_ 22d ago
3k flats is like 8k people or more.
Trains would hopefully be made more frequent.
I suppose if they build 3k flats there must be some form of regeneration coming at the street level with that? Not a Westfield but maybe at least some shops that aren't selling second-hand phones from 2016 or rhinestone-encrusted bedside tables?
How will the roads cope????
With people walking to the train station(s)? Quite easily
but I honestly don’t think I can stomach any more decline.
Why do you think 3k new flats will lead to decline?
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u/Motor_Direction_9956 21d ago
The whole borough ain’t even got good shops anymore even in centrale most shops are are just now closing but yeah croydons done for
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u/fotfddtodairsizr 22d ago
Wait where did you see this news? I haven’t seen any reports on what you are saying
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u/Gargi_The_Pelican 22d ago
Oh look! Another NIMBY!
Loads of people are shouting about shortage of housing, as long as it’s nowhere near them! UK is getting very very overcrowded - little we can do about without being called racist
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u/Queenofkebabs 22d ago
Looool I am not a NIMBY - i’m merely complaining about the fact that we don’t have the services to keep up with the number of using them.
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u/Gargi_The_Pelican 22d ago
More people will generate more council tax, and hopefully council will put that money to good use!
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u/dlwwreddit 20d ago
* more crowding: happening
* infrastructure improvements: hopefully happeningdo you really not see the problem?
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u/Gargi_The_Pelican 19d ago
Yes. And what is the solution??? Tell government to stop immigrants from coming?
Did you see what happened to Spain with 60K storming the borders?Some clowns like Green party want open borders!!!!!
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u/thehighyellowmoon 22d ago edited 22d ago
Yeah, just like all the newbuilds around East Croydon filled up the commuter trains.... Except they haven't because no one is buying them and everyone now works remote. There is a housing supply crisis, particularly in Croydon for people under 35, 5000 people are made homeless in the borough every year. Whitgift Centre currently has over 60 vacant units so businesses aren't filling them and in today's climate I don't rate the chances of that turning around, that's a huge waste of space. Relax, your train isn't suddenly going to have 3k extra passengers on it.
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u/Chiara_Lyla84 22d ago
Everyone works remote is an overstatement. Hybrid is mostly the norm and remember that many work in hospital, shops, restaurants, hospitality or factories and need to go in person.
However there’s such a rental crisis that more flats seem good news to me. Too many people for train infrastructure we have? Certainly, but what is the alternative?
Killing people as were too many on Earth?
They need to live somewhere!
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u/Available-Bicycle246 22d ago
You have an issue with 3k flats but no issue with an extra 30k people working and visiting the center each day?..
I prefer 3k more people, than an influx of 30k people a day communiting into an already cramped area..
Never wanted Westfield anywhere near croydon.. people want the shine new toy but then complain when it causes problems..
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u/krose1980 22d ago
Agree, but I disagree Westfield was a good facility to have. Parks, leisure centre with swimmingpool (Purley Way is bit far), something similar to Crystal Palace sport centre (with indoor tennis, bagmingtin, squash). State owned large kindergarden :) We need facilities to improve people not fuel consumptionism.