r/croydon • u/Jamity647 • 1d ago
Whitgift Closing Down?
Is it true that the Whitgift will be closing down? Is so sad if this is the truth 😞. I have been visiting it for the past month or so as I heard these rumours but got told they might not be true??? Is it not going to close down after all?
Many thanks
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u/Mother_Equivalent649 1d ago
I mean Whitgift has been a waste of space for years. There are far too many empty/abandoned shops for it to be called "a functioning shopping mall". There's also a thing where people now have been selling vegetables and fruit near the entrance/exit of the mall.
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u/turbothingy 1d ago
What I can't fathom is why, after building centrale, they felt the need to push for a third shopping centre to be built?! Surely whitgift centre alone was more than enough, now we have two half empty centres and westfield not happening.
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u/iamezekiel1_14 1d ago
Went there for the first time since about 2019 a couple of days after Xmas (don't ask the whole visit lasted 35 mins parking on the roof of Centrale). I know Croydon has been struggling but it absolutely threw me how off of a cliff certain things had gone. The whole Centre wasn't much more than a shell with a handful of shops it felt and the High Street and Centrale didn't feel much better.
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u/ttmmpp123 1d ago
A staff member at the hairdressers that is still there has been told that one side will be closed and redeveloped at a time. So on that basis the whole thing would never be completely closed.
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u/RandomReddytz 1d ago
Went to school in Croydon. They've been talking about it since 2006/7 🙄. Yet here we still are. Look up Whitgift Foundation & their land ownership in Croydon if you want to know why it's taken 20+ years
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u/spiffing_ 1d ago
It's also to do with Westfield seeing it as DOA. Typically councils are redeveloping brownfield with the view to slapping on many flats as they can but it takes time.
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u/friends-waffles-work 16h ago
I remember way back when they announced Westfield would be opening in 2016 and I was like… ew I’ll be old and in my twenties by then 😂 now hitting my mid thirties…
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u/BluejaySignificant82 1d ago
Let’s be honest guys that place has seen better days, been in Croydon for a year now and walking past that everyday makes that drab Nestle building look like the shard
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u/turbothingy 1d ago
It's a shame cause it was once a top class shopping centre. They built centrale in the 2000s just across the road, then started telling everyone westfield was coming. All the business is just spread thin now, it's no wonder half of the shops are empty.
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u/BluejaySignificant82 19h ago
definitely out of curiousity tho what caused the decline of that part of croydon? i lvie in thonrnton heath and see a significant diff to the city when walking into town
1. the west croydon area has massive potential with trams
2. the east croydon area outguns the area just by the massive buildings and classy feel
3. scratch everything i said because those tunnels that are in the underpass of the intersection off the high street/park lane are full of piss and i've unfortunately seen excretement sitting firmly there one tiem tooBig exhausted SIGH
For what its worth Croydon is malleable- offers a fair bit3
u/AntysocialButterfly 18h ago
I used to know people who owned a unit in the Whitgift Centre around twenty years ago, and they said the rent was comparable to Bluewater for a fraction of the footfall.
That goes a long way to explaining the churn of units outside the anchor stores even when the Whitgift Centre was a lot closer to being fully occupied.
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u/BluejaySignificant82 18h ago
oh bombaclart thats a fair amount bluewater must cost half of kent to pay for
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u/turbothingy 17h ago
Does all that money go to the Whitgift foundation then? I bet they own half of the town centre
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u/turbothingy 19h ago
Yeah Croydon has great people, great infrastructure, a lot to offer tbh, it's just been massively let down.
Personally I think it's a toxic mix of the London property bubble making rents unaffordable and Croydon being just far away enough from London that it's not getting the public investment it deserves. And just a catastrophic series of unforced errors from council after council.
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u/RelevantReporter6748 13h ago
Definitely shit management by the council but ultimately high streets are dying just about everywhere, can't do anything about online killing retail paired with a shitty economy which means people have less disposable income than ever.
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u/BluejaySignificant82 18h ago
absolutely i think its a shame i heard croydon has the highest council tax around too?
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u/Jamity647 1d ago
Ok perfect. Thank you all for answering. The answer is that it was just speculation so we will have to see
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u/thefirstmatt 1d ago
I get a strong feeling if it does become flats there’s a huge advantage for the council as if they remove a huge amount of retail spaces and public areas it will appear that there’s less crime as there will be less loitering and visible homelessness
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u/The_Mayor_Involved 1d ago
How will that benefit the council?
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u/Only-Investigator-88 1d ago
Its space for social housing.
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u/The_Mayor_Involved 1d ago
What's that got to do with appearing to have less crime?
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u/Only-Investigator-88 1d ago
I said nothing about crime. Take a seat.
I work in social housing so thats why I commented.
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u/thefirstmatt 1d ago
Not having areas to clean manage and police if it’s mostly private it’s not there issue
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u/mappsy91 1d ago
As people have said part of the issue is the plan keeps changing...
The current plan is for it all to be knocked down and it to become pedestrianised streets with shops /entertainment on the bottom then flats above
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u/turbothingy 1d ago
More luxury flats for the world's rich to launder their money into... 😒
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u/AntysocialButterfly 18h ago
More luxury flats where people get their stuff delivered by Amazon, Deliveroo etc.
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u/princeg29 1d ago
As others have said, the plans have kept changing for years now. At this point I just want them to do something with it
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u/VehicleWonderful6586 21h ago
They’re apparently going to close the upper floor entirely. But the full rebuild is a while away
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u/hyperdistortion 15h ago
When we bought our flat in 2013, one of the sales pitches was “and soon you’ll have a Westfield, so your property value will go through the roof!” Well…
Alas, the only thing that’s gone through the roof since 2013 are my bills. And thanks to the cladding nonsense, amongst other factors, the value of our flat has gone down if anything over the past five years.
You’ve gotta laugh, eh?
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u/RelevantReporter6748 13h ago
Why would you be sad about it? That shithole needed to close down 10 years ago.
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u/spiffing_ 1d ago
I remember feeling the same way about Elephant and Castle centre before they redeveloped it. It was if not more depressing and dodgy.
I walked around Lewisham shopping centre today and it was kinda buzzing and busy. They have announced they will be reveloping it completely and but seeing it IRL doesnt make sense, it was far busier than I recall Croydon being last time I went. But at the end of the day councils want council tax and less businesses can afford rates than ever before.
Last time i went to croydon, maybe 2021 after i was waiting for a car service. I was there at least 5 times a week in the 90s and early 00s, living in South End. The Whitgift centre was like Fallout, it's hard to imagine it being so busy. I remember queuing for the Disney Store and for HMV game releases (i know that was on the high st).
I imagine its closure weighs on the anchor store M&S closing which seems likely in the future. They are closing a lot of larger in town centre stores.
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u/emmjaybeeyoukay 1d ago
Its been scheduled for a major or partial rebuild for the last 10 years. The problem is the company that owns it keeps changing.