Park Place (Croydon)

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Park Place is a proposed shopping centre in Croydon, England.

Park Place has been proposed by developers Minerva plc and was given planning approval in 2000 by Croydon Council after which the Government Office for London decided not to proceed with a call-in in 2003, despite concerns over traffic and the impact upon existing retail. This decision, ultimately by Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott, caused controversy in 2006 amidst the Cash for Peerages political scandal, when it emerged that two of Minerva's previous and current chairmen, Sir David Garrard and Andrew Rosenfeld, had made major loans to the Labour Party three months before the decision not to call in the planning application. Prescott denied any wrongdoing^[1].

Minerva plan to build a new shopping centre, office accommodation and a bus station on the site of Allders department store and St George's Walk. The scheduled commencement date for Park Place is Autumn 2006. When completed, the shopping centre development will be of 1,080,000 sq.ft. (100,335 m².), connecting into the existing Whitgift Centre. The overall site will take in part of Park Street and cross George Street West, where the frontages of the buildings will be retained, with a bridge and tunnel connecting across George Street.

A compulsory purchase order by Croydon Council is in the process of being enacted to enable the whole site to come under the ownership of Minerva. A major new department store will be located to the south of the new site; originally this was to be a new Allders store, then owned by Minerva, but John Lewis was then lined up to anchor the site, On May 5th 2006 John Lewis announced that no development scheme in Croydon met their requirements and that they were not in negotiations with Minerva. This has boosted the chances of the newco 'Allders (Croydon) Ltd' being able to secure anchor status in the new development if it is pursued.

Nestlé, whose UK headquarters form part of the site, plan to take part of the office accommodation. The development will create a new 'piazza' on Croydon High Street. There are proposals to alter Queen's Gardens with updated planting, an ice rink, a performance space and an entrance into Park Place.

1 Viability
2 See also
3 External links
4 References

[edit] Viability

The overall viability of the Minerva plans (1.08 Million Sq.Ft Shopping Centre) have been thrown into doubt following the building of the 1.615 Million Sq.Ft Westfield London shopping centre development in west London (white city) due to open late next year (2008) and the existing 1.6 Million Sq.Ft shopping development at Bluewater to the east of London.