More than 50 empty units in Croydon’s Whitgift Centre

On May 14, Your Local Guardian took a trip to the Whitgift Centre to see how many units were currently vacant.

From the North End entrance to the Wellesley Road entrance to the M&S exit, I counted 52 storefronts either boarded up, permanently closed, or empty, with just a few odd chairs lying around.

This was six more than my last count in September 2024, though it was 11 less than there were in a count conducted by MyLondon in January 2023.

I first counted the former home furniture store Stacks, which stood behind glass windows, completely empty.

(Image: Ezekiel Bertrand)While Google says the store is temporarily closed, a local business owner within the shopping centre confirmed that Stacks was permanently closed.

Next, I saw a store with a blue “Review” banner.

The store doesn’t seem to have any new owners taking its spot anytime soon, with ‘All Enquiries’ posters stuck up and the inside looking like a half-done renovation project.

I also passed Clothing Club London, Supercuts, Pure Flowers, Optical Express, The Works, sports nutrition shop MET-Rx, and shoe shop Zucchi, all empty with nothing left but their signs.

(Image: Ezekiel Bertrand) In the 2010s, popular aquarium Aquazoo was operating inside the Whitgift Centre.

(Image: Ezekiel Bertrand) It closed sometime before the pandemic, but the empty store space remains, a leftover from the centre’s busier days.

Only a few steps later, I stumbled into a former bar and grill, called Bar Ispani.

According to the site Croydon Randomness, Bar Ispani closed some time between June and September 2013, meaning the site has stood empty for more than a decade.

As I continued, I wondered how vibrant the Whitgift Centre must’ve been back when all these shops were open.

I saw the former designer clothing shop Urban Junction and the Camden Coffee House.

Camden Coffee House closed more than a year ago after the owners saw a “significant rise in the cost of coffee, dairy products, energy costs, and other essential supplies”.

(Image: Ezekiel Bertrand) Camden Coffee House also faced a “huge downturn in customer numbers due to external factors” that were out of their control.

The café closed in March 2024 and has yet to be replaced by anything.

Jewellery store Swag, which closed in 2017, still stands empty.

Over the last two decades, the UK has waved goodbye to several retailers, including Debenhams, Woolworths, Toys R Us, and Maplin.

Inside the Whitgift Centre, the old British Home Stores still stands empty, nearly nine years after the company crashed into administration and closed for good.

(Image: Ezekiel Bertrand) As I walked further, it became clear that the Whitgift Centre still had a surprising number of clothing shops, including Chesca, Apricot Clothing, Charles Moore Suits, and Rebel Fashion World.

All four of them stood behind glass windows with clear signs that they don’t operate anymore.

In February 2024, Body Shop entered administration.

(Image: Ezekiel Bertrand) As a result, 75 stores in the UK closed, and one of these was in the Whitgift Centre.

I also counted the old Boots site, which closed in December.

This year, two more shops have joined the growing list of empty units in the Whitgift Centre.

In February, popular toy store The Entertainer closed, citing a “requirement of the landlord for the proposed redevelopment of the Whitgift Shopping Centre”.

Then in April, jewellery store Beaverbrooks shut its doors after 30 years, with the company saying its Croydon branch was “no longer commercially viable”.

For both units, there are currently no signs of replacements.

Surprisingly, these made up just 23 of the units we counted.

The remaining 29 had no names or signage, with nothing to indicate what they once were.