Writing ahead of the seventh Develop Croydon Conference, which takes place next Tuesday, November 22, Richard Plant – chairman of the Develop Croydon Forum – discusses how working for the common good is the secret of the borough’s recent success.
Look at Croydon’s changing skyline today and it is easy to forget the town reached its lowest ebb a little more than five years ago.
I was on holiday in Portugal one morning when the kids shouted: “Dad, Croydon is on the television.”
Despite not understanding the commentary it was a shock to see familiar places burnt and damaged. The House of Reeves furniture store was destroyed.
Morale and civic pride around the borough had reached a historic low. Nobody had a good word to say about Croydon.
When Develop Croydon started, with just eight founder members, there was a complete vacuum in promoting Croydon and it was all doom and gloom at the bottom of the recession.
What has happened since has been a triumph for partnership working and working for the one common cause – Croydon. We did this by highlighting some of the good things Croydon had to offer: unrivalled connectivity, rich heritage, even those brutalist buildings which had their history in the town’s last era of optimism, not to mention the council’s forward-thinking approach to planning.
The key was getting those people with a vested interest in making Croydon a success around a table and discussing their shared aims and objectives. It wasn’t long before people started seeing Croydon in a more positive light.
Westfield and Hammerson announced they were partnering on a £1.4billion retail scheme; a cluster of tech businesses started to create the Silicon Valley of South London; house prices which had sunk way below the rest of London started to increase as Croydon became desirable again.
None of this would have been possible without collaboration and partnership working. Develop Croydon has grown to a stage where it has around 70 members – not just developers such as Stanhope Schroders, Redrow Menta and Barratt.
Nor just key public sector stakeholders from Croydon Council, the GLA or Croydon Tramlink. It also includes organisations at the heart of the community: as well as Croydon Tech City there is London Mozart Players and the Whitgift Foundation.
We are not political and have worked successfully with three chief executives and and two administrations. We have demonstrated what can be done when a large group of organisations find a common aim and objective.
Fast forward five years and Croydon is barely recognisable – with cranes on the skyline creating iconic new places for the people of south London to live and work, while the opening of Boxpark Croydon has brought a vibe previously only found in the capital itself.
The secret of the success is no one person or one organisation. It’s the fact we’ve all worked together for the greater good.
As a born and bred Croydonian this is something I am very proud to have been a part of, but our work is still not done. We need to look towards the new occupiers of the buildings being created and show them how good Croydon can be.