Regeneration specialist Menta has expressed disappointment at the surprise news that its plans for a £500m cluster of four towers next to East Croydon station in south
Council documents published online today reveal that the scheme will go before Croydon’s Exectuive Committee next week with a council recommendation that it is rejected.
The Royal Bank of Scotland-backed project comprises three residential towers with 1,000 homes and a 430,000 sq ft office tower.
The decision has come as a surprise as Menta has worked up revised proposals for the
The developer is also part of the council’s newly formed East Croydon Steering Group which is masterplanning major development proposals close to
The mayor’s office has already said it had no plans to object to the 1.6m sq ft Make-designed development as long as a series of minor transport and public realm issues are resolved.
The council has rejected the plans on a number of levels including its findings that the site could support more affordable housing than the 35% proposed, that the proposed amount of shops could harm the viability and vitality of the Metropolitan retail centre and that the plans represent an overdevelopment of the site and due to the similarity between all the buildings would have a significant adverse visual impact.
Menta has been in talks with Royal Mail to relocate a sorting office into a 20,000 sq ft facility on the site, releasing land for two of the towers.
Menta chief Craig Marks criticised the decision: “Given the lengthy pre-application and consultation process, and what we understood to be an agreement that the application would not be determined until the East Croydon Masterplan initiative, of which we are a part, has been completed, we are surprised and disappointed that the council has tabled our application for consideration at this meeting and furthermore has seen fit to present it to the committee with a recommendation for refusal, despite the positive endorsement of the GLA.
“The GLA’s view was that ‘The principle (of the scheme)…… is acceptable in strategic planning policy terms. The scheme achieves a high-quality architectural design that will aid Croydon council’s ambitions to regenerate this area of Croydon.”
“We now need to give very careful consideration to the reasons given by the council for its failure to support the application at this late stage, before we determine how to take things forward.”
GL Hearn is advising Menta.
