The big risks to city centre regeneration

摘要

The effective bankruptcy of Croydon Council is the warning.If it can happen to an up-and-coming south London local authority, it can happen anywhere. This is a place where demand is high, where there is no shortage of developers queuing up to build residential towers and where fashionable pop-up retail outlets, like Boxpark,want to set up shop.Regardless of the potential for success, the money the council sunk into other ventures designed to rejuvenate the town centre's dated retail and leisure facilities has left it with an unbalanced budget. The authority's finances have been hit hard by the failure of schemes, such as the Whitgift shopping centre redevelopment, to develop in the way Croydon needed. In November it went into Section 114 status, where only essential spending is allowed until the books are rebalanced.