FAAC off – Inside Croydon

The controversial closure of the old Allders car park, cutting off shoppers’ access to the Whitgift shopping centre, is just one of a number of moves by Westfield which look set to make shopping in Croydon town center more difficult and less welcoming and much more expensive.

Not by the way: The old Allders car park was closed last week despite complaints from businesses in the Whitgift Centre

Parking charges have risen by almost £6 to £11.50 for those staying more than four hours.

Westfield arrived in Croydon in 2012, promising to deliver a £1.4bn redevelopment of Whitgift and Central shopping centres, with offices, cafes and restaurants, some entertainment venues, almost 1,000 new homes and one of their temples special for retail trade. Twelve years later, two planning applications, a public inquiry and CPO later, and not a brick has been laid, not a wall demolished.

But multi-billion dollar developers, now based in Paris, are gradually wresting more control over both existing malls, as evidenced by the parking changes.

The Central car park has space for 950 vehicles, the Whitgift Center car park 1,456. They were managed by NCP until 2021 and Westfield recently replaced the previous operator with a new one called FAAC Mobility Services. Gone are the old-style payment machines, and now drivers will need a smartphone app to pay for their parking. One more…

FAAC appears to manage car parks at other Westfield locations.

While municipal parking lots around the neighborhood are being moved to RingGo, downtown, FAAC parking lots use one called JPASS.

The first hour of parking in each car park will cost £2.50. Stay four hours or more (up to 24 hours) in Central and it costs £8.50; For some reason, in Whitgift car park, the charge for an extra four hours is £11.50 – an increase of almost £6.

Goes up: rates were increased in city center parking lots

But Inside Croydon readers brave enough to venture into Croydon town center and park their cars say the process is not only more expensive, but far from straightforward.

“On Monday I parked and paid via the app as usual, but on Tuesday there were no ‘search results’ on that app,” said one reader who works downtown.

“No equipment in the area where I park or where the old equipment was located. I scanned the QR code on the wall but got error messages.

“Even after I downloaded a new app, checked my email and went through the whole laborious process, the car park I had parked in was still not listed on the app!

“On top of all this hassle, according to the centre’s website, it will now cost me £11.50 instead of £5.70 to park every time I go in as a charity volunteer.”

The reader felt appropriately turned off by FAAC.

“It seems that Westfield really don’t want people to come into Croydon and shop in their centers or buy more than a small, light item that they can take home on the bus or tram.”

Croydon BID, the borough’s business improvement body (our italics) which supposedly represents town center businesses, and Jason Perry, Croydon’s part-time mayor (and director of Croydon BID), have remained completely silent on the matter.

Read more: Businesses on the brink as the Whitgift Center prepares to close its car park
Read more: The mayor is sneaking in overnight parking charges across the borough
Read more: Barwell, Brexit and Croydon’s troubled Westfield dream

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