This summer Crystal Palace fans celebrated 100 years of football at their Selhurst Park stadium. Unlike many other grounds in the Premier League, Selhurst Park has resisted the trend of relocation to a less residential area or expansion.
However, in recent years the club has made public its plans for what many see as a long overdue redevelopment of the historic ground. Once complete, the plans will see the stadium’s current 25,486 capacity boosted to more than 34,000 along with a range of other improvements made to the main stand.
The club purchased a parcel of land from the large Sainsbury’s that dominates the western end of the historic stadium to make space for the redevelopment. Planning permission for the redevelopment was given for that redevelopment in principle six years ago.
However, for these plans to be realised a small number of council-owned properties that back onto the current main stand would have to be demolished. These properties, at 22-32 Wooderson Close, sit in the shadow of the towering Holmesdale Road stand just over the fence.
Credit: Facundo Arrizabalaga
Residents of Wooderson Close first discovered the fate of their homes as news of the planned redevelopment broke at the end of 2017. Soon after this, residents were delivered a promise by the then Labour-led Croydon council that they would be rehoused before the demolition of their properties took place.
In a press release published in April 2018, Croydon’s former executive director of place, Shifa Mustafa said: “The council remains committed to working closely with the club to ensure suitable accommodation is found for all residents of Wooderson Close whose homes are affected by the club’s plans, and will ensure the impacts of the development are properly mitigated.”
The rehousing of the residents formed part of the Section 106 requirement, which after some delay was signed by both the club and local authority. Section 106 of the UK’s Town And Country Planning Act 1990 (S106) relates to the funding of community improvements levied on developers for any major development.
The s106 element placed an obligation on the council to engage with residents and ensure that their concerns were heard and accommodated at every step. However, according to former Wooderson Close resident and social housing expert Les Parry, early communication from the council was not forthcoming.
Parry, an adopted Croydonian originally from Merseyside, began to act as a spokesperson for the families affected by the redevelopment. During a visit to the soon-to-be-demolished site, Parry told the Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS) about the lack of engagement the council initially had with its tenants who were to be affected by the plans.
He said: “From 2018 to 2022, neither the club nor the council had spoken to any of these families that had to vacate their property. Following the planning meeting in April 2018, where the club got planning permission in principle, the Council sent an edict to the club to say we would consult with the residents but they never did.”
Parry told the LDRS how this initial lack of consultation left the residents feeling dejected and ‘left out in the cold’ about a decision that would have a huge impact on their lives. However, this lack of engagement wasn’t to last for the residents.
According to Parry, a series of changes forced Croydon Council and Crystal Palace to change their tact towards the residents. The Regina Road housing scandal and local council elections of 2022 brought in a new Conservative-led administration and council officers who Parry believes put the residents back in the centre of the redevelopment plans.
Parry, on behalf of the residents, met with Crystal Palace chairman Steve Parish in October 2021 to discuss the housing saga. He told Parish and his finance director of the way that residents had been ignored during the process.
Parry told the LDRS: “At this point, Parish looked at his finance director and said do whatever is needed to look after these people and we don’t care what the council says about not talking to them. The finance director then turned her laptop around and showed us that the then-director of Planning had stopped them from talking to us in 2018.
“Croydon then bought in a new executive director, that assembled her own team so the culture in Croydon Council’s housing was completely different. I had a conversation, in four weeks they bought out a specialist consultant just to deal with this relocation.”
“They were from outside the council and vastly experienced, his role was to look after us and liaise with the council and club. He came and knocked on my door, I sat him down and gave him a cuppa then asked him if I’d lived next door to you for twenty years and you wanted to build a big extension, what’s the first thing you would do?”
“He said I’d talk to you. I told them that they hadn’t, and that was our starting point. Where the club was the villain, In my eyes they’re now the hero.”
All affected families have now been rehoused within the borough in a home of their choosing. While some believe the rehousing of the residents ‘took longer than was necessary,’ its completion means that one of the last barriers to redevelopment has been overcome.
This, according to Parry, is a marked improvement from the ‘horror story’ that residents had to face when they first heard of the plans. However, he believes questions remain for the residents who will not be moving out of Close and will have to live next to the bigger and busier Main Stand.
Parry told the LDRS how unlike those at 22-32, the remaining residents have so far not been properly consulted with by the club. In particular, he says there has been a noticeable silence from the club when it has come to providing details about the possible start dates for construction and how the remaining residents will be affected.
Parry told the LDRS that as part of their engagement with residents, the club were supposed to create a newsletter that would allow the remaining residents to have all the vital information needed about the redevelopment. This was deemed important as the residents don’t currently know whether they will have building traffic around their properties or if they will have to vacate altogether during the build process.
However, this information is yet to be made public by the club. Parry believes this was the result of decisions made by individuals within the club.
He said: “So far they’ve absolutely refused to produce or participate in a newsletter to those affected residents, which just gave a summary of the building phases that were due to commence in 2025.”
“If you were living there you’d want to know what was going on, right? Because of this argument going on between the club and the council, those poor people don’t have any idea of what is going on.
“I can understand the importance of commercial discretion but they could give a summary at least. They are being starved of information and it’s a repeat of our earlier situation.”
Credit: Facundo Arrizabalaga
Crystal Palace have told the LDRS that the requirement to engage with residents is not the sole responsibility of either party. They have also committed to publishing the newsletter ‘shortly.’
Despite these concerns, Parry seems content with how the residents were eventually dealt with in this case. Before leaving us for his new house in Addiscombe, he told the LDRS: “It’s all come good in the end, it just took too long.”
A spokesperson from Croydon Council said: “We continue to work with the club to help them deliver their scheme and encourage them to communicate regularly with immediate neighbours and the wider Croydon community.”
A spokesperson from Crystal Palace said: “The Club is committed to keeping residents fully informed as the Main Stand development project gets underway and we will shortly begin publishing a monthly newsletter, as well as providing regular updates on our website. We will also have a dedicated email address where residents can address any queries.
The Selhurst Park redevelopment is a transformative project for the Club that will also provide huge benefits to the local community through social and housing investment in the borough, creating local jobs and providing greater community use through the Palace for Life Foundation”.
