Table of Contents
Spurgeon’s College
Enhancing our educational facilities, strengthening our place in the community, and creating new homes for Croydon
Overview
To our neighbours and friends living around Spurgeon’s College, and the wider community.
You may recall our previous correspondence and public consultation events in 2020 and 2021, which outlined initial proposals to sympathetically develop Spurgeon’s College campus with new educational facilities and homes.
After pausing to reflect upon your valuable feedback, we have spent time working alongside a new development team – including London Square, a specialist developer that takes inspiration from the design of classic London squares – to incorporate your views into a set of revised and improved plans.
We held two public exhibitions on Tuesday 11th and Saturday 15th July 2023 to enable our neighbours and wider local community to review our enhanced proposals. We have since reviewed the feedback and revised our proposals further. The main change is a reduction in the number of homes being proposed. Additionally, all homes are now proposed as houses with gardens and no flats are proposed.
We held our most recent round of engagement to present our updated plans on 22nd November. This website is a continuation of this engagement, and the exhibition boards used on the 22nd November can be viewed here until 8th December 2023.
How to view and comment on our plans
We have continued developing our plans for Spurgeon’s College. Our updated plans demonstrate the careful consideration we have given to a number of the suggestions and issues raised by attendees at our various consultation events. The consultation event on the 22nd November provided a more thorough display of the amended proposals. You can view the exhibition boards that were shown at the 22nd November consultation event on this website.
If you would like to raise any questions or would prefer to receive hard copies of the information, please do not hesitate to contact us using the methods below:
By freepost to: Freepost CRATUS COMMUNICATIONS
Residents, neighbours, and friends can also email their comments to: spurgeon2023@spurgeons.ac.uk
Purpose of the proposals
Since Spurgeon’s College moved to South Norwood Hill 100 years ago, it has been at the heart of the local community; playing a vital role in encouraging young people into education; working with local charities and community groups across Croydon; and bringing valuable economic and social benefits to the local area.
It is a particularly auspicious time for the College. Not only is 2023 our centenary year, but also, in September 2022, we were granted Full Degree Awarding Powers by the Office for Students, the Regulator for Higher Education in England – a crucial step in our journey to become Croydon’s first home-grown university.
However, there are a number of key issues at our campus that we are seeking to address through the development proposals. If successful, these proposals will be vital to securing the College’s long-term presence in Croydon, enabling us to expand our high-quality educational provision and grow our community engagement in Thornton Heath and the surrounding Borough.
Simply put, the existing site and its buildings are not fit for purpose and, without careful development, they will be unable to support our long-term sustainable future. The improvements will help make our buildings and facilities more accessible; and will upgrade our teaching facilities, giving us more capacity with better design. Alongside this, the residential element will provide financial capital to secure the College’s long-term future and will also deliver much needed new homes in this part of Croydon.
November 2023 Updated Plans
We are extremely grateful to our neighbours and community members who attended our consultation events in July 2023 and to everyone who shared their valuable insights with us.
We have taken time to pause, reflect and further improve our plans and – working alongside a new development partner, London Square – have made further adjustments to the overall design.
The revised plans still deliver key development priorities for the College, whilst addressing the feedback and concerns expressed by residents and stakeholders during the previous phases of consultation.
In summary, we have responded to your feedback through the following changes compared to the July 2023 proposals:
- Reduction of homes on site from 111 to 42 homes
- Change from apartments to houses
- Reduction in scale and massing from a maximum of 5 storeys to 3 storeys
- Increased separation distances with neighbouring properties
- Increased tree retention and increased new planting
- The height of the Thomas Johnson building, and lecture halls has been reduced
Introducing our development partners
London Square takes their name from the ethos of London’s famous squares, the legacy and the sense of community they have created over the centuries. Founded in 2010, the award-winning developer focus solely on London and its surrounding areas. They specialise in developing homes that truly enhance the capital and delivering much needed high-quality housing.
JTP is an award-winning international placemaking practice of architects and masterplanners with extensive experience of delivering successful projects at every scale – from cities and towns, to neighbourhoods – for both private and public sectors throughout the UK and Europe. Their unique approach has been recognised by over 200 design awards over the past twenty years.
Hollaway is an architectural and interior design practice that embraces the past, the present, and the future and places people and feeling at the core of its architecture philosophy. The studio delivers architecture that balances sensitive contextual response with elegant functionality.
July 2023 Plans
We are extremely grateful to our neighbours and community members who attended the consultation events in 2020 and 2021, and to everyone who shared their valuable insights with us.
We have taken time to pause, reflect and improve our plans and – working alongside a new development partner, London Square – have made several adjustments to the overall design.
The revised plans still deliver key development priorities for the College, whilst addressing the feedback and concerns expressed by residents and stakeholders during the previous phases of consultation.
In summary, we have responded to your feedback through the following changes:
- Housing numbers – a significant reduction in the number of proposed new homes from nearly 200 to around 110
- Height and massing – overall height and massing was reduced across the proposed development with a maximum of 5 storeys now proposed
- Protecting neighbouring amenity – increased separation distances to neighbouring properties are now proposed with a minimum of 18m
- Sensitive retention of Walker House – the updated proposals better enhance the college green with new college facilities proposed within a modern sub-terranean extension – you can view our video here
- Residential Design Standards – the proposals deliver more family homes and meet all the required standards
View July 2023 exhibition boards
Please click here to view the July 2023 exhibition boards on our proposals. Feel free to email us at spurgeon2023@spurgeons.ac.uk if you have any issues in viewing this information.
