CROYDON is on target to become London's biggest growth area, business leaders have been told.
But Jo Negrini, the council's executive director for development and the environment, also made it plain the town needed to be talked up by businesses already here if all investment opportunities were to be realised.
Ms Negrini made her points during a question-and-answer session with Colin Stanbridge, chief executive of London Chamber of Commerce, at an executive club lunch held by its Croydon Chamber last Thursday.
She stressed the Westfield/Hammerson Partnership's redevelopment of the Whitgift Centre would be "transformative" in helping bring about Croydon's regeneration.
And she told her audience the council's new Labour administration was committed to supporting investment and development.
It would also work with the partnership to ensure benefits from the development, such as job and business opportunities, were felt across the borough.
Ms Negrini hinted there might have been concerns among some businesspeople that a Labour administration would "shut up shop".
But she added: "Our clear message is that this isn't the case."
Ms Negrini said it was not just development opportunities which would be Croydon's growth strength.
She said Croydon was investing £240 million in a school building programme, had 127 parks, was looking to develop a cultural quarter and promoting the town as a tech city.
Regeneration was not, she said, just about big development sites, and Croydon had the advantage of being able to give new companies and developers and the people they brought with them a "full complementary offer".
She said: "They are not just looking for office space, they are looking for place where they can go for drink, the family out, or perhaps play a round of golf."
Ms Negrini conceded one of the main challenges to regeneration was the wider perception of Croydon.
She said the idea of Croydon being "dull, grey and boring" needed to be shed if full potential was to be achieved.
And people – "some of whom may be in this room" – needed to stop talking Croydon down.
She said: "We are talking about this being third time lucky."
Croydon had been through two booms and busts, and had in the past not had a good reputation for delivering.
She concluded that this time, working with partners and responding to the demand for growth in London, is "pushing us to being in the right place at the right time".
