Sutton’s St Nicholas Shopping Centre set for demolition as part of town centre regeneration
When it opened in 1992, Sutton’s new £100 million St Nicholas Centre was expected to be one of the South East’s “premiere shopping centres”, but now it’s about to be demolished.
As part of a wider regeneration of Sutton town centre, the council has selected a development partner to rebuild the shopping centre and provide a new Civic Hub to replace its existing council buildings, as well as a new retail centre to replace the old one.
The proposed Civic Hub should be completed by mid-2029, and the council expects it will reduce their office costs by around £1 million a year.
Around 740 new homes – 50% of which will be affordable housing for local families, including nearly 300 homes for social rent – will be built on the existing Civic Offices, Gibson Road car park and Secombe Theatre sites. There will also be improvements to the public realm, such as new ways to access the town centre.
The Omniplex Cinema and the St Nicholas Centre Car Park will be retained.
Although the shopping centre cost around £100 million to build in the early 1990s, the council was able to buy it for just £26 million in August 2021.
The decision follows the recent openings of Oru Sutton and Throwley Yard, the plans for a new home on the High Street for Sutton College, as well as the construction of new council homes at Beech Tree Place and Elm Grove in the town centre.
Sutton is a shadow of its former self. So many places have closed, including the large B&Q store (to be demolished for yet more flats), Morrisons is indefinitely shut for repairs, the bowling alley closed some time ago, a Wilko store remains dormant, and so many other stores and businesses have closed over the years.
The council spent a lot of money some time ago to redevelop the high street, but it was arguably much uglier. Hopefully this time they will make the high street more attractive and safer.
Wilkos shut down and B&Q is changing the way it operates. Who goes bowling? Debenhams shut due to scummy management and changing in purchasing habits.
What the council is doing is far better than trying to attract more high street retail which is declining due to Amazon/online.
High streets need to be aligned to what people want from them. A central place to do other things that reduces driving and diversifies what is going on is a better long term idea. Places to meet, learn, work, play. Other businesses will grow to support the needs of those people.
Yes, yet more flats. Is that a problem to have somewhere affordable to live?
Sutton shopping is a dump I have lived in the area all my life and the once great shopping area Is a dump
@Karlos 10 Pin bowling is very popular at weekends. Most are booked out all day… but they need to make them multi sport places really. The light in Redhill a great example. Loads of stuff to do.
The issue with more flats… is they never account for… Cars/parking, schools, childcare, Public transport, entertainment.
Kingston is a prime example of this. Loads of building work… no school places. We left there because of that.
Sutton is now a derelict high street. I suspect the main issue is the shop owners are doing high prices / short 5 year leases then bumping them at the end. Shops have to move out. Greedy and counter productive.
Presumably they’ll also address the further strain on capacity from new housing on local hospitals, dentists, and schools amongst other things? Or, they don’t have the acumen to think and plan like that?
No, you’re litterally the first person to think of that issue – you should contact the council and let them know you’ve make a staggering discovery that no one has ever noticed about building houses.
Funny that, the Sutton Council has had a school expansion plan since 2009 – expanding primary by 4445 places and secondary by 1400 places, not including 1036 created at Harris Academy since 2018
https://www.sutton.gov.uk/w/school-expansion-programme
NHS Integrated Care Boards are responsible for planning health services. Local councils play a role in social and public health through integrated care services but can’t commission a new hospital, dentist or doctors surgery. They will have a public health plan that aligns with the funding and budget constraints of the ICB.
As you will obviously know, councils have run all statutory roles on a minimum requirements and cut all non-statutory services to the bone or entirely thanks to the central government reducing funding. Social health funding will provide better outcomes than just building another hospital – the underfunding is causing issues in hospitals.
You will also know that there is a national crisis in dentistry.
Sutton Council, for all their flaws have supported St Helier and is a partner in the expansion of the cancer hub at Sutton Hospital which will also have community services. https://www.sutton.gov.uk/w/standing-up-for-sutton-1
https://www.sutton.gov.uk/w/the-london-cancer-hub
Lived in Sutton for over 20 years and it is at its most vibrant in that time. A real time of change and possibility. I don’t expect it will all work out 100% but it feels like a place where people want to live. It does need better provision for active and public transport – the tram would have been a great addition. We do have to rely on cars more than most.
Agree with you. Lovely to see a rare positive comment, accurately informed.
I agree it’s the best it’s ever been and I’ve been living in Sutton for 25 years.
If you go back more than 25 years, everywhere was more of a dump. ?
Really agree with this and it’s refreshing to see positive comments. I’ve lived in Sutton for 50 years and agree that it’s becoming a much more vibrant place, with the Sound Lounge, Oru and the new independent cinema. I, too mourn all the shops, but our world is changing – councils can only respond to this and provide an atmosphere that attracts the businesses and facilities we want and need. I think there’s a great deal more to be done and it’s by no means perfect, but there’s room for hope. And yes please, more housing – it’s desperately needed!
Does Sutton need more flats? Obviously not when the erection of apartments was started some time ago and to date not completed leaving residents at Rosehill with an ugly eyesore.
London needs vastly more flats — and close to a major rail station is an ideal location for them.
Mate, I don’t think you really thought that through. No idea which development at Rosehill you are on about but it has no bearing on how many homes are needed. Flats near a town centre are superb as it means less need for a car.Fewer cars means better air quality and better safety. We certainly don’t need a load of semi-detached houses which use up land inefficiently and put more vehicles on the road.
No surprise the NIMBYs are out in force moaning about new homes (during a housing crisis). It’s so sad many default to seeing building homes as a bad thing
It fills like they are building boxes to stuff people into
Not providing parking spaces for vehicles is very shortsighted and Naive
If the council is building all this flats, the list they need to do is to build a GP surgery
At the moment it is impossible to get an appointment with the doctors
The surgery up the road is not even answering the phone
You have to go through a very complicated process online only appointments which are impossible to navigate
It feels like they have designer this system in a way as to keep as many people away from the surgery as they possibly can.
The council and/or property developer can only provide the empty box for the GP to occupy, if you can find a GP to occupy it. The likelihood is that the existing GP would just move into the new site because they’re likely to get a peppercorn rent deal and it might give them some cash to hire a nurse or two, or they might pocket the cash themselves (remember, most GP surgeries are private companies) — so unless you pump a lot of money into training new doctors and funding the GP surgeries, there’s nothing that the council or property developer can do to put a GP into a new estate.
The best they can do is lay a cookie trail for them and hope someone bites.
I remember the St Nicolas Centre being built and opening. There were a few similar centres built around the same time and not many seemed that successful – Centre Court in Wimbledon being one. They didn’t launch in great times economically
I remember going there in the early days and it was very empty even then, and that was with its anchor tennant of Allders.
The previous generation of shopping malls from the 80s such as The Ashley Centre in Epsom and The Friary in Guildford seemed to fair much better, and of course the contemporary of the St Nicolas Centre in Kingston, The Bentall Centre was and still is thriving
B&Q, Library, Morrisons, Secombe centre all going just so the property developers can make fortunes _ prob all purchased online overseas and what we will be left with is a total dump like Croydon is now. All the character of what was a nice place to live ruined and all done initially away from the public eye so it then becomes too late to object. They are ruining the place!
Around 740 new homes – 50% of which will be affordable housing for local families, including nearly 300 homes for social rent.
I love the idea but I don’t believe it for a minute we have seen the same promises in Kingston, Croydon and other local areas where developers have promised Affordable housing and as soon as permission is granted they say “Because of new costing we won’t be able to build as many affordable homes” and by the time a single one has been completed there will be no affordable homes just lots of stupidly expensive housing for the rich to by to rent out to those who have no choice but to pay the jacked up prices they will be charged
I do hope I’m wrong but I wouldn’t be the fluff off the bottom of my socks that nearly 300 affordable homes will be built I might bet on there being 30 when its completed but thats a best case scenario
It looks good. They are doing the right thing and diversifying the high street. I support all of the major new housing developments too. So much negativity on here.
I live in Kingston and am very disappointed to hear that the best local library I have seen is being knocked down. I expect the new one in the expensive new centre will be tiny. What will happen to all the records, so useful when doing family trees.