A former community center in Croydon has been sold for over £1million as the council seeks to tackle its finances.
The Peter Sylvester Center in South Croydon was a center for disabled adults and one of 15 sites the council chose to sell in February 2021 in a bid to improve its financial situation.
It closed in March 2020 when the Covid-19 pandemic hit.
Estate agent SHW’s website reveals the Bramley Hill building was now ‘under offer’ after being listed for £1.15million.
It says Croydon Council’s planning department had advised the site could be suitable for eight apartments spread over two blocks.
The two-storey centre, built in the 1970s, has been included in the first set of properties in Croydon Council’s Interim Asset Disposal Strategy to ‘liquidate as quickly as possible’.
READ MORE:Croydon Park Hotel sale approved after controversial £29m deal
The report says: ‘The council has sites where previous use has ceased and buildings have been vacated and demolished or condemned as there are no suitable uses.
“Although the costs of detention are in many cases quite modest, keeping these sites vacant can present a security risk or be a source of anti-social behavior and therefore a reputational problem.
“Removal and redevelopment would provide a much more positive outcome for the area and help generate new homes in many cases.”
When the strategy was first drawn up, Councilor Stuart King, Deputy Leader of Croydon Council and Cabinet Member for Croydon Renewal, said it would provide ‘much needed revenue’.
He said: “This strategy gives the council a clearer process to decide how to get the best value for the taxpayers of Croydon by selling the sites we no longer need in the right way and at the right time.”
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The strategy also included the sale of the Croydon Park Hotel.
The sale of the hotel was approved by the council in late 2021 and was sold for “at least £19m”, the council said, despite buying it for £29.8m in 2018.
In October, Cabinet Member for Resources and Financial Governance, Councilor Callton Young defended the sale of the hotel.
He said: “Disposals can avoid ongoing costs in the Croydon Park Hotel case of £610,000 a year.”
“There was an investment in the hotel but the market has changed, a lot of hotels have suffered from the pandemic and it is the hotel tenants who have given up the keys.
“I’m not in the business of coming to this firm and looking back, I’m interested in the challenge. We have a better price than expected and that will help us solve the whole problem. »
