What’s happening to the old Royal Mail sorting office next to East Croydon Station?

Work on demolishing a huge Royal Mail delivery office next to East Croydon Station is well underway. It was bought by Network Rail in 2019 as part of its plans to tackle the Croydon bottleneck.

The rail operator wants to build more platforms and tracks around East Croydon Station to allow trains to run more easily on the London to Brighton line. But there is uncertainty over whether there will be government funding for the project and how a post- Covid decline in passengers will impact this.

It now looks like there could be a “temporary use” for the site while Network Rail figures out where the upgrade scheme will go. Diggers can be now be seen working on the derelict Royal Mail building in Addiscombe Road, which is due to be fully demolished in August, but Network Rail said it can’t yet say how exactly the site will be used.

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The empty building shut back in 2015 when parcel collections were moved over to Factory Lane. It was sold off to developers with plans for 200 homes approved in 2017 – that planning permission has now lapsed.

A spokesperson for Network Rail said: “The demolition of the derelict Royal Mail building is due to finish in August 2022. We are in discussions with local stakeholders around temporary uses for the site and hope to make an announcement once those negotiations are finished.”

The Croydon area is the busiest, most congested and most complex part of the country’s rail network. A lack of capacity at East Croydon and “complex series of junctions north of Croydon” means there are delays on the whole route whenever there is an incident.

But according to the Network Rail website, the Croydon Area Remodelling Scheme has been affected by “significant uncertainty about future passenger behaviour and demand following the Covid-19 pandemic and funding constraints following the government’s 2020 Spending Review.”