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Croydon is the thriving 'edge city' to London offering prime regional location and access, an unmatched business profile, strong cultural, leisure and retail offerings and an exciting period of future development and regeneration.

An ambitious borough positioning itself as the logical 21st Century business alternative to Central London, it is time to consider Croydon.

BUSINESS

With over 13,000 businesses in Croydon and a highly-skilled working population of 160,000. Croydon is the largest of the London boroughs with a business profile to rival anywhere outside Central London.

It is home to over twenty blue chip company HQ's including Mott McDonald, Sigma Aerospace, Merrill Lynch, HSBC, Pricewaterhousecoopers, Direct Line, Nestle and BT. Financial and business services are the major source of employment in the borough for both men and women, establishing Croydon as the most important location for financial services outside the City of London.

Ideally placed to give focus and fresh energy to your new or growing business, Croydon is one of the UK's largest commercial centres, offering prime business space at highly competitive rates.

With approximately 8.5million square feet of commercial floor space, an increasing number of high profile international and national companies have chosen to relocate to Croydon including Merrill Lynch, Utell and the Mourant Group.

Excluding Central London, Croydon provides the biggest commercial and retail centre in the South East and the lowest office costs in Greater London.
Recent research by City University found Croydon to be the lowest cost location in Greater London with an individual workstation cost of approximately £8,500 compared with over £18,000 in Central London.

Croydon is also the natural choice of location for regional government agencies and public-private partnerships such as SLEDA and Business Link for London.

LOCATION

Croydon is ideally situated between Central London, Gatwick International Airport, the South East, South Coast and principle routes to mainland Europe. Both Central London and Gatwick Airport can be reached from Central Croydon in under 20 minutes. View Road Map

The new state of the art Tramlink system links the borough from East to West providing fast, efficient, environmentally friendly access to and from Croydon while London Underground services are schedule to be running to Croydon by 2005 with the extension of the East London line. View Tram line map

RETAIL

Central Croydon has approximately 1.7 million sq ft devoted to shopping with a catchment of 1.4 million people. 50% of the catchment are within the most upmarket demographic groups.

Croydon already boasts the Whitgift Shopping Centre with over 1 million square feet of prime, modern retail space, 160 stores, bars restaurants and major department stores including Allders, the UK's third largest department store.

2003 sees the arrival of Centrale, Croydon's new state of the art shopping centre featuring a new flagship 160,000 sq ft House of Fraser department store due to open in 2004. The completion of Centrale will provide the borough with over 2 million square feet of retail floor space compared to 1.5 million at Bluewater and Croydon is predicted to rise to 6th place in the national retail centre rankings by 2003.

BOBS

Croydon Marketing & Development (CMD) is the strategic marketing company for Croydon, working to improve and enhance the borough's profile and potential through proactive marketing and sector development.

In recognition of Croydon and surrounding boroughs commercial strength CMD host the region's most prestigious business awards scheme - The Best of Business awards (The BoBs). The Gala Awards Ceremony, held each March, is widely recognised as the premier business event of the year in the regional corporate calendar.

LEISURE/CULTURE

Croydon is much more than a business and retail centre, it is a vibrant 24 hour lifestyle centre. As well as its flourishing 'daytime' economy Croydon's range of entertainment venues, restaurants, brasseries and late night designer bars and clubs create a mouth-watering menu of options around the clock.

Croydon's leisure proposition has been extended with the opening of Grants, a modern, stylish leisure development featuring Tiger Tiger, Edwards, Warner Village Cinemas, Holmes Place, Nandos and Bar 38. Grants has added to Croydon's kaleidoscope of evening dining and social options and there are over 600 places to eat in Croydon to suite all tastes, styles and budgets.

Croydon Clocktower is Croydon's cultural jewel - a modern multi-functional cultural centre and community resource featuring Croydon's central library, three exhibition spaces, the David Lean cinema and performance spaces.

Croydon Skyline is the largest urban lighting project ever conceived in the UK with 17 buildings currently lit up, transforming the boroughs night time landscape.

Amidst all the business and leisure developments it is easy to forget that a short footstep away from the commercial town centre, Croydon has over 2270 hectares of protected open space and over 120 parks and gardens to explore. It is also a golfing mecca with 9 golf courses including Championship standard courses.

ACCOMMODATION & CONFERENCING

Croydon has over 3000 beds in both the heart of the busy town centre and its luxurious countryside borders. The wide range of town and country hotels make Croydon a popular destination for business visitors attending conferences and corporate away days.

Many of Croydon's hotels offer beautiful, scenic grounds, golf courses and a host of relaxing facilities including sports centres, gyms, health and beauty parlours and swimming pools.

The borough's accommodation proposition has been extended even further with the opening of a new Jury's Inn £15million 240 bedroom hotel in the centre of Croydon.

Croydon is the South East's premier location for conferences, business seminars, meetings and corporate events with room rates and conference packages comparing favourably with Central London.

For more information and enquiries on Croydon visit www.investincroydon.com