Croydon Development Finance: Residential Scheme at 96 Portland Road South Norwood London SE25 Enters the Pipeline

A new residential conversion has entered the Croydon planning pipeline, and it is exactly the kind of small scheme our desk gets asked to fund most weeks. Application 26/01153/FUL, covering 96 Portland Road, South Norwood, London SE25 4PJ, is listed as pending decision on the London Borough of Croydon planning register (Idox) as of 10 August 2026.

The proposal, as described on the London Borough of Croydon planning register (Idox), is the conversion of a vacant shop into a studio flat, with alterations to the rear elevation, refuse and cycle storage, and associated works. The use class recorded on the London Borough of Croydon planning register (Idox) is residential. That makes this a 1 unit scheme: modest in scale, but a clean example of the shop to home conversions that keep appearing along Croydon's secondary parades.

Where it sits in the borough matters. Portland Road runs through South Norwood, north of the town centre, where vacant retail frontage has been an obvious target for residential conversion for several years. Schemes like this one sit alongside the larger consented stock we track on our Croydon development finance page, where we cover the borough's pipeline and the funding routes that fit each scale of project.

On the finance side, a 1 unit shop conversion rarely suits a full ground up development facility. The natural products are a refurbishment bridge or a light development loan from bridging specialists or specialist commercial lenders, with challenger banks an option where the sponsor wants to hold the finished flat as a rental. On current terms crossing our desk, refurbishment bridging for schemes of this type is pricing from roughly 0.85 per cent per month, with day one advances typically capped at around 70 per cent of the purchase price or current value. Those are our desk's indicative figures from live lender conversations, not published rates, and every case prices on its own facts.

The exit deserves as much attention as the entry. If the sponsor intends to sell the studio, the bridge simply redeems on completion of the sale. If the plan is to retain, a development exit or term refinance should be scoped before drawdown, because a single studio flat can sit awkwardly with some valuers and lenders on square footage and lease structure. Getting that read early avoids an expensive scramble at redemption.

Our read as brokers: sponsors on schemes like 26/01153/FUL should line up three things while the application is still pending. First, a costed works schedule, since lenders will lend against it. Second, evidence of the exit, whether comparable sales or an agreement in principle for the refinance. Third, a realistic programme, because interest on a bridge accrues monthly and dead time is the most common reason small conversions underperform. Once Croydon determines the application, funding can move quickly, and the sponsors who prepared during the pending period are the ones who complete on time.