The date was continuously pushed back due to a number of problems between different developers, financial backers and the local council.

Park Place has been proposed by developers Minerva and was given planning approval in 2000 by Croydon Council after which the Government Office for London decided not to proceed with a call-in in 2003, despite concerns over traffic and the impact upon existing retail.

This decision, ultimately by Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott, caused controversy in 2006 amidst the Cash for Peerages political scandal, when it emerged that two of Minerva's previous and current chairmen, David Garrard and Andrew Rosenfeld, had made major loans to the Labour Party three months before the decision not to call in the planning application.

[2] In May 2009, Croydon Council announced that it would be ending the development agreement with Minerva following a realisation that they would not be able to secure funding after Lendlease pulled out of the project.

[3] Minerva planned to build a shopping centre, office accommodation and bus station on the site of the Allders department store and St George's Walk.