Waterloo's quiet side
The Sidings opened in 2022. Now, the fight is on to turn a deserted station corner into a South Bank hub.
The Sidings – “the south bank’s most exciting new retail and leisure venue,” according to its website – opened in 2022 to its share of teething problems. Raising its shutters in August while the retail sector was still struggling to shake off the last of a post-Covid hangover, persuading businesses to pitch themselves in what should be a bustling commuter corridor has proved a challenge. Located downstairs just off Waterloo’s main concourse, its huge entrance is surprisingly difficult to spot through the hustle and bustle of the station above.
Big-name brands have taken out leases and kitted out their stores, but aren’t currently operating. A branch of Costa Coffee – fully fitted with shelves and signage – stands quiet. Notices on the windows direct customers to their nearest branch on the station concourse above. Labyrinth – an immersive theatre company announced as an “anchor” tenant when the centre opened – has yet to open at all. Branches of WHSmith’s and Pret a Manger have been and gone.
Months on from its release, BBC News reported The Sidings was “almost deserted”. Two years later, the story at first glance seems much the same. Apart from food and beverage (F&B) goliaths BrewDog, Nando’s and a branch of Wetherspoons, most visitors don’t progress far past the toilets near the centre’s entrance. “Sometimes it’s busy, sometimes not,” one store employee says. “Sometimes we get one customer a day”.
A trip to the depths of The Sidings certainly confirms its reputation. Of the 40 regular retail units in the venue, 21 have been rented, according to a freedom of information request sent to its Government-owned operator, London & Continental Railways. Of these, just eight (and one popup) are open to the public at time of writing. A walk past a bustling branch of Black Sheep Coffee and a handful of sleepy retail offerings leads to a sea of internal marketing and empty shop fronts.
"Consumers feel that, since [2009], they've never been able to catch a break. It's been one thing after another" - Prof Sarah Montano
To date, most of the centre’s biggest success stories have been those with external entrances. BrewDog, an anchor tenant from The Sidings’ inception, is the largest branch of the controversial brewing company in the country, and is rarely short of customers coming in from its entrance on Leake Street. Nando’s, which opened in 2023, fares similarly.
But there are green shoots emerging from the neat concrete rows. An unlikely saviour, in the form of a branch of Wetherspoons, is among the first to bring consistent footfall into The Sidings’ interior. A new seating area and arcade-style signs outside shops on the ground floor are slowly but surely bringing signs of life to the place.
“I wouldn’t necessarily say we’ve had a complete change in direction,” Sian Evans, LCR’s Asset Management Director, says of recent developments. “There has always [been] a place for people to be able to come, have a coffee, spend some time.”
But looking at The Sidings’ success stories so far, their offering is a departure from the blend of retail and experience-based offerings promised two years ago.
Demand for retail across the UK has changed since plans were approved in 2016. According to Professor Sarah Montano, Professor of Retail Marketing at the University of Birmingham, changing work habits, economic shocks and increases to National Insurance contributions have resulted in a “perfect storm” for a sector currently losing as many as 38 stores per day.
“[The empty storefronts are] almost the visual manifestation of the issues in retail at the moment,” she says.
“It's very hard for us to take one thing in isolation and say it's definitely this issue.
"You really have to go all the way back to the last recession, to 2009… Consumers feel that, since then, they've never been able to catch a break. It's been one thing after another.”
“Why, from 2022, did we not just suddenly take off?”, Evans says. “We had works to complete, to start off with. So even though we sort of opened, there were still things that were being done. I think we spent a lot of time making sure that people understand what The Sidings is here to do.”
Now, that purpose is becoming clearer. Foot traffic, particularly on the lower ground floor (currently occupied by Lucky Voice, Nando’s and a window into anchor tenant BrewDog) is still on the low side; but long-stay and bookable offerings add value in a way that no longer competes with the more accessible grab-and-go options available in Waterloo's main concourse.
But two years is a long time to wait for a £69.4m project to realise its potential. Did The Sidings open before it was ready? Evans doesn’t think so.
“We opened with a very successful BrewDog,” she says.
“And in its own right, BrewDog has put this place on the map, in some respects, with the plan then to evolve and open others. [There’s] a point in time when you have to make decisions, because you have a tenant who is there and is ready to open and ready to operate, had their own entrance points, had their own unique identity. So therefore, we were supportive of that tenant.”
One of those tenants is karaoke room company Lucky Voice. Its Head of Operations, Steve Little, says business had been better than they feared when they opened in April, and the store has good relationships with The Sidings management, but more needs to be done to attract customers to the outlet.
“People just don’t know this place is here,” he says.
“[On the concourse] they’ve got those massive screens and only one sign [for The Sidings]…”
Lucky Voice’s Managing Director, Charlie Elek, adds: “We had a fantastic opening earlier this year for our Waterloo venue. Footfall around the location has been slightly lower than we had hoped but feedback from customers on the venue has been amazing and we are looking forward to a bumper Christmas.
“Our partners at The Sidings have been very supportive helping us settle into our new Waterloo location, and we look forward to working even more closely with them into 2025 and beyond to draw in even more guests looking for a great night out.”
Conversations are happening between LCR, Network Rail and other stakeholders to improve signage to The Sidings. On a sleepy Monday afternoon, though, the centre is still far from the lively hub of activity promised when it opened in 2022. Most of the venue’s lower-ground floor - where hi-vis security guards frequently outnumber both shops and shoppers - is still completely deserted. But Evans, still, remains hopeful:
“I strongly believe, and we as LCR strongly believe, there's a very different offering here,” she says. “Yes, it's taking a little bit longer than we would like, but on the reverse side I keep saying: when we do it, we do it well.”
Built with Shorthand