EXPANSION of one of Croydon's largest housing developments is seen as key to breathing new life into the project.

Barratt Kent has planning permission to build 796 homes on the site off Purley Way, Waddon, as part of an overall £120 million urban village scheme, which includes commercial premises, a unit for start up businesses, a café and a health centre.

But the company now wants to build an extra 86 homes.

A block of 176 homes used for social housing is already occupied and sales have started on a second block containing more than 200 shared ownership properties.

The global financial crisis has brought work on many of the other blocks, which form the central Circus element of the scheme, to a virtual standstill, though.

Only 50 or 60 people are at present working on the site, down from several hundred when construction of the first two blocks was underway.

Project manager Paul Dawson told the Advertiser this week: "We have now got to the stage where we are asking 'how do we keep the building going?'"

Under the new plans, which have just been submitted to Croydon Council, the new apartments will be built by adding floors to the main blocks in the Circus and in a new building which replaces the derelict Commercial House office and warehouse buildings in Vicarage Road.

The original proposals for the main development have also been modified in response to original concerns raised by residents living in Wandle Road, whose homes back on to the site.

The height of one housing block is being reduced from four to three storeys, a new so-called "pocket" park has been included to increase the amount of open space on the development and the perimeter road has been moved further away from the homes in Wandle Road.

Formal consultation on the new scheme goes on until the end of the month and council planners are aiming to put the scheme before the planning committee in October.