London | It takes only 15 minutes to make the 18-kilometre train journey from central London to the southern suburb of Croydon, but it feels like a town apart.

It has three train stations and its own tram network, and its retail centre looks more like a provincial market town than a suburban London high street. Fancy apartment towers have been springing onto the Croydon skyline, but many have the same lack of care for the local landscape and atmosphere that seems to blight the whole town.