Purley Way is a section of the A23 trunk road in the London Borough of Croydon, in the areas of Purley, Waddon and Broad Green, and has given its name to the out-of-town shopping area alongside it with a catchment area covering most of South London. It was designed as a bypass for Croydon and was opened in April 1925 and was formed from improvements to pre-existing local roads, from north to south: Waddon Marsh Lane, Waddon Court Road and Coldharbour Lane (Thornton Road, the northern section of the by-pass, was not renamed). In 1932, Purley Way became the first road in the United Kingdom to be lit with sodium lights.