Meyer Homes render of green
Meyer Homes plans to fence off most of the green space in front of Woolwich Tesco. The trees on the left of the image do not exist in real life

The developer behind plans for a 27-storey tower by the Tesco store in Woolwich is making a second attempt to fence off the green space in front of the supermarket.

Meyer Homes, which is behind a major redevelopment of the site around the store, is currently appealing against a Greenwich Council decision to refuse it permission to fence off the entire plot of land.

But it has now submitted a second application to the council to fence off a little less of the green in front of the store, where it plans to build the residential block.

Woolwich tower plan
Meyer’s tower plans have caused controversy for not including any social housing

Meyer, which bought the land from Tesco in 2015, wants to build the tower along with three other blocks of between nine and 16 storeys behind the store, providing 804 flats in total. But there is no social housing in the proposal and the 20% of “affordable” housing promised is at the higher end of the scale.

Last month’s Greenwich Council meeting saw a protest against the scheme from the Speak Out Woolwich pressure group. The development is yet to go before councillors, and may not do for some time.

Original Meyer scheme
Meyer’s original proposal, rejected by Greenwich Council

Meyer had earlier tried to fence off the site in March, but councillors threw out the proposals, citing “an adverse visual impact” on the area and a “sense of enclosure” on Love Lane, the path leading to Tesco.

Now Meyer is back with a smaller enclosure, which it says is needed so it can investigate a historic well beneath the green which could affect its development plans. It says the hoardings will be up for nine months, down from the previous proposal to fence the site off for one year.

Oddly, the render showing the proposed fence show trees to the east of the green – these don’t actually exist in real life.

Meyer is also behind a scheme to build eight, 14 and 34-storey blocks on a car park in front of Lewisham’s Tesco store. A decision was deferred by Lewisham Council’s main planning committee when it met last month.

  • To comment on the proposal, search for reference 17/3648/F on Greenwich Council’s planning page. Comments need to be in by Tuesday 9 January.
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