A planning inspector will decide the future of the White Swan pub in Charlton after an offshore developer submitted an appeal.
The property company Mendoza, which is registered in the Isle of Man, wants to build a supermarket in the bar — naming Tesco in the application — and turn the upper floors into seven flats, adding a two-floor extension.
It submitted its plans to the council in July, with the proposal becoming public the following month. But Greenwich Council has not made a decision on the application, entitling the company to go straight to the Planning Inspectorate. Jo van den Broek, a Charlton Village councillor, told The Greenwich Wire via its Facebook page that the developer had not responded to issues raised by the council’s planning officers.
Both Mendoza and the council will submit written representations to the inspector, who will visit the site and issue a ruling.
The inspector is also accepting public comments via the Planning Inspectorate website before February 13.
The pub — known for its live music and its popularity with Charlton Athletic fans — closed in March 2020, just before the first coronavirus lockdown, and has fallen into disrepair since then.
Plans to convert the current upper floor from function rooms into two flats were thrown out in March last year. The owner, Mendoza’s sister company Associate Properties, carried out work regardless, and the rooms — which Mendoza described as “managers’ accommodation” — were then squatted.
A cannabis farm was found in the abandoned pub in September – just weeks after Mendoza had applied to turn it into a supermarket.
Mendoza bought the freehold to the Swan from Punch Taverns for £900,000 in April 2015, although Land Registry data reveals in December that year the building was sold again, to Associate Properties, based in the same office in the Manx capital, Douglas, for £1.2 million.
The company insists the pub is not viable, but a community group, White Swan Music and Arts, has been hoping to raise funds to buy the building and turn it into the base for a music and arts charity while keeping the building as a pub.
In December a 1,260-name petition was submitted to Greenwich Council calling on it to take action against Mendoza for converting the upstairs rooms without permission.
Updated on January 18 to include comment from Jo van den Broek.
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