Charlton’s boarded-up White Swan pub is being used for council housing

A south London council says it is investigating after its residents were given homes at a disused pub in Charlton where a cannabis farm was found last year.

Croydon Council took on rooms at The White Swan earlier this year and let them out to people in its borough in need of temporary accommodation. Neighbours say that piles of rubbish were dumped in the old beer garden while people were living there.

The pub, which was bought by the Isle of Man-based developer Mendoza for £900,000 in 2015, closed in March 2020 after the management struggled to cope with rent demands. 

Mendoza was granted permission to build a house on part of the beer garden in 2021. Now it wants to turn the boarded-up pub, in The Village, into a supermarket with flats above.

A planning inspector is expected to rule soon on whether the development can go ahead. Greenwich Council has said it would have refused permission, but Mendoza did not produce documents in time for it to make a decision.

Despite the lack of planning permission, the building is being marketed to potential retailers with the claim that it has been fitted out as “standard retail space”.

In March 2023, plans to turn the upstairs function rooms into flats were refused by Greenwich Council. However, work went ahead anyway, and the rooms were squatted. The following September, The Greenwich Wire revealed the existence of a cannabis farm in the old bar area and cellar. Locals voiced frustration at a lack of action from the police and Greenwich Council, about the issue.

The premises are now being used by Croydon Council to accommodate people needing temporary housing – despite Charlton Village being an hour away by bus from the borough’s eastern border.

Local people have set up a campaign to save the pub, and a number of neighbours have been keeping an eye on what is going on. One photo shared with The Greenwich Wire this month showed piles of rubbish said to have been dumped in the old beer garden while people were living on the premises, although at least some of it appears to have been cleaned up since.

Neighbours say there have been signs of people living at the pub, including Deliveroo deliveries, for the past two months. One said there had been “eight or nine” different vehicles visiting the site.

An email from a Greenwich Council planning officer seen by The Greenwich Wire said that a surprise inspection had been carried out at the end of March. The officer said that one household had been placed by Croydon in ground-floor accommodation that had been “traditionally used as a residential unit” – thought to be an outbuilding in the beer garden – and the upstairs rooms were empty.

But neighbours said it was clear the rooms upstairs were being prepared for residents. Two wheelie bins, marked “flat 1” and “flat 2”, appeared outside the property on Tuesday, while a pair of letterboxes have also appeared on a rear wall. A house number has been daubed on the side of the pub, which is in a conservation area and on Greenwich Council’s heritage list.

One neighbour, who asked not be named, said Greenwich Council needed to act as it was not clear that the rooms were fit to live in. “You can tell there are people living above the pub because there are lights on and off at night, and the bins give it away now,” they said.

A shortage of suitable accommodation across the capital – and competition between boroughs – means that London councils are having to look further and further afield to house people.

A Croydon Council spokesperson told The Greenwich Wire: “This matter is being investigated and we will work closely with our local authority partner and take actions as needed.

“We are reviewing our property procurement processes to ensure that we continue to offer our residents properties that are good quality and compliant with current standards and legal requirements.”

Greenwich Council said: “We want to ensure that everyone living in Greenwich has a safe and secure home. Following reports to our planning team, we’re investigating to ensure the use of the building complies with planning and environmental health legislation. As this is a live investigation, it’s not possible to comment further.

“We’re also in communication with officers from Croydon Council to discuss this.”

A Mendoza representative did not respond to a request for comment. Neither did Jenkins Law, the chartered surveyor attempting to let the disused pub as a retail outlet.

Greenwich Council has asked neighbours with concerns about the site to report them to planning-enforcement@royalgreenwich.gov.uk.