Plans to build more than a hundred flats at Welling United’s football ground have been withdrawn, six months after they were submitted to Bexley Council.
Lita Homes, a Charlton-based developer, had wanted to rebuild the non-league side’s Park View Road stadium to include 104 flats in an eight-storey block facing the main road.
Most of the existing ground, which has hosted football since the 1920s, would have been demolished along with an adjacent building used by the GMB union.
Fans of the Wings, who play in National League South, the sixth tier of English football, had been promised a 4,000-capacity stadium and state-of-the art facilities for players when the plans were first announced last summer.
It is not clear why the application was withdrawn, but the freehold to the land is owned by Bexley Council, meaning the council’s Conservative leadership would have had to have backed the plans as well as councillors on a planning committee.
The Greenwich Wire can reveal that a clause in Welling’s lease forbids residential development there, while most of the site is designated as Metropolitan Open Land, similar to the Green Belt, that is designed to protect the land from development.
Another complication was the presence of Erith & Belvedere, another non-league club who share Park View Road with the Wings and have their own lease on part of the stadium, including their own stand.
Lita Homes’ application stated that the Deres had agreed to move out, but the club, who now play three divisions below Welling after being relegated last season, said it was staying put.
Park View Road had fallen into disrepair in recent years with one stand closed for a time because it was in such poor condition. The planning application called the ground “a semi-derelict facility, which is not fit for its current purpose”. The main stand dates back to the 1950s, making it older than the club itself.
Welling United was founded by Syd Hobbins, a former Charlton and Millwall goalkeeper, as a boys’ team in 1963, later entering adult leagues and playing at Butterfly Lane in Eltham. The club moved into Park View Road in 1977 after the demise of the previous club to play there, Bexley United.
Both Lita Homes and Welling United have been contacted for comment.
Earlier this year Lita bought the Grade II-listed Borough Hall in Greenwich from the council for £2.475 million, while it also sold a development in Woolwich to the same council for nearly £14 million.
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