Closed Greenwich backstreet pub to become six flats

A backstreet pub in east Greenwich is to become six flats after just seven objections were received by council planning officers.

The Royal Standard in Pelton Road had traded for more than 150 years but had acquired a downmarket reputation in its later years and closed in 2020. 

Developers applied to extend the building and turn it into seven flats in September 2023, and this was later amended to six flats. 

Approval was given in December last year, but has only come to light now because the developer has submitted a construction plan to the council. It proposes that the work would be complete by January next year.

Because there were only seven objections – focusing on the loss of the pub and the scale of the extension – the decision was taken by a planning officer rather than by a committee of councillors.

The planning report said that the pub had been on the market for £50,000 per year, later cut to £25,000. An assessment from chartered surveyors found that that the pub would need tens of thousands of pounds of investment to trade again and because it did not serve food, “this property would be confined to wet trade only which is simply not viable in most instances. Even on a freehold basis it is difficult to see this property being attractive to the owner-operator market”.

“It appears the property is self-evidently unlikely to trade again as a public house,” the assessment from BPS Chartered Surveyors said.

The closed pub is near the thriving Pelton Arms, which has become a favourite for live music over the past decade. But other traditional pubs in the neighbourhood have withered away. Hardy’s Free House on Trafalgar Road, once a popular Irish pub, finally closed in January after permission was given to turn it into a hotel and restaurant at the beginning of last year.

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