Woolwich’s Poundstretcher store could be replaced by 160 co-living homes

Woolwich’s Poundstretcher store and a neighbouring shop could be pulled down and replaced with 160 co-living homes.

The developers behind the scheme, Buccleuch Property and Packaged Living, announced that they had bought the site on Beresford Square earlier this year and held a brief consultation in May.

Now plans to tear down the old supermarket and nail bar next door and replace it with a six-storey block with a  café or retail unit below have been submitted to Greenwich Council.

Co-living homes provide small ensuite rooms with shared facilities and are aimed at young professionals priced out of traditional flats, who pay a rent that covers all their bills. The Beresford Square scheme would include a co-working space, gym and roof terrace as well as a community kitchen. There would be just two accessible car parking spaces. 

Woolwich’s future could depend heavily on these developments, which have become hugely popular with investors in recent years. In Greenwich, developers only have to pay 60 per cent of the community infrastructure levy they would have to pay for traditional flats. 

In November last year, councillors approved 500 co-living homes for the nearby Island Site, but the project only received final backing from City Hall last week. Next door, another 400 units are planned on Macbean Street as part of a bigger development containing 500 student rooms: councillors are yet to take a decision on this scheme. 

Further afield, a development of 487 co-living rooms on the borough boundary at Abbey Wood was rubber-stamped by the mayor’s office last month. The architecture firm, Assael, is also behind the Beresford Square scheme. 

Assael said in planning documents that in a scheme that it had worked on in Earlsfield, Sunday Mills, that opened three years ago, the average age of a resident was 31 and their average salary was £34,000. However, residents ranged from ages 18 to 66, and their occupations varied” from baristas to florists to pilots to lecturers”. They pay £1,800 a month in rent, which includes all their bills, according to Sunday Mills’ website.

No “affordable” housing is planned in the scheme, which is said to be worth £40 million. The developers, who plan to take a 17.5 per cent profit on the co-living spaces, and 15 per cent on the commercial unit, have submitted a viability assessment to say that they cannot afford it. 

The current block sits on what was once known as the High Pavement, facing Woolwich’s traditional street market. It was built in 1970 and replaced an old cinema and condemned slum housing that had been demolished in the early Sixties. 

Next door is a Victorian shop – a survivor of three built in the 1890s along with a long-gone pub, and currently a takeaway – which is not part of the demolition plans.

Beresford Square itself has recently been refurbished, with the market moved to the old High Pavement. Opposite, the old Ordnance Arms pub is being turned into a hotel, while plans to redevelop the area around the covered market into Woolwich Exchange continue to be delayed amid issues with fire safety in the planned blocks, increased costs and disputes with the existing businesses on the site.Full details of the Beresford Square development can be found on Greenwich Council’s planning website.

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