Campaigners hoping to save the White Swan pub in Charlton have appealed to residents to object to the latest attempt to turn part of the building into flats.
The developer Mendoza has applied to Greenwich Council to build four flats above the pub, adding an extra floor to recreate the building’s appearance before it was damaged by a bomb in the Second World War.
Mendoza’s plan could derail the hopes of White Swan Music and Arts (WSMA), a charity, of reopening the pub and live music venue under community ownership, while turning the upper floor into a multipurpose arts space.
The charity launched a fundraiser in December which was backed by Squeeze singer Glenn Tilbrook, who lives nearby. The campaign has raised just shy of £115,000 towards a £360,000 target to put down a deposit on a purchase, with plans to talk to larger donors to help with the rest of the cost.
Mendoza seeks to change the use of the upstairs floor from pub to residential, change part of the rear of ground floor to an access area to the flats and shrink the beer garden to a small yard.
WSMA said it was “saddened by Mendoza’s latest planning application to turn the White Swan into two storeys of residential flats by adding a new floor and decimating the much-loved beer garden. This latest plan to carve up the White Swan will be a death by a thousand cuts to our much loved community space.”
Its chair, Suzanne Hunt, said: “The White Swan has been the communal front room for the village since Victorian times. It’s a place to make friends across our community.
“Let us be clear: we will fight any change of use today, tomorrow and in the future. People throughout Charlton are working hard to raise the money to pay a fair price to buy the building for us all. We’re not asking for a hand out, just a leg up to save our community.”
The Swan has had a turbulent history since Mendoza, which is registered in the Isle of Man, bought it from Punch Taverns in April 2015 for £900,000, selling it onto a sister company, Associate Properties, eight months later for £1.2 million.
The pub closed in March 2020 after the management struggled to meet the rent demands and has not reopened since. A proposal to build a house at the rear of the pub was the only plan to be approved, in 2020, but that permission has since lapsed.
In 2023 The Greenwich Wire revealed that a cannabis farm was operating from the bar area, while the following year it emerged that Croydon Council was putting up tenants in part of the site.
Two years ago a planning inspector comprehensively threw out a proposal to turn the pub into a supermarket and seven flats, criticising Mendoza for leaving the building in such a poor condition. The inspector also concluded that the pub “provided a role and value to the community when it was open”.
The pub’s asset of community value status has since lapsed, and The Greenwich Wire understands that an application to renew it made to Greenwich Council last summer has stalled.
Mendoza’s latest plans do not include a statement on the viability of the building as a pub, which is normally demanded in such applications.
To see the plans and comment on the application, visit the Greenwich Council planning website.
To contact your councillors or other representatives, visit writetothem.com.
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