According to the planning application it intends to occupy the whole of the ground floor - potentially three individual units - of the new block of flats built by property agency Kallars next to the famous 'His & Hers' mural.
I'm as disappointed as I'm sure many of you will be that Costa is opening in Deptford, signalling another move towards the homogenisation of our high street. One of Deptford High Street's main strengths as far as I'm concerned is the fact that there are so few corporates present. If we lacked coffee shops then I might take a different view, but as I've pointed out before, we are already blessed with a wide variety of excellent, independent coffee outlets; the Waiting Room, Deli X, London Velo, Mousetail, Lomond Coffee, Dungarees (on market days) the Greenhouse, plus franchises in the Deptford Lounge and the Albany. I may even have missed some.
There's no point wasting any energy moaning about the council 'allowing' this to happen - the council has no authority in this matter. As long as the business fits the planning classification specified for the shop unit, then the council can do nothing to prevent it.
The developers have no affection for Deptford anyway - earlier this year they put in an application to stick another storey on top of this very building, clearly wanting to wring as much profit out of the site as they could. No surprise there. This application has thankfully now been withdrawn.
I will be continuing to support the independents with my business. Maybe I'll even ramp up my coffee intake so I can spread a bit more love.
4 comments:
Didnt hear any compliants when the asda come and now the Coop at deptford bridge...where was the support for the local newsagents then? Personnally im glad the costa is coming...cant have one rule for supermakets and another for coffee shops
There is some truth in the bespoke coffee shops being largely middle class, but then that's what you get with gentrification. Costa could be seen as a little more down market and might therefore attract a larger demographic. But it is a bit bog standard nevertheless.
I reckon we've got about 5 years left to enjoy the current mix of shops before it all goes a bit Hoxton.
please to see this building is much much much better than the one originally proposed there and even has a nod to the context of the deptford lounge !
Difficult not to cringe while looking at shabby shop fronts on the high street. If Costa moving in means standards are forced up but residents aren't forced out I'm in favour.
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