Councillors have turned down plans by McCulloch Homes to knock down The Clipper pub in Rotherhithe Street and replace it with a four-storey block of flats.
Southwark’s planning sub-committee B first considered the planning application back in April but deferred their decision to allow councillors to make a site visit.
Since then a Save The Clipper Pub campaign has emerged and an application was made to designate the pub as an ‘asset of community value’ under the Localism Act.
However, the council turned down the ACV nomination, citing the following grounds:
In the opinion of the Council the property is not of community value because the application has not demonstrated that the Asset’s current main use (or in the past) furthers the social wellbeing or social interests of the local community or why it is realistic to think that there is a time in the next five years when there could be non-ancillary use of the building or other land that would further (whether or not in the same way as before) the social wellbeing or social interests of the local community (e.g. cultural, recreational or sporting).
A further ACV application has since been submitted to the council.
Wednesday night’s meeting was addressed by three objectors: James Willasey-Wilsey of the Friends of the Clipper, a representative of Silver Walk Management Ltd and Andrew Large of the South East London branch of the Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA).
The committee also heard from architect Laurence Mineham who said that the proposed scheme would be “in keeping with and respectful of its surroundings”.
A motion to grant planning permission was proposed by sub-committee chair Cllr Cleo Soanes and seconded by Nick Dolezal.
However, it was defeated by the other three sub-committee members Eleanor Kerslake, Leo Pollak and Maria Linforth-Hall.
A motion to refuse planning permission was then proposed by Eleanor Kerslake, citing concerns about the ‘overly imposing’ proposed development that would create a ‘sense of enclosure’ for adjacent residents, as well as recognising the community and historic value of the existing pub building.
The motion to reject the application was carried by three votes to one, with one abstention.