Lewisham shopping centre demolition to be decided tonight

UPDATE: Plans detailed below were approved last night.

A decision on demolishing Lewisham shopping centre and certain nearby High Street buildings are set to be decided by Lewisham borough councillors tonight.

A meeting is set to look at proposals to build a replacement shopping centre alongside 1,700 homes, 661 student rooms and 445 co-living units.

A new music venue is mentioned with buildings set to to reach 35 storeys.

Developer Landsec U+I submitted plans last autumn which were covered at the time. Revisions were made in spring 2025.

Overall this application features mere outline details with detailed plans focused only upon the northern section closer to Lewisham station. Many of the renders are thus indicative and not exactly how buildings will appear.

Shopping centre entrances built in the 1970s will be demolished to open up through routes across the site.

A blank wall facing Lewisham Gateway would be removed and replaced with an open space.

Around the corner on Lewisham High Street another entrance and the Boots next door would go.

I’ve been documenting some of the area recently. The Boots building is very shabby these days but wasn’t at all bad when built.

Now though the façade is generally a sorry site. Tired and no sign of those flowers on the balcony seen when new.

Look closely and it’s clear this building wasn’t built on the cheap with engraved text in marble panels.

Affordable homes

One controversial element is social housing totals at six per cent of homes. Lewisham is in the gip of a homelessness crises with budget overruns causing cuts across many areas.

Next week’s council cabinet meeting highlights the problem, with 2,527 households in temporary accommodation with an increase of those in the most expensive overnight housing of 33.74% since Sept 2023.

Molesworth street car park would be demolished with a reduction in car parking spaces from 880 to 60.

£500,000 would be allocated to Network Rail for potential station improvements. Lewisham now one solitary station entrance following the closure of a second to the north around a decade ago.

A short-term measure to add more gates to the sole remaining entrance was covered on this site last week.

However with numerous major developments on the way including towers at the Tesco supermarket site to the north, need for an additional entrance will become ever more pressing.

Revenue

Lewisham would see £16.9 million in community infrastructure levy revenue if approved which isn’t cash for housebuilding but rather funding set for infrastructure improvement.

This is some way short of what Lewisham council would have received had they not abandoned revising their low CIL rates in 2018.

Both Lewisham and Greenwich have not covered themselves in glory with securing CIL revenue for local improvements compared to many other London authorities. Greenwich were also supposed to look at revising low rates in 2018 but failed to do so.

They finally did last year but have retained low rates on the major growth areas of co-living and student housing. Lewisham are belatedly looking to do so now.

Planning officers are recommending approval with tonight’s meeting set to start at 7pm. If approved a timeline included within a presentation shows demolition commencing by mid-2026.