Lewisham Model Market set to return as demolition plan withdrawn

Lewisham Model Market is set to make a return to the town in spring 2026.

Organisers are now looking for traders after the food court at Lewisham shopping centre initially closed in 2021.

Music is also promised.

It’s a sign that no rebuilding of the shopping centre appears likely anytime soon despite a contentious planning approval last month. Shortly after approval landowner Landsec announced a delay in work starting from 2026 to 2027 – and who knows when anything will actually happen. That was despite very low levels of “affordable” housing to make the site “viable”.

Rebuilding plans have been on the cards for many years. Back in 2024 Landsec sought to demolish a part of the shopping centre including the area where Model Market formerly operated, though those plans have now been withdrawn.

Planning process

It’s another example that mere planning approval is no guarantee that building will speed up as seen at dozens of sites in the local area alone.

Many proponents of planning reform seem to feel that reform alone will greatly increase building and/or is the biggest cause of delays. Whilst the planning system has become a mess (as someone who sees hundreds of documents submitted even for relatively small-scale applications it is incredibly convoluted at times) it’s clearly not the sole or overwhelming factor in the capital for glacial building.

We just have to look at sites such as Convoy’s Wharf in nearby Deptford where then-Mayor Boris Johnson called in plans to “speed up building”. That was eleven and a half years ago. At the time it’d been vacant for 14 years. Now 25 and counting.

Not one brick has been laid since on the 3,500 home site after outline approval. Back in 2014 it was stated:

“The Mayor of London, Boris Johnson said: “We need to build thousands of new homes in the capital and proposals to do that at Convoys Wharf have stalled for far too long. I am pleased that we have been able to work on a scheme that will have enormous social and economic benefits for local people while preserving the heritage aspects of the site.”

London is experiencing an unprecedented population boom and over the next few years a million more people will have to be housed. The Mayor has called in 11 planning applications since 2009 as he looks to use the full range of his planning powers to speed up the decision-making process so that it is possible to reach a verdict on these vitally-important applications in a timely fashion.”

Ah, but what of detailed plans some might say? Yep, they’ve come along, been approved then seen nothing happened.

Similar nearby

See also numerous sites in Woolwich, or Charlton, or Thamesmead. It goes on and this isn’t just the past couple of years but sites vacant for 10, 20, 30 or more years while London’s population has grown by millions.

Other vast sites with slow progress include Greenwich peninsula. Approved masterplans rise by thousands, detailed plots are approved, then sit empty for 10-20 years. Public funds above £150 million were spent in the late 1990s to remediate land for building. Much still sits vacant.

Lewisham shopping centre may well join that long and ever growing list. Planning reform? It’s not going to do a great deal for sites already approved and going nowhere.

These changes leave great uncertainty for business and residents at numerous sites if not already vacated and left empty for many years.

Issues

Can we blame “high” interest rates? Not really. Current levels are below levels seen for most of the past 100 to 150 years. Recent events? Covid didn’t help but major events are hardly unprecedented.

The country managed to bounce back quickly to build en masse after two world wars, austerity in the 1940s and 1950s, IMF bailouts in the 1970s with three-day weeks and financial crashes in the 1980s.

That included private developers from 1952 as the state also built at high levels, and house prices relative to wages remained affordable to many for decades after. The private sector did build high levels pre WW2 though the London County Council too built many estates across the capital.

Now though? The price of homes – after being sold at a level deemed viable for developers – are such that homes are far out of reach to many comparing average wages to average costs of a home. Endless props like Help to Buy and Funding for Lending kept that unsustainable situation going.

Rather than helping (except a few) they exacerbate and prolong long-standing problems.

What we don’t have is any sort of state-funded building at scale as happened post-war resulting in billions heading to private landlords annually. We also have land in the hands of ever fewer volume developers, with small and medium sized builders and developers shrinking substantially. Market share dropped from 40 per cent to 10 per cent between the 1980s and 2020.

Government failing to support small scale builders via supporting public building during a private sector downturn has also caused many companies to go under – making a private sector recovery less likely.

Something to ponder while having a coffee at the Model Market when it opens in spring 2026 – if you can afford it that is with exorbitant housing costs.