WSMA calls on council to protect our local pubs

›What’s the future for pubs in Greenwich, especially our treasured small, neighbourhood ones? We've seen too many of these community hubs turned into flats and shops.

Greenwich has lost some 40% of its pubs in a generation and in London, with a trend towards bigger ones in town centres, it's the small local ones that are at most risk. But we have a chance to halt - and maybe even reverse - this decline.

We’ve been looking in detail at the just-published latest version of Greenwich council’s local plan to see how this could affect Charlton's White Swan, and what it means more broadly.

Quick recap: All planning councils have to have a "local plan" showing their intentions for the future of their borough. Many of you will have seen, and responded to, Greenwich's earlier call for residents' views on its proposals for growth and development over the next 10 - 15 years, and now it has published its final draft. September 6 is the deadline to respond.

So what does White Swan Music & Arts think?

Many interested parties, such as the untiring Charlton Society, Blackheath Society and Greenwich Society, are ploughing through the 500+-page document, and White Swan Music & Arts has been crunching the words to see what it means for us. We've already written our response to the council.

You can read this in detail on the WSM&A website, but here are some of our key points.

Against the sad background of pub losses, we urge the council to regard this not simply as a commercial issue but also a social one that is key for community cohesion:

• To treat all remaining Greenwich pubs as community assets 

• To recognise small pubs as key drivers of the economy in local and neighbourhood centres 

• To ensure that the local plan contains a strong presumption of retention of our remaining pubs rather than the presumption of redevelopment and destruction.

We think the current required test of pub financial viability is flawed: it is too skewed to commercial measurements at the expense of assessing the financial viability of community ownership.

After carefully considering the final draft plan, we have some recommendations:

• Before any redevelopment of any pub, there should be a period of engagement and consultation with the community to explore non-profit financial viability and community transfer

• Before any development or redevelopment, a local neighbourhood economic assessment should be done

• The local plan and planners should recognise that change of use of any part of a pub is a path to its closure. Protection of a pub's entirety should be strengthened

• Further detailed guidance is needed that recognises the social, cultural and economic value of pubs to local communities. And, crucially, the importance of community ownership of community buildings and spaces

• With the risk of illegal occupation of empty commercial premises and the use of derelict buildings by criminal gangs, a tougher approach is needed.

There's a lot at stake: the wellbeing, cohesion and long-term health of our neighbourhoods. In our response we're asking Greenwich council to address all these issues before the local plan is finalised. You can help save our pubs by also asking Royal Greenwich to reconsider its pub policy in the plan.

And we can, still, all discuss this down at the pub - even if not yet in the White Swan.

Act today. Email Local-Plan-Consultation@royalgreenwich.gov.uk.