“My generation is fighting a losing battle,” Peter says. “I think about what a thriving city London used to be. Now it’s just a complete and utter mess.” Peter Wisby is 85-years-old. He has just been told that his former local bank branch will become a German Doner Kebab house.
Peter is among an estimated 5 million people in the UK who still rely on cash. For years, his regular routine meant driving his mobility scooter down to his local Barclays where he would send money to his daughter in Kent. When that branch closed, he was forced to drive thirty minutes to an outlet on Tower Bridge Road. In January 2023, that closed. The branch on Walworth Road could have been a last resort. But a recent planning application shows the former bank will soon have its booths replaced with rotating pillars of reconstituted meat. A pattern appears to be forming in Walworth. A few weeks before that, we reported that the local Post Office was set to become a Popeyes chicken shop.
Winds of change on the Walworth Road
The Walworth Road is no stranger to change. The once-bustling East Street Market, founded back in 1880, is locked in a battle over its soul amid fears that efforts to tackle declining footfall will signal ‘gentrification’.
While the council-backed East Street Community CIC wants to introduce live music, theatre and trendy pop-ups, some long-established traders fear the changes will “price out locals”. There are also worries that the Elephant and Castle regeneration next door will overshadow local business.
Now, another concerning trend – where essential services are becoming fast food restaurants – is being seen as another troublesome juncture in the high street’s bumpy history. The 950-metre-long road already has around ten such outlets and replacing the Post Office and Barclays would mean another two. Jeremy Leach, Chair of the Walworth Society, a local campaign group that lobbies to protect local interests, said: “Things look a bit bleak at the moment when you think about where the Walworth Road is headed as our local high street.”
Why are essential services becoming takeaways?
So why are essential services swapping their tills and shelves for burgers and buns? As is often the case, changes at both local and national levels have combined to create a swirling retail revolution on this high street – and not necessarily the one people wanted.
The pandemic and the cost of living
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Nationally, in-person services along high streets have been declining for a long time. It began in the ‘90s with the proliferation of out-of-town shopping centres, was sped up by the internet, and encountered a near extinction event with the Covid-19 pandemic. The cost-of-living crisis, meanwhile, has forced people to keep an even closer eye on their finances, making online shopping a more appealing office.
Changes to planning law
However, according to Selwyn Atkinson, an expert planning consultant, a more recent change to national planning laws explains why some of these units are now becoming fast-food restaurants.
He explains that, during the pandemic, the government changed the law around converting businesses to other uses. The aim was to ensure businesses could be “flexible” to changing shopping habits. But he admits this may have had “unintended consequences”, allowing takeaways to take over high streets.
Under the old planning system, financial and professional services, health services, retail and restaurants were under different categories. This meant business owners seeking to change their units from one to another had to seek planning permission from local authorities.
But in September 2020, the government changed the law so these different categories were lumped together under a new Class E category, allowing developers and business owners to switch between them without seeking planning permission.“One unintended consequence could be an increase in the number of fast food restaurants selling unhealthy foods,” Selwyn says. “Because fast food restaurants have low overheads they are a popular business attraction.”
Technically, this new Class E excludes takeaways. But Selwyn explains that fast food business owners have exploited a “loophole” By putting some tables and chairs in their shops, they can often convince local planning officers that their new businesses are restaurants rather than takeaways. The plans for both Walworth’s new kebab house and chicken shop include tables and chairs but you imagine most customers will use the takeaway service.
The Elephant and Castle regeneration
But changes to national planning policy only tell part of the story. A few hundred metres down the road from the Walworth Road, a once-in-a-generation regeneration of Elephant and Castle is taking place. Southwark Council has said the fifteen-year, £4 billion programme, bankrolled in partnership with multiple private developers will bring 5,000 new homes, 10,000 jobs and “an enriched cultural scene” to the area.
But there are fears that the regeneration will hasten Walworth’s decline. Jeremy Leach, chair of the Walworth Society, said: “There was this idea that the economic impact of the Elephant and Castle regeneration was going to be good for Walworth. But essential services like banks have disappeared and much of the new retail investment, other than fast food outlets, seems to be gravitating towards the Elephant and away from the Walworth Road.”
We may be seeing the beginnings of that gravitational pull towards Elephant and Castle. The Post Office has said it will relocate locally but it remains to be seen where exactly. In April, locals bemoaned the announcement that their 111-year-old Marks and Spencer would close. There are rumors that it will move to the Elephant when the shops open there in 2026. It remains to be seen whether a takeaway will take over the vacated unit. “Essential services need to be within walking distance,” says Jeremy. “The Elephant sounds really close but it’s quite a lot further for many people in Walworth to get to”.
Southwark Council says it is aware of fears that the Elephant and Castle regeneration will hit Walworth. A spokesperson for the Labour-run council said: “To help encourage investment and growth, we are developing our town centre action plans, which will consider the impact of redevelopment schemes like Elephant & Castle, and supporting businesses through our Thriving High Streets Fund.”
Why is the community concerned?
Locals aren’t only worried about the loss of essential services, but the types of businesses replacing them. Jeremy Leach said that fast food restaurants are already causing a nuisance.
“Outside McDonalds is chaotic with delivery bikes all over the pavement but the shops and the delivery companies take no responsibility for the riders,” he said. “It is quite hard to walk along the street there at times and if you’ve got more takeaway businesses that don’t manage their deliveries this could make it even more of a problem,” he said.
There are also fears that the proliferation of fast-food restaurants could impact children. There are eight primary schools within a ten-minute walk of the soon-to-be Popeyes chicken shop taking over the Post Office. Secondary school students at Ark Walworth, a prime target for the enticing smell of sizzling chicken as they walk home from school, are also taught nearby. These students already have to resist the urge to stop off at roughly a dozen fast-food outlets on their way home. Chicken shops can also be effective locations for gangs looking to groom children into their country line operations.
Local authorities do have levers they can pull to stop unhealthy food outlets springing up around schools. In November 2022, Southwark Council refused planning permission for a Pizza Hut in Borough because it was too close to Friars Primary School. London planning policy dictates that hot food takeaways should be within 400 metres of school boundaries. However, local authorities are more limited when businesses exploit the ‘restaurant’ loophole as they may not fall under the A5 takeaway category which London planning policy is designed to restrict.
What can local and national governments do?
One of the biggest drivers of essential services closing down is their lack of profitability. As people move to online services, in-person branches become less appealing.
This declining footfall was exacerbated by Covid. The government says it is working to tackle this. In regards to Post Offices for example, the government has provided over £2.5 billion in funding in the past decade alone, often in the form of subsidies that aim to make Post Offices more appealing to current and prospective postmasters. But some MPs say this is not enough.
Andrew Western, Labour MP for Stretford and Urmston, told the Commons earlier this year that subsidies for Post Office in isolated communities had “declined over the past decade, from £210 million in 2012 to £50 million per year in recent years”. This lack of support could be attributed to the fact that there is a misconception that closing essential services only affects rural communities. Andrew Western added that “it is not necessary to be rural to be isolated”.
There are also measures being taken to move services provided by banks and similar services to other, accessible areas. The Walworth Road library, for example, is supporting local people by providing non-cash-related services previously served by Barclays. Shared Banking Hubs are also seen as a possible solution. However, these are usually offered in partnership with Post Offices so when the latter close, people are left with little option.
While the government must take steps to mitigate this problem, the situation in Walworth is complex and requires the community to speak up collectively. One approach is to establish Business Improvement Districts (BIDs), similar to those in Bermondsey, where people can advocate for joint objectives. However, since there aren’t particularly wealthy business owners in the area, securing commitment to a BID is challenging. Local business owners often express that having strategic conversations with the council is difficult, as forums tend to be one-sided, with the council simply disseminating information. Planning is largely a devolved responsibility, with decisions made at the local level. To effectively support people like Peter, there is a sense that the community may have to pull together and make itself heard.
