Transport for London has published details of the road changes to the A205 South Circular Road that it would like to see. The documents released confirm that both a Compulsory Purchase Order (CPO) and planning permission is required.
Lewisham Council has been supporting the changes to realise their ambition to build over 2,700 properties in the locality. The Catford Town Centre planning documents are summarised:
- Providing new homes across the town centre, including affordable homes for local residents. Up to 2,700 homes will be built in total over the next couple of decades. Half of these homes are set to be affordable, including almost 1,000 new social homes for families on our housing waiting list, helping to tackle the housing crisis.
- Re-routing the South Circular road, which will create new pedestrianised public space with trees, planting and new community facilities.
- Making the heart of Catford town centre largely car-free, helping to improve air quality and road safety.
- Redeveloping the Catford Shopping Centre for new retail space, while maintaining the town centre’s current range of diverse and independent shops.
- Creating segregated cycle lanes, secure cycle parking and wider pavements to enable more walking and cycling, with a new pedestrianised approach for Catford Bridge Station.
- Creating a new civic hub and a cluster of affordable creative and cultural workspaces which will secure more day to evening footfall and help boost Catford’s night-time economy.
In TfL’s public statement it says that Lewisham Council is committed to swapping land to achieve these road layout changes – possibly giving land to TfL.
TfL say that the majority of the scheme does not require planning permission. However, the proposed road works involve a loss of Metropolitan Open Land at the historic Jubilee Sports Ground owned by St Dunstan’s School and their planning application submitted includes this. The Jubilee Sports Ground is significant as a former first class cricket ground established in 1872. The first recorded match in 1874 was between Private Banks Cricket Club and MCC.
TfL submitted Planning Application DC/23/134279 in December 2023 and this can be viewed here
Local campaigners have raised concerns about the loss of green space and Metropolitan Open Land along with reservations over the improvements of traffic flows due to the narrowing of the South Circular Road (A205) at Catford Bridge to two lanes under the railway bridge. The proposal does not address this problem.
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