A farewell to cars

While half of Brockley's 'retail space' is taken up by car lots, it's never going to give Notting Hill a run for its money.

We've been hoping for some time that the relatively small size of the lots and the lack of obvious demand for their products locally, might prompt the owners to give up the used motor game and start, say, a Tapas Bar instead.

Well, it appears at least one of them has accepted the inevitable - the site at 196 Brockley Road, occupied by the Action Commercials dealership, has been sold and the owners have applied for permission to convert the site in to retail space:

"The construction of a single storey, plus basement level building at the side of 196 Brockley Road SE4, to provide a commercial unit (342 sq.m) Use Classes A1 (Shops), A2 (Financial and Professional Services), B1 (Business), together with the provision of a deliveries/refuse store."

Sadly, the application was rejected, on the grounds that:

"The proposed building, by reason of its form, design and building footprint, would have a poor relationship to adjacent properties in Brockley and Harcourt Roads, would result in an incongruous addition to the terrace of which it forms part and would represent a poor standard of design in this prominent location, contrary to Policy URB 3 Urban Design in the adopted Unitary Development Plan (July 2004)."

But, it's quite likely that they will come back again with another proposal, hopefully of an appropriate standard. In any case, the move hopefully signals a rethink by other garage owners.