The redevelopment of Putney High Street continues apace. The owner of the building between the new Marks & Spencer and the hotel under construction on the corner of Putney Bridge Road has applied for illuminated advertising across the top two floors of the three-storey building.
It is the first sign of activity in years at 49-53 Putney High Street, and hopefully signals renewed interest in a development that stalled back in 2017. The prominent block was sold in January last year to a private property company called Fortune Green Capital, and its only occupant, Boots on the ground floor, has a lease that runs out at the end of 2028.
The application, for a nine-month illuminated scaffold wrap on the upper floors, appeared on Wandsworth Council’s portal this week. Fortune Green Capital, a Maida Vale firm, has said nothing publicly about what it intends to do next.
Next to Boots, the former Robert Dyas unit has been empty for some time. Its window is covered by a Positively Putney “Putney in the Past” display, placed by the High Street BID to brighten the vacancy. The display is starting to peel. Above both units sit empty offices.
To the right, M&S opened in February. To the left, construction on the hotel resumed last month. For the first time in years, the entire lower stretch of the High Street is active at once.
A manager at Boots confirmed this week that the shop is staying open and that staff had received notice about the planned scaffold advertisement above them.
What the new owner controls
The site is bigger than it looks from the pavement. The High Street frontage covers roughly 28,000 square feet, but the ownership wraps around the corner onto Putney Bridge Road, where the row of closed shops at 329-339 is part of the same deal. In total, Fortune Green Capital controls around 50,000 square feet on this corner.
Boots pays £90,000 a year on a lease that runs until November 2028. But the lease sits outside the Landlord and Tenant Act 1954, meaning Boots has no automatic right to stay. Fortune Green Capital can terminate it with nine months’ notice, paying £231,000 in compensation. In other words, the new owner could clear the site’s last remaining tenant by early 2027 if it chose to.
What was supposed to be built here
This site has a history of plans that went nowhere. It was first registered at the Land Registry in 1910 and was originally home to a Woolworths, the 45th branch in the British Isles, which opened in 1915.
The most recent attempt was ambitious. In 2017, architects Grimshaw submitted plans for 123 homes, including 33 shared ownership units, retail, offices, and a landscaped courtyard designed by Chelsea gold medallist Andy Sturgeon. The scheme was branded “Liberty Gardens Putney.”
Wandsworth’s planning committee rejected it in January 2018 by nine votes to one. A planning inspector overturned that decision on appeal in July 2019. In 2022, the developer obtained a certificate confirming construction had technically started, preserving the permission.
None of it led anywhere. By late 2024, the Savills Investment Management vehicle had resigned from the development partnership and the company behind the scheme was being struck off at Companies House. When the site went on the market, agents Montagu Evans described the planning permission as “no longer implementable.”
Fortune Green Capital completed the purchase in January 2025.
Who are Fortune Green Capital?
The company was founded in 2014. Its co-founder is Rob Soltanie, a chartered surveyor. Nic Shaer is a director. They work with wealthy private investors and family offices.
On their case studies page, they list the Putney site as roughly 50,000 square feet “acquired for active asset management and future development.” The same page claims a 200,000 square foot planning permission is in place, though the selling agents had already declared it dead.
The advertising wrap application, for a hoarding measuring 10.5 metres by 5.4 metres, is a standard move in commercial property: scaffold wraps generate income while work is carried out behind them, and typically signal the beginning of a refurbishment rather than a full redevelopment.
What protections residents have
Whatever Fortune Green Capital plans, some commitments are already locked in. The original planning permission came with a legal agreement under Section 106 of the planning act, requiring affordable housing, community space, and financial contributions from any developer. That agreement is registered against the land and binds whoever owns it. Any new planning application would trigger fresh public consultation.
We have contacted Fortune Green Capital and asked about their plans for the site, whether a new planning application is being prepared, what the scaffold wrap signals, and whether the vacant unit is being marketed. We will update this story when they respond.
The cluster of empty shops on Putney Bridge Road that wraps around from this building has been a familiar sight for anyone walking toward the bridge. With M&S now open, the hotel taking shape, and a planning application on the block between them, this stretch of the High Street may finally be waking up.
