The Putney Convenience Store worked through the night to move its entire stock next door into number 67 to make way for what promises to be one of the High Street’s biggest renovations. Within hours, its home for the past decade was boarded up with black chipboard.
The shop, whose fascia reads “Proudly serving Putney since 2004,” completes a move the owner called “a bit of a mad rush” back in May. No 67 had recently been vacated by squatters and the entire space torn out. The space had to be rebuilt and then everything from air fresheners to Zero Coke shifted in just a few weeks. The business had been running down its stock for weeks to make the move easier but in the end they were up until 7.30am to complete the move. The builders arrived at 8am.
They like their new digs: the shop is slightly wider, making Putney Convenience Store feel a little roomier. Otherwise it’s pretty much the same, only newer. Customers popping in for their daily newspaper – yes, it still stocks physical newspapers – only had to walk a few extra feet; business as usual.
As for number 69, it has joined what was until very recently the British Heart Foundation at 65, and hoardings now run the length of the shop, stamped “Danger, demolition work in progress” and “No admittance.” Eastern Natural Care has moved from number 71 to number 83, and the former Paperchase unit, most recently a menswear shop and a phone shop, is boarded too. A massive renovation across the entire strip of shops is now underway.
Marlborough Property (Putney One) Limited owns every unit on the stretch except number 67. It bought the block for £13.3 million in 2016. The owner of 67, Corndale Estates, has broadly backed Marlborough’s redevelopment, but objected to six heat pumps it planned to place a metre from a bedroom window in a flat above the shop. It ask them to be moved to the roof instead; Marlborough agreed.
No scheme currently before the council
Which opens the door to what could be one of the High Street’s biggest renovations. The new Marks & Spencer, which brought the entire stretch a much needed boost after years of sitting vacant is also a Marlborough property so the company has form.
Plans are to refurbish all the shopfronts and both renovate and add flats above the units too. The new designs comes courtesy of Floyd Slaski Architects and were registered in May but have since been withdrawn, Wandsworth’s planning records show. It’s not clear why but the renovation is moving ahead with workers coming in and out of the multiple properties all day.
It’s a welcome piece of progress on a stretch where Putney High Street’s recovery has otherwise been slow and uneven for months.
The newsagent, though, trades between hoardings again, the one constant through the block’s eighteen months of upheaval. What replaces the withdrawn scheme, condensers and all, is something Putney.news will keep asking about.
