A year after Putney’s two cocktail bars went dark, the paperwork now says neither one is coming back as a bar.
The landlord of the old Be At One at 30 Putney High Street has applied to turn the unit into a restaurant, after thirteen months of marketing produced twenty enquiries and one offer that changed four times before the prospective tenant stopped returning calls.
Next door, the owner of the old Simmons at 32 got permission in May to turn the site into a shop or restaurant, never used it, and instead tried twice this summer to convert the upper floors into flats. Both bids were refused by Wandsworth Council earlier this month, for the same reason: the shop permission had never been taken up, so the building was still legally a bar.
Taken together, the planning files reveal why this once-lively piece of Putney High Street has been dead for so long. It is also likely the final nail in the coffin for Putney nightlife.
The Be At One application
Application 2026/2598, filed on 17 July by Idlehurst Asset Management Ltd on behalf of the landlord, Uplegend Limited, would change the ground floor and basement of 30 Putney High Street from a Sui Generis bar to a Class E restaurant.
The application was invalidated twice for missing paperwork before it was accepted in early August; the council’s decision is due by 28 September. Behind it sits over a year of marketing that found, in the landlord’s own agents’ words, “unrealistic” demand for the property to continue as a bar.
The Simmons trap
At 32 Putney High Street, a different story but with the same end result. Jessica Lynch-Rigby was granted permission in May to change the closed Simmons unit from a bar to Class E use, covering a restaurant, shop, office or studio. That permission has never been implemented; when the council’s case officer visited the building this summer, it was still boarded up.
In July, a company called ITRY Holdings Ltd applied twice to convert the upper floors above the shop into flats, under a fast-track planning route that only works if the ground floor is already legally trading in its new use. It wasn’t. The officer’s report notes that ITRY Holdings had sent in a licence agreement for a Class E tenant, but that “the usage has physically not commenced,” so the building remained, on paper, a bar. Both applications were refused on 3 September.
The restaurant decision on 2026/2598 is due by 28 September. Anyone can comment on that application through Wandsworth’s planning portal, quoting the reference number.
Thirteen months, twenty enquiries, one offer
Behind the restaurant application sit two marketing reports commissioned by the landlord, from Davis Coffer Lyons and Jenkins Law before Be At One had even closed.
Davis Coffer Lyons logged twenty enquiries over thirteen months and one offer, from what it calls a start-up operator who “changed their offer four times” and cancelled a viewing on the day without ever rebooking, over a year ago. Three named operators who actually walked round the unit turned it down on the spot: one wanted somewhere with more footfall, closer to the mainline station; another found the area quieter than they had expected. Jenkins Law’s own tally, run alongside Davis Coffer Lyons’, found no offers at all in the same period.
Both agents reach the same conclusion in their own words. Jenkins Law: “We consider that it is unrealistic for the property to continue as a Sui Generis bar.” Davis Coffer Lyons: “The bar / late night / cocktail venues seem to struggle to operate in Putney, with the community preferring restaurants and pubs to frequent.”
Two accounts of one closure
Davis Coffer Lyons states plainly: “The subject property was operated by the largest pub company in the UK, and they surrendered their lease to the landlord as the site for them was loss making.” Be At One was run by Stonegate Group.
When we reported on the closure in June 2025, we heard a different story. “It’s frustrating,” one staffer told Putney.news, “the landlord has tried to hike the rent. It’s just too high.”
The two agents’ reports both put Be At One and Simmons alongside a longer list of Putney closures. Davis Coffer Lyons names “Simmons, the former Walkabout now known as Wahoo and Lost and Co opposite mainline Putney Station.”
Jenkins Law calls the two neighbouring closures “a clear indication of the sector’s difficulties.” The same report lists six recent Putney High Street lettings from the same period, none of them a bar: Itsu, Black Sheep Coffee, Panda’s Pantry, Studio Pilates, Tsuki Ramen, and Club Pilates, under offer.
The sign in the window
There does seem to an answer however to why there is a sign for IMBA London Ltd outside the unit for nearly a year now. Companies House records show the company shares its three directors and its registered address with Idlehurst Asset Management Ltd, the company applying to convert the same unit to a restaurant.
Walk past the two frontages today and the difference is between a sign promising something and a boarded window promising nothing. One is heading, on the evidence of the people who tried and failed to let it as anything else, for a restaurant.
The other has just been told, by its own paperwork, that it cannot become flats until it becomes the shop it was already given permission to be. Neither is coming back as a bar.
I am unsure about the familiarity of the Putney.News readership with the famously ‘dead’ language of Latin. thought this might help :
sui generis/ˌs(j)uːʌɪ ˈdʒɛn(ə)rɪs/Sui generis is a Latin phrase that means “of its own kind” or “in a class by itself,” describing something that is completely unique and does not fit into any standard category.
Wikipedia.
I take that to mean “A bar is a bar”.
I really like Putney News but it never seems to take into account that there are people that live on and around the High Street such as myself. You wouldn’t believe how happy l was when these two bars closed. Gone was the noise, the urinating, the litter from fast food, the fights, the drug dealing and taking which all took place on the likes of Weimar Street. A particular favourite, which still happens now occasionally is what seems to be a balloon party. This involves blaring music and dancing on parked cars. It always seems to take place by the care assisted home, and as a resident on the street l know that people are scared to come out and say anything due to the repercussions they may face.
So, as much as Putney News sees the demise of these bars as bad for the nightlife on the High Street there are an awful lot of residents who are overjoyed with it because we were the ones suffering- not you guys who live in the ‘oh so very nice terraced houses away from the High Street.
At some point I’d like you to do a piece on how the residents on Weimar Street are left to deal with the curse of the Lime Bikes. We pay for parking but very rarely are able to park because these bikes are strewn across the street and on the pavements. The elderly people from the home often walk down the middle of the street because the pavements are impassable. Not helped this summer by Franco Manca being able to put tables and chairs on the pavement also. This year alone l have spent approximately £1500 on my car due to the damage caused by Lime Bikes. From the handles of one going through my front grill, broken headlamp, dents and scratches. Again, not something the more well heeled of Putney residents have to face . It really is carnage.