The Woolwich Triangle redevelopment hasn't really been much publicized, and it's unclear exactly what stage this plan is. We have emailed the address on the developer's website and got no response. Blah. One group who did respond to our Dolly's emails were English Heritage, who said:

Thank you for your recent e-mail regarding the future of the 1938 former Royal Arsenal Co-operative Society department store in Powis Street, Woolwich. I am the Historic Buildings and Areas Adviser working in English Heritage’s London Region and dealing with casework in the London Borough of Greenwich.

English Heritage looked at this building as a candidate for inclusion in the List of buildings of special architectural or historic interest back in 2005. Inclusion in the list would have given the building statutory protection against unauthorised alteration, extension or demolition. My colleagues in our Listing Team recognised that the building has strong townscape value but unfortunately this is not a criterion for listing. To be included in the list, buildings must be of special architectural or historic interest within a national context and it was concluded that the 1938 RACS building is not sufficiently special to justify inclusion in the list. Greenwich Council is unwilling to consider declaring Woolwich Town Centre in general (and Powis Street in particular) a Conservation Area, which would give many of the buildings within it, including this one, a degree of protection against demolition, so the RACS building enjoys no protection against demolition. I understand that the building is included in Greenwich Council’s local list of buildings or architectural or historic interest but local lists have no statutory power to offer protection to buildings.

I too share your concern about the loss of this building, especially its characteristic façade and tower element, and I raised this with Greenwich Council when English Heritage was consulted about the current redevelopment proposals for this part of Powis Street. Unfortunately, the Council is not obliged to take our advice in cases such as this and clearly they consider the wider regeneration benefits of the scheme outweigh our concerns for the loss of local heritage. Regrettably, there is nothing further we can do in this case.

What are your thoughts and opinions on this shabby landmark? Is it worth saving?

I found some pictures on Flickr of the building when it was in use. Unfortunately (for my purposes, anyway) the pictures are actually of the buses in front of the building. Does anyone have anything better?







http://www.flickr.com/photos/andytakersdad/2235705945/

I sent info about our petition to the planning department at Greenwich, and got a reply today! Yay! Samantha Moreira is the person dealing with this at Planning so if you want to get in touch too, she's the person to contact.

Here's the email I sent:

Hello,

I am writing from the website welovewoolwich.co.uk. Our members tend to be fans of the history of Woolwich and the current developments and recently a topic of conversation has been the possible demolition of the art deco 1938 RACS building on Powis Street. Out of curiousity we started a petition online and have been astounded to get nearly 40 signatures within a couple of weeks, just on word of mouth from site members and passing visitors to our site.

http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/woolwich/index.html

Please could you advise us on the status of the plans for this area? One of our members claims to have e-mailed the contact e-mail on the planning application and got no reply, so I thought I would send this to the general e-mail address.

The consensus from visitors to the site seems to be that the building should be preserved as it is a vital part of this town's history and skyline. Please can you tell us about the condition of this landmark building and why it has been decided that it is not salvageable?

Thank you for your help,

Rev. Sue Scottley
http://www.welovewoolwich.co.uk

And woot, the reply!!

Dear Rev. Scottley

I am the Case Officer for the above planning application and write in response to your email of 24th January 2009.

The application is still under consideration and no decision has been made as yet. The application documents are available for viewing at our Planning Information Counter on the 1st Floor, Peggy Middleton House, 50 Woolwich New Road, Woolwich, SE18 6HQ (open Mon-Thurs 9am - 4.30pm and Fri 9am-4pm). These documents include information on the buildings that are proposed to be demolished as part of the application.

I have noted the petition and will include it with the other representations submitted in respect of the application. Please could you confirm if you are the main contact person in respect of the petition and if the above email address can be used for future correspondence in this regard? ( If you have a postal address this would also be useful.)

Yours sincerely
Samantha Moreira

Samantha Moreira
Principal Development Officer
Development Planning
Greenwich Council
Peggy Middleton House
50 Woolwich New Road
London
SE18 6HQ
Tel: 0208 921 6236
Fax: 0208 921 5442

I think it might be worth getting up a paper petition too, and I will check out what info is available at Peggy Middleton, there may be more than on the council website. I'm up that end of town tomorrow.

PLEASE get people to sign the petition.

I am UTTERLY DETERMINED to save this building. I don't know why I have become obsessed with it. But I'm sure if more people knew it was threatened they would be concerned.

As most of you should already know, the We Love Woolwich website is running a campaign to prevent planning permission being granted to demolish the art deco Co-Op on Powis Street.

The planning officer has advised us that the planning meeting for this building will include the chance to speak. I will of course be attending, if anyone else wants to come with me, for moral support or to say something themselves, please let me know.

Also if anyone has any killer reason why the building should be saved I haven't thought of, please let me know!

If you haven't signed our petition, you can do this online or sign the paper petition which can be found at Seventh Sun.

On the other hand, if you think the building should go... you're more than welcome to start an argument with me here too.

Hello to all the Art Deco Co-Op fans,

I need to find as many information as possible about this splendid building to write an article for one of my university assignments. I am interested in the history of the building, who owns it, reasons for closing it, why they want to tear it down and what they are planning to do. Can anyone help me? or do you know where I can get this info?

Thank you to all and I hope to hear from you soon,

Marboss :roll

apologies if this already known, but my few pennies worth.

The main building, on the north side of pwis st was the co-op department store in the 70's, it was I think three floors, the top floor was a restaurant. The buildings on the other side of Powis St (now council/cafe/etc) were also the co-op, they were the food retailing operation. Amongst other things they had a machine that ground your coffee beans for you!

In the late 70's/early 80's the food store closed, and the main building was cut back, the restaurant closed and they opened the entrance on hare street. By now Cuffs was also on its last legs, and even the number of shoe shops was dropping.

The other major stores at that end of Woolwich (BHS & Woolworth) also closed in the 90's I think. Boots is now the only vintage store in the area.

The Odeon closed in the late 70's I think, reopened as the coronet and then as the church. The Granada has been a bingo hall since the early 70's at least.