Charlton McDonald’s to be rebuilt: Metro Bank plans ditched
In Summer 2019 some rather odd plans were submitted for a drive-through bank to be constructed where McDonald’s currently resides in Charlton.
Metro Bank were looking to open, and plans were approved by Greenwich Council in November 2019.
Since then little has happened. It seemed odd Mcdonald’s would leave a site. That rarely if ever happens. Fast forward and a plan has now gone in to rebuild the McDonalds.
It’s in the exact same spot amid a retail park off Bugsby’s Way. Maybe this is chance to make some modest improvements for pedestrians, or another chance to ignore it?
Pedestrians are supposed to take a meandering route to reach the site from parts of Bugsby’s Way. Evidence has long shown people take the shortest route from A to B, rather than what a Highways Engineer in the 1980s thought they’d take. The area needs reworking. In 2017 the area actually saw fencing installed nearby to limit pedestrian movement while failing to address glaring errors in design and pedestrian movement.
McDonald’s state in their application: “The existing building is suffering from subsidence and therefore needs to be replaced with new foundations.
Whilst the principle of the development is established, the proposal also seeks improvements to the overall operation, introducing a side-by-side drive-thru lane, allowing for an improved drive-thru experience.”
So that’s more space for vehicles, but what about people?
Pretty much sum’s up Bugsby’s Way and surroundings. A bigger McD, better drive through ‘experience’, I guess handling more burgers (themselves one of the most unhealthy and climate unfriendly forms of food) and increased discarding of litter into rare bins and even rarer staff collections. Poor pedestrian access, dirty looking everywhere, no idea who is responsible for exterior clean ups. Its a wholly disgusting, degrading area not by any stroke of imagination worthy of the massive local investment in highly expensive residential and commercial properties. Shop here for essentials only and to avoid car traffic to outside areas by cycling here, and then leave by quickest route possible. It’s a ghetto and a motor vehicle graveyard testament to 1970’s and 80’s thinking, now consigned to the dustbin by other forward thinking boroughs. But it’ll be the 2030’s before RBG does anything here, when everyone else has moved on to the next step! They’re not worthy of the title Royal, despite all his photo shoots within worthy causes. Wake up and smell the coffee RBG before all your wealthy tax providing residents move elsewhere and we’re left with high rise ghetto estates full of undesirables and druggy havens (watch some of the locations in the Paris suburbs based BBC copflick ‘Spiral’, and you’ll get some idea- warning, it’s addictive to watch!). I said ‘we’ll be left’ but I speak in generalisations, as I’ll be off as soon as practicable, before property prices begin their downward irreversible spiral here. And I speak as a former Greenwich lover, still enjoying the parts of pleasure remaining, both in and around our wonderful Greenwich Park and the World Heritage Maritime sites.