A charity furniture shop is to open early next year in the final unit of the old London Road Co Op to be let – spelling an end to Wetherspoon’s ambitions to open a London Road pub for the foreseeable future.
The British Heart Foundation plans to open its first furniture and electrical store in Brighton in the former department store on January 12.
The unit had been the subject of a planning application by the pub chain which was refused after hundreds of people complained.
Wetherspoons spokesman Eddie Gershon said: “We’ve got a number of pubs in Brighton and Hove. We were wanting to open a pub in London Road, but that never happened so we moved on.
“We would be interested in other sites in the town, but we’re not looking at anywhere at the moment.”
One of those who led what he described as “the mother of all battles” against the pub’s plans was Brighton Housing Trust chief executive Andy Winter, who feared the impact a pub selling cheap booze would have on the area.
He said: “I’m delighted that British Heart Foundation, a charity that I have a huge amount of admiration for, is expanding their outlet in London Road.
“We needed a retail frontage, and that’s what we’re getting.”
The Co-Op also houses budget gym the Gym Group, catering shop Nisbet and pound shop Poundworld.
I’m always commenting to the Better Half that London Road needs more charity shops.
Personally I think the last thing London Road needs is more charity shops or £shops. A decent pub would have been fine. Not a Wetherspoons though… British heart foundation may be a fine upstanding charity, doing great work which I support, but I fail to see their arrival heralding any kind of good news for London Road.
What do you think is wrong with Wetherspoons? What would you prefer instead?
So filling our shopping centres with pound shops and charity shops is more desirable than having a place where you can get a reasonably priced drink with a meal?
And so London Road continues to be a place where people just don’t want to go to out of choice.