So, thanks to PlanningAlerts.com we can see that the Strangest and Best DVD shop in the world is to become The White Stuff – here’s the planning permission PDF. A shop (and I quote the Financial Times): “…aimed at trendy working mothers”. Bad news for people who like films… And probably very bad news for Sisters and Daughters, who are in a similar vein. In fact, so are half the clothes shops in the area, really… According to an article in the Guardian, The White Stuff is “a lifestyle brand“. Yawn.
The Google Streetview above shows the branch in Lordship Lane, SE22.
Licensed under a 
The Blackheath Bugle 
Sisters and Daughters will be fine, they are much more exclusive, pretty and varied than the products White Stuff offer. It is Fat Face that needs to worry!
would have preferred something else but is better than it becoming a McDonalds or Kebab take away !
Yippee! Just what we need: another trendy clothes shop for trendies to spend lots of money during the so-called recession on becoming even more trendy. Not enough of these already in the village to satisfy the insatiable need to be trendy.
Pity they can’t break it up to include a hairdresser, vegan travel agent and holistic optician as well, but I’m sure other premises wasted on useless products such as food will make way soon.
Surely not some nay-saying about a new outlet in Blackheath?
I welcome White Stuff – it’s not for trendy mothers (I think you may have been confusing it with The White Company) – it is as someone else says, a slightly smarter Fat Face. The clothes are very wearable; and it’s targeted right at the typical BH resident. And at least it’s not another coffee shop, curry house or estate agent. And food? You can’t move for delicatessens, restaurants, greengrocers, convenience stores and health food shops.
Don’t mourn Prime Time (which was doomed the moment VoD started getting serious) – it’s a shame that another independent goes but a chain might just survive under the horrendous rates outlets are charged in the village. The community has to insist on a charging model that allows for independents if it’s really that important.
And I’m afraid you’re in the wrong place to criticise bleeding heart Guardian readers: if you don’t like trendy and middle class liberal, move to Peckham.
Cheer up, it could have been MaccyDs.
I was here long before the Guardianistas arrived, matey – when it was a real village with real shops rather than some plastic paradise for desperately sad wanabees. Strangely enough, I never went short of “wearable” clothes. I also find it remarkably easy to move among the sprinkling of shops still selling weird stuff like food. Obviously, I’m not a “typical” resident any more, particularly if I find it pukeworthy when someone really trendy sneers at Peckham.
I didn’t think I was sneering at Peckham, old thing, unless you believe that pointing out its absence of middle class Guardian-reading trendies constitutes such a thing. If so I suggest that says more about your prejudice than mine.
When it was a ‘real village’? Jesus! How long have you been here?
At least it’s not a take away or betting shop, which is all that’s opening in many parts of the borough at the moment . . .
What we really need in Blackheath is a Tesco Metro not another pointless clothes shop. The Good Shepherd is extortionately expensive whilst the quality of food in costcutter is pretty poor. I wouldn’t mind paying higher prices for an independant store, provided the quality of food is competitive but if you use the local grocer for example the quality of the vegetables is low. We also don’t have a decent butcher or fishmonger. Given the rates a chain is the only feasbile solution to resolving this issue.
No, I’m sorry we have a great example of a dying breed: the independent quality butcher. Compare with the stuff sold at other meat merchants in Lewisham, our butcher is the jewel in Blackheath’s crown. A fishmonger is almost impossible to make a going concern no matter how attractive it is. agreed that a good quality general store perhaps priced more competitively than Shepherds is desirable but is that likely from anyone but Tesco or another M&S Simply?
There’s just so much nay-saying in this village and how it’s all going to hell in a handcart.
Yes you’re right I forgot about the butchers! I think having a tesco metro would be great. I don’t see how the types of shops in a village would impact the sense of village community which is what some of the comments on this post seem to imply. A sense of community is built on much less commercial things such as saying good morining to one another or opening doors for other people etc.
I heard that that many of the restaurants in Blackheath are owned by one person…. Is this true? Might explain the lack of competition…(and quality…)
Anon: what about the farmers market on Sundays (lots of butchers and greengrocers to choose from plus an occasional fishmonger)?
If enough of us get together we could start a syndicate business and start a dry cleaner in Blacakheath that opens outside of office hours!
I was hoping that Prime Time would reopen as a fish and chip shop that didn’t charge £8.90 for fish and chips and then eventually move next door, when the existing fish and chip shop went bust.
When I was in their yesterday raiding what’s left of their stock the poor guy behind the unheated desk knew nothing of the plans to turn it in to a White Stuff. This might be due to his boss not telling him he’s about to be out of a job though. I don’t think I’ll find a White Stuff useful. Infact that’s what is missing from Blackheath, useful shops. And the least I expect from clothes, wherever I buy them, I that they are a ‘wearable’.
“Dammit I bought these pants yesterday and this morning when I went to put them on there were no holes for my legs!”.
I definitely agree that we need another ‘general’ store in Blackheath, although I’d far rather see something independent rather than yet another bland M&S ‘Simply Food’ or Tesco Metro. Shepherd’s is incredibly overpriced, especially if you’ve run out of something basic like washing powder or loo rolls or want to pick up a vital ingredient for supper on the way home from work.
As for butchers, greengrocers and fishmongers….John Charles Village Butchers (next to the florist) are excellent and independent to boot, I get my fruit & veg from the tiny but fantastic grocer’s near Felicity J Lord (good quality produce & v. helpful staff) and I’m told that there’s a great fishmonger’s on/near Royal Hill (ok, so it’s not in the village but it’s not that far as the crow flies….)
What I’d like to see in the Village instead of the uusual suspects is a good, independent bicycle repair shop, a shoe repair shop that’s open before/after work, somewhere that specialises in speedy clothes alterations (again, open before/after work), a *local* crafts store for original gift ideas and perhaps an antiques shop (nothing too grand).
I really don’t mind what sort of shop is opened as long as it is not another restaurant. A food shop would be OK but the main problem is the price of rents in Blackheath. There are two main landlords in the village and at least one of them hikes the rents (by 100%) usually after a shop becomes established. I not sure of the logic of it but the person concerned has a lot of property, helped by the fact that he is a local estate agent, so can obviously afford to leave properties empty for long periods of time!
I would love to open a bicycle shop or even a outdoor sports shop – kites, etc but I could only consider doing it if I owned the shop and so was protected from greedy landlords in the area.