Eastfield buy Ravensbourne Arms but backtrack on HMO plan
Music co-op Sister Midnight once hoped to turn the pub into a community music venue, but new owner Eastfield Group applied to turn the pub into a 10-bed HMO.
The Ravensbourne Arms pub on Lewisham High Street has been empty since 2016, but in February, Eastfield Group submitted plans to turn it into a 10-bed HMO.
Eastfield made an offer to buy the ground floor and basement of the building in October 2025 and recently completed the sale.
Five years earlier, local co-op Sister Midnight ran a crowd-funding campaign to buy the disused pub, with plans to turn it into a community music venue.
They made more than one offer to buy the disused pub, but their offers were rejected.
But Eastfield's planning application showed no record of Sister Midnight's offers.
Sister Midnight told Salamander:
"We were surprised to learn that the recent planning application for the Ravensbourne Arms included an offers log in their planning documents showing all the historic offers received for the pub, but didn't include any of the formal offers we made.
"Our campaign showed that there was significant backing to see the Ravensbourne brought back into community use, but the owners at the time didn't agree with our independent valuation of the pub, which came out around £1.2m less than their asking price of £3m.
"This made it really difficult to pursue a community purchase."
Lewisham council later offered Sister Midnight the derelict Brookdale club, a former working men's club in Catford, on a 10-year lease.
They are currently crowdfunding again while they carry out major refurbishment needed to bring the building back into use.
Meanwhile, Labour councillor candidates for Ladywell are opposing the Eastfield application and campaigning to "retain the Ravensbourne as a community space."
Eastfield unexpectedly withdrew their planning application on 13 April.
A spokesperson for Lewisham council planning department confirmed that any future proposals would require a new planning application.
Eastfield did not respond to our request for comment.
Sister Midnight said that their experience "highlights a gap in local and national planning policy that puts community assets like the Ravensbourne Arms at risk.
"Whatever the future of the pub is, we feel it is fair that any planning application accurately reflects the campaign we led to bring it into community ownership."
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