Peckham’s Wetherspoons on the high street, The Kentish Drovers, has been up for sale for well over a year and it now looks as though its next life might have nothing to do with pints at all. A planning application was lodged with Southwark Council, proposing turning the ground floor and basement into a bingo hall, which would make it the latest in a long line of London pubs swapping one kind of Friday night for another.
The application comes from LCE Property Ltd, and whilst it is early days, with the consultation running until the 16th of September, the direction of travel for this particular building has arguably been clear for a while. JD Wetherspoon first put the pub up for sale, at 71 to 79 Peckham High Street, back in the July of 2025, with the asking price having come down more than once since then.
A Pub That Struggled to Fill Seats
The Kentish Drovers was originally listed at over £1 million for the long leasehold, only for that to be cut to slightly over £900,000 in the February of 2026. A further cut was made to ‘offers over £750,000’ by the time the current planning application went in on the 19th of August. A spokesperson for Wetherspoons, Eddie Gershon, was quick to point out that there is nothing imminent about a closure, saying that the pub ‘will continue to operate as a Wetherspoon until it is sold’, but the writing has been on the wall for some time.
That is not least the case because a sale at that price with a bingo hall replacing it suggests that the pub trade itself has been a struggle in the location. There is no shortage of pubs in south London finding themselves in a similar position, in spite of the area’s reputation these days for being rather more fashionable than it once was. Whether it is changing drinking habits, the cost of running a large Victorian building or it’s simply competition from elsewhere on the high street, something has clearly made the sums not add up for Wetherspoons here.
What the Bingo Hall Would Look Like
According to the application, LCE Property Ltd is not proposing anything drastic to the building itself. No exterior alterations are planned, whilst residents with flats above the pub would keep their existing access. Instead, the changes will be confined to the ground floor and basement. The pitch made to Southwark Council looks more towards the social side of bingo rather than the gambling element, with the applicant arguing that venues of this kind ‘act as vital social hubs that encourage local interaction, build relationships and help reduce loneliness’.
Pitching the whole thing as a community-minded addition to the high street rather than just a betting shop by another name is a clever move, considering the largely anti-gambling mood that has become somewhat commonplace in the United Kingdom in recent years. It is also a pitch that will be familiar to anyone who has followed the fortunes of bingo halls elsewhere in the capital, where operators have increasingly looked towards the community angle to win over sceptical councils and neighbours alike.
A Decision Still to Come
Whether Southwark’s planners are convinced by the approach that the applicant has chosen to take obviously remains to be seen. With the consultation period still open, nothing here is settled yet and, for now, the Kentish Drovers will carry on operating at a pub, meaning that punters can still get their usual pint and a curry there for the time being.
Southwark Council is expected to weigh up the application once the consultation closes in mid-September. Only then will it become clear whether Peckham High Street is about to gain a bingo hall or whether this particular pub finds a buyer with more conventional plans.