Visits to former cop shop might be more fun in future – if hotel plan goes ahead

By Robert Firth, Local Democracy Reporter

An ex-police station empty for almost a decade could be turned into a 57-bed boutique hotel.

The building at 101 Streatham High Road has been vacant since 2015 when the local police station relocated to a building further down the street.

Now Everitt Road Properties has applied to Lambeth council to turn the former cop shop, built in 1912, into a hotel and café. As part of the development, a rear extension would be added to the building, as well as a mansard roof.

According to a planning statement submitted as part of the application, Lambeth has been identified at a regional and national level as an area suitable for more hotels.

“The only existing hotel in the area is the Leigham Court Hotel, an 86-bed hotel close to Streatham Hill Station. As a result, the provision of a new hotel at the application site will not result in an over concentration of hotels within the area,” the document adds.

A 114-bed Travelodge was also approved by Lambeth council on the site of a former jazz club around a seven minutes’ walk from the police station building in June 2023. The police station at 101 Streatham High Road shut after a review by the Met and the Mayor of London concluded it was no longer meeting the force’s needs.

The planning statement continues: “The proposed 57-room boutique hotel shall be used by visitors to Streatham and Lambeth more broadly. The hotel entrance will be from Shrubbery Road, with a hotel lobby, café/reception and stair/lift core for visitors at ground floor level, in addition to nine hotel rooms and separate waste/recycling storage.

“The basement level will include storage, plant room and staff changing facilities plus eight hotel rooms, with the remaining forty rooms dispersed across the upper floors.”

Lambeth council will make a decision on the application at a later date.

Pictured top: What the former police station on Streatham High Road in Streatham looks like today (Picture: Lambeth council planning documents)