Catch the midnight train to...Greenwich

Deptford High Street's iconic train carriage is being moved this evening between 8pm and midnight (and possibly as late at 2am) and taken to be stored at Morden Wharf in Greenwich. The squatters are gone, the gates and decking have been removed and the Elvis loo looks a little sad, stranded on its own!

We asked the café business owner Rebecca if it's coming back. She's said, "It wants to come back to Douglas Square. But there's a slight hitch in that the only place it could be sited (to prevent any issues with the existing structures like lighting columns and market trading spaces) is by the Albany. But the Albany is planning to move their front entrance to face the square which will be better for the building as a whole but means the carriage would only have a short time frame in the square. It would be expensive to move it again!"

The train will be stored for the time being at Morden Wharf courtesy of Cathedral plc who are developing the riverside site on the Greenwich waterfront. Rebecca said, "The Council have been very helpful in navigating where the best place is for it to sit in the long term, and Cathedral are supporting my wish for it to stay in Deptford and not take it anywhere else." (The developer had at one point wanted to re-site the train at their new development in Brighton). "In the meantime I might open a little caff in the square just to keep the business going."

We asked what's happening with the Elvis loo. "All the plants and decking have been saved and are going to Tidemill's Assembly garden project. The Elvis loo is still up but there's nothing much left to save and the squatters left it in a bit of a mess. They've also written all over the tables, walls and floor, and had electric heaters on 24/7."

One of the squatters wrote in the comments section on our previous post about the carriage that they would keep the place clean, and even claimed to have changed the electricity bill to their own name. But it seems the more responsible among them were staying with their parents over the Christmas period when things got out of hand. During this period, a local shopkeeper witnessed an ambulance turning up to take a party-goer – who had overdosed on drugs – to hospital. The electricity is still in Rebecca's name.

Was she having a special send-off tonight? "No special send-off. It's all been a bit emotional and a bit of a rush! Now it's time to focus on the future." She hopes people will have good memories of the train, and look forward to its return.

The train arriving in 2008, and more recent and sunnier times...

Update: The train left tonight at just before midnight. Bye for now!

Train carriage squatted, and Creekside cafe to close

Plans to move the train cafe to Douglas Square have been taking a long time, and we heard it could be up to a year before it is relocated. In the meantime, the Deptford Project developers Cathedral plc had now agreed to help the cafe business owner's storage problem by moving it to one of their other sites in Greenwich (yet to be redeveloped) so that building work can commence on the Deptford site. But at the end of last week the train was squatted.

This is the same notice as was pinned to the door of the old Job Centre (perhaps even the very same notice), which was squatted at the end of September, just as refurbishment work was about to start on the new pub that is planned for the building. Although a train is not a pub, it seems the same rules apply, and no-one except the squatters can enter the premises. The decking was due to be removed and donated to a garden project, but now cannot be touched since it would deny the squatters access to their new pad. The electricity supply was also due to be cut off, but the squatters say it would be a breach of their human rights to remove their only source of power, which means the cafe (not the developer) may be stuck with a large bill.

No one was in when the site security guard let us into the yard on Saturday to take these photos. The developer's schedule will now be held up until they can get a court possession order. Not that they have seemed to be in any hurry to get started since they got planning permission several months ago.

Meanwhile, another local cafe is about to close, also thanks to redevelopment – the Creekside Cafe on Creekside, part of Faircharm Trading Estate. Their lease is up and there's no point in renewing it, since some time in 2014 building work will begin to turn a thriving employment zone into luxury housing. This will last three years or more and bring great disturbance to Crossfields residents. Unfortunately, a Lewisham Planning Committee agreed earlier this year that Workspace plc cannot make enough profit for its shareholders by simply providing actual workspace.

Creekside Cafe's situation differs from the train cafe in that its owners (Mason's Catering, already a fairly successful catering firm based on Deptford Church Street) knew nothing about Workspace's plans to turn Faircharm Trading Estate into luxury flats and chuck out the businesses that the cafe serves when they took on the tenancy. The train, on the other hand, was initially supported by the developer, who paid for its installation as "meantime use" on the site. In return, Cathedral ingratiated itself into the community with its branding, whilst boasting the cafe's successes as its own. Until, that is, they got their planning permission and wanted rid of it.

The same clever developer did the same last year with the pop-up Mvemnt Café by Greenwich DLR, which was run by Greenwich Co-operative Development Agency, who knew the limits of the project – to cash in on the Olympic pedestrian traffic to Greenwich Park. Perhaps a fine example of "meantime use". Cathedral hailed it as a great success, though we hardly ever saw or met anyone there (since most Olympics punters were herded away from it and all the other Greenwich businesses).

It seems "meantime use" can only work if the business can be easily relocated or closed down. But even then, a planning application can take a long time to come to fruition, and there are often delays in building phases once permission is got, so any business who takes up a "meantime" offer suffers enormous insecurity about when they must move out. In the meantime the business may have become established in the community, sorely missed as a community resource when it's gone, and the business itself left with debts it has no chance of recouping if it cannot easily relocate. And even if they can, like the businesses being chucked out of Faircharm, relationships in the community built up over many years are severed by a move to another borough or town.

Meanwhile, Creekside Cafe has only been around for a relatively short time, but their cheap and tasty food proved popular with and highly convenient for local artists, craftspeople and residents – and those Creekside businesses who haven't yet been forced out by Workspace's new plans for Faircharm.