A former Foxtons branch is about to become a Poundland store in an upmarket area of South London, but the food retailer’s imminent arrival in East Dulwich has led to local protests that it will ‘lower the tone of the area’.

Locals have taken to Facebook and local television to complain that the retailers’ reputation will affect house prices too.

Foxtons operated its huge branch at 29-35 Lordship Lane from at least 2008 until 2022, but the site has been under development for some months by Poundland.

But the backlash has been so intense among East Dulwich residents, who are famously defensive of their high street and its independent shops, that the retailer has been forced to reassure locals.

Window signage for the soon-to-open store says it wants to stop the local ‘hand-wringing’, highlighting the benefits the company’s brand can bring to local communities and the wider economy.

Estate agents

The sign goes on to say: “Retailers love the customers we bring to their high streets. Serving 7m shoppers a week, we may help a little more than the estate agent here before us.”

The sign also eggs the firm’s ‘green credential’ and charitable foundation and that its meal deals are ‘better value than most’ highlighting the 800 jobs it created within the UK last year.

The opening has also spurred local TV coverage of local protests online, which have called the store’s arrival ‘reverse gentrification’.

MP Theresa Villers, appearing on the BBC’s Local Politics programme suggested the Facebook group criticisms were ‘snobbery’ and that any shop that attracted footfall to high streets was a good thing, something many estate agents would agree with.

Read more about Foxtons branch closures.

Picture credits: Foxtons/BBC