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Fortunately, it emerged a couple of days earlier that an application from local group The Walworth Society to list the Elephant and Castle as a local asset under the Localism Act 2011 has been successful, meaning that turning the space into anything that isn’t a pub or bar will require extensive planning permission. With the area already having lost several pubs along Old Kent Road, this is a massive victory for the local population.

In addition to this, the Thomas A Becket pub down the road has also been listed as a public asset under the same act, and cannot be bought privately for at least six weeks. This gives local community groups the opportunity to show interest in buying it, though the price for the listed building is just under £2million which means it might be easier said than done. But at least there’s the opportunity and a chance to stop big business moving into the area.

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So if you fancy sipping a lukewarm appletiser as a smarmy estate agent in an ill fitting suit and pointy shoes tries to convince you that the asking price for the £300 a week studio flat is well worth the money (think of the transport links,) then you’ll have to bugger off up the road to Borough High Street. Until then, this looks like an opportunity for Elephant and Castle to receive a new form of reinvigoration, with someone hopefully taking up the landlord mantle at the titular drinking spot soon.

Whomever the new proprietor might be, the lucky son of a gun already has a bunch of press circulating with regards to their new venue. Whilst all of this occupying business and petition hoo- ha might seem irksome and a little trivial to some, it has added to the pub’s already illustrious history, which will hopefully continue to grow under new ownership, as will the legacy of the area.