The Garden Gate drive-thru wants opening hours of 5am to 1am seven days a week, a month after winning its 1am planning fight. Objections close 2 October.

The McDonald’s at The Garden Gate on Old Bromley Road in Downham has applied to open from 5am to 1am, seven days a week. The application appears on Lewisham’s register of current licensing applications, and anyone who wants to make a representation has until 2 October 2026.

It is the drive-thru’s second move on its hours this year. In August, Lewisham’s Planning Committee B voted unanimously to let the restaurant trade until 1am instead of midnight. This new application is to the council’s licensing team, a separate process, and it asks for more.

What the application asks for

The register lists a full variation of the premises licence:

  • opening hours of 5am to 1am, Monday to Sunday; the current licence says 6am to midnight
  • late night refreshment until 1am every night, for the drive-thru and delivery only; the current licence allows it from 11pm to midnight

Late night refreshment is the licensable activity of serving hot food or drink between 11pm and 5am, so it is the part of the licence that governs the extra late hour.

The 5am start is new

The midnight-to-1am close matches what planning permission now allows. The 5am opening does not: the planning condition varied in August still requires the premises to be shut between 1am and 6am, as the decision on application DC/26/143004 records. A premises licence and a planning condition are separate permissions, and the more restrictive one governs what can actually happen on the ground, so an hour earlier at the till would also need the planning side to move.

When the planning application was decided, the council had received ten objections, all from residents, citing wrong-way driving on the one-way stretch of Old Bromley Road, litter and late-night noise. Officers noted then that the council’s Safer Communities team held no complaints about the site.

What it means for you

  • If you want to comment, representations must be made in writing by 2 October 2026, by email to licensing@lewisham.gov.uk or by post to the Licensing Authority, 4th Floor Laurence House, 1 Catford Road SE6 4RU.
  • A representation must include your full name and full postal address. The register states that any representation without both is invalid and cannot be considered.
  • If valid representations are made, the application goes to a licensing sub-committee hearing; if none are, the council must grant it as applied for.

The same register lists two other live applications: a new premises licence for Kimchi & Tofu at River Mill One, Lewisham Gateway (late night refreshment to midnight and alcohol to 11.30pm, representations closed 15 September), and a new licence for the Millwall Café on Bolina Road in New Cross Gate ward, for alcohol to drink on the premises from 10am to 11pm, with representations open until 2 October.

Source: Lewisham Council licensing register of current applications, checked 18 September 2026.