The England football team’s World Cup success mean local pressure group Speak Out Woolwich has cancelled holding a public meeting on Wednesday about the controversial Spray Street development.

Developers plan to knock down shops – mainly businesses run by and for black and ethnic minority communities – and the old Woolwich Public Market and replace them with 742 new homes, shops, offices, a cinema and a new public square as part of a scheme backed by Greenwich Council.

The scheme has already been criticised by Labour councillors while the Twentieth Century Society wants to get the market – now being used as a street food emporium – listed.

But events in Russia have overtaken organisers’ plans, and with the meeting due to clash with England’s first World Cup semi-final in 28 years, the event has been cancelled.

Speak Out Woolwich says it hopes to reconvene the meeting at a later date.

At the beginning of the World Cup, Greenwich Council was mocked on social media for holding one of its Better Together consultation meetings on the same night as England’s opening World Cup group match Tunisa.

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