Hmmm... causal inference alert.

Let's put it that way. The CCR quality has continued to decrease following the removal of the CCR card... and Covid, and overwhelming BA service decline in areas entirely unrelated to CCR access.

In the same period, the food offerings in J had decreased a lot before finally getting closer to the pre-covid normal, the spa services ended (which never gave specific access to CCR cardholders then or GGL now), the cabanas ended (which were never bookable by CCR cardholders then or GGL now), etc.

It seems to me that if you were a bookie and taking bets on what the primary cause of the decline of service in the CCR, the odds for it being due to the removal of the CCR card and access to GGL (as opposed to, say, Covid service decline, problems with personnel and supply, BA financial priorities, etc) would be roughly the same as for Canada winning the recent World Cup (hint: they didn't!)

I would add that if the hope is that by restricting access to the CCR by increasing the threshold to 5000 TPs or some other figure, the quality of food etc in the CCR would increase, my personal sense is that there is exactly 0 chance of that. CCR quality will increase if BA decide to boost F quality and feel that lounge quality is an important part of that, and that is basically it. if they do so, it will probably come at the cost of F becoming significantly more expensive, disappearing from many more routes, and access to F awards being further restricted (e.g. to GCH and above). It may also well mean the end of any status entry to the CCR (rather than making the status allowed into it more exclusive), which I suspect a number of regular F flyers may approve of, but perhaps not that many FTers.