| Author |
Message |
Hilltop General
Joined N/A
| | Posted on Wednesday, 12 January, 2005 - 10:07 pm: | |
Well, some scaffolding appeared today!
I think the programme must be tied in with the East London Line extension or something (expected completion 2100AD), in order that Forest Hill is ready for the sun-dried tomato seeking hordes and at which time the retro pickled-onions-above-the-freezers layout so fondly remniscent of my 70s childhood can finally be safely decommissioned. Or something. Or maybe Sainsbury is just a really badly-run outfit taking a total hiding from Tesco and Asda and unable to hold its place, let alone move forward and invest for the future.
I would say boycott the ignorant *****s (insert insult of choice) but we ain't got much choice. And don't they just know it. |
CB
Joined N/A
| | Posted on Thursday, 13 January, 2005 - 08:55 pm: | |
Actually saw some Builders on top of the hoardings today, or were they just scaffolders? Does anyone know anything - Council or Sainsbury's maybee? |
Pat Trembath
Joined N/A
| | Posted on Friday, 14 January, 2005 - 07:15 pm: | |
Today's South London Press says " Work on the supermarket expansion and housing block has finally begun. Sainsburys announced the start of building work on its Forest Hill store this week.....Sainsburys aims to have the work completed and the store open by December." |
Hilltop General
Joined N/A
| | Posted on Friday, 14 January, 2005 - 08:24 pm: | |
The pace is now blistering. Two lifts of scaffold up today! |
PVP
Joined N/A
| | Posted on Tuesday, 18 January, 2005 - 10:56 am: | |
I think it was just to stop it falling down. And maybe some people had started sleeping in the shop doorways? |
Adam
Joined N/A
| | Posted on Wednesday, 19 January, 2005 - 11:00 am: | |
They have started work on the development, heavy plant machinery is now in place behind the store and behind the boarded up properties. News is, it's still on track for Christmas opening, just in time to spend those Nectar vouchers on all the new yummy food and booze. |
Jon
Joined N/A
| | Posted on Wednesday, 19 January, 2005 - 11:37 am: | |
Yes, I saw a lot of activity at 8am today. They seem to be getting on with it, which is fantastic news for the area. We've been waiting for this for 8 years, and it's great to think that those closed shops will become a distant memory.
Hopefully this will attract other investors to the area. |
Adam
Joined N/A
| | Posted on Wednesday, 19 January, 2005 - 03:22 pm: | |
Congratulations to Sainsburys for finally getting things sorted, not before time. Big thanks to the local community and council for getting it sorted, lets hope JS don't have any further profits downturns and the project halted!
All we need now is a few more of the other shops to become occupied |
CB
Joined N/A
| | Posted on Wednesday, 19 January, 2005 - 07:01 pm: | |
Yes, big congratulations to Sainsbury's for keeping the local Community so incredibly well informed and for allowing our high street to become incresingly derelict. How very generous of you to start the project now before a building falls on someone's head and you get sued. |
Les.
Joined N/A
| | Posted on Thursday, 20 January, 2005 - 08:57 am: | |
The builders told me that in fact they are demolishing the old buildings as part of a long term plan to widen the A205 to a dual carriageway.
That would be excellent - Forest Hill is such a bottleneck. It would benefit thousands of drivers... |
Hilltop General
Joined N/A
| | Posted on Thursday, 20 January, 2005 - 02:24 pm: | |
Don't talk rubbish, man. Seeing as they are not knocking down every building on that side of the road, how would that help? Can you really see the prospect of a dual carriageway all the way from Catford through Tulse Hill? Don't be absurd.
You have fallen for the usual builders' tactic of fobbing off enquiries as to what they are doing with something designed to alarm. Apart from it sounds like something that you would consider a boon, you bizarre individual. Consider yourself pooh-poohed! |
Mike
Joined N/A
| | Posted on Thursday, 20 January, 2005 - 02:29 pm: | |
Actually they told me they were extending the M25 through Forest Hill!!! |
Adam
Joined N/A
| | Posted on Thursday, 20 January, 2005 - 02:34 pm: | |
Lets be positive about this, yes long in the tooth in coming but we are off past starters orders and running to the finish line. I'm no Sainsburys fan, but at last it's finally coming together. Everyones involvement, council, councellors and most of all the local community should be congratulated |
Jack
Joined N/A
| | Posted on Thursday, 20 January, 2005 - 02:37 pm: | |
Widening the A205 to a dual carriageway...I don't know what's worse, the fact that you believed it or that you think it's a good idea. Because whenever someone poses the question, what does FH need, the first thing that pops in to any right thinking person's head is 'more motorists bombing through the place!' Fool. |
Bosco
Joined N/A
| | Posted on Thursday, 20 January, 2005 - 03:11 pm: | |
Am I the only one who read Les' last remark as being sarcastic?! Can't believe he fell for the builders' line but I don't think he was saying it was good for the area at all! |
Adam
Joined N/A
| | Posted on Thursday, 20 January, 2005 - 03:50 pm: | |
Actually, I heard they are going to build one of those new Tesco's on the site. I don't believe it has a deli counter though. |
Les
Joined N/A
| | Posted on Thursday, 20 January, 2005 - 09:44 pm: | |
Actually no-one said anything about the A205 being widened, because I made it up, but it got a fantastic response thanks!
Of course, the GLC DID have plans to convert the A205 into an inner orbital motorway in the late 60s, early 70s; a policy the caused some of the blight affecting Acre & Coldharbour Lanes in Brixton.
The plans were abandoned because of lack of funds and the huge negative public reaction to the Westway scorching through West London.
Hooray for Sainsbury's and boo to nasty dual carriageways slicing neighbourhoods in two!
Les. |
Newman
Joined N/A
| | Posted on Friday, 21 January, 2005 - 08:57 am: | |
Ah, the old, 'I've made an idiot of myself, so I'll pretend that I was just joking and don't really think it's a good idea to turn FH in to a motorway' ruse. Well done. |
Les
Joined N/A
| | Posted on Friday, 21 January, 2005 - 09:45 am: | |
No, honestly, I made it up. I'm at work at any time when builders are around on that site. So any impression of progress is only given by their results - not much so far - but you would hope it will accelerate now they have the go-ahead.
Incidently, not sure what will be more damaging - a souped up Sainsbury's, or widening the A205 - both will kill off local traders and hence the town centre. But I agree anything is better than the status quo.
Les. |
Newman
Joined N/A
| | Posted on Friday, 21 January, 2005 - 09:59 am: | |
Good point, Les, will a souped up Sainsbury's kill off local traders and hence the town centre? You only have to look at the state of Bell Green to see how a massive supermarket can decimate small businesses. Hopefully FH won't go the same way.
Not that I will be shopping at the new look Sainsburys. I'll leave that to Dave, the Chuckle Bros and all the other residents of the posh estate - that's if the old folks can make it as far as the high street, of course. I'm more than happy with the Tesco Express near me. Can't stand Sainsburys and am not surprised that they're lagging so far behind their rivals. |
Les
Joined N/A
| | Posted on Friday, 21 January, 2005 - 10:36 am: | |
Agreed - whenever I try anywhere else, I'm amazed how much Sainsbury's let it's standards slip in the FH store. Supermarkets have to be obsessive about their image and appeal to survive, and this store just gives an impression of neglect.
Like you say - the Tesco's is a tenth of the size, but feels far more with it.
Les. |
Lee
Joined N/A
| | Posted on Friday, 21 January, 2005 - 11:10 am: | |
Since when did being with-it constitute a good shop? I quite like the old fashioned sainsbury's in FH - reminds me of the one's my parents used to take me to as a kid! Remember that the sainsbury's in great yarmouth was the first place I saw a french stick! Cosmopolitan eh?
However, my nostalgia doesn't get in the way of looking forward to when the new sainsbury's opens.
To be slightly controversial for a moment Newman - you shouldn't fall into the trap of thinking that a new flashy big store will force everyone else out of business. That would be a bit like saying that Selfridges has forces all the other shops on oxford st out of business by taking all the trade.
Actually - I think a nice new big sainsbury's and the environmental improvements that will result will actually bring more people (and money) into the area and benefit the other shops - as well attracting new businesses into the area to fill the vacant units. |
marianne
Joined N/A
| | Posted on Friday, 21 January, 2005 - 11:29 am: | |
A new, modern Sainsburys can only be a bonus for Forest Hill. Hopefully, it will attract new businesses to Dartmouth Road which at present looks a bit like a shanty town with so many empty shops! |
Newman
Joined N/A
| | Posted on Friday, 21 January, 2005 - 11:32 am: | |
Take your point, Lee. I wasn't saying that the new look Sainsburys will definitely kill off local traders, but just that it's a possibility. It happened (on an admittedly smaller scale) in Bell Green, which is like a ghost town these days (reference to a Specials song from the 80s there Dave - bit after your time, I know, but couldn't think of any relevant Val Doonigan songs.)
Each to their own re. the current Sainsburys, personally, I think the place is an eyesore and don't find it's resemblance to supermarkets of the 70s/80s particularly charming. The fact that Sainsburys have let it exist in that state for so long is a good example of why they are leaking customers at the moment. |
BaggyDave
Joined N/A
| | Posted on Friday, 21 January, 2005 - 12:15 pm: | |
I rembember when the grocer's boy delivered your weekly shop, this is if the maid was ill. And Sainsbury's was posh. Specials - ska music?? I remember those damned bover boys in the 1960s dancing to Jamaican music. Is that the same?
As for Sainsbury's in Forest Hill - on a wet Saturday I recall about 200 people in Sainsburys around 100 in McDonalds and the rest of Forest Hill deserted, no wonder the indie shops trying hard in Dartmouth road fail so quickly. OK it can't get worse and at least I don't live in Sydenham any longer, but visiting the supposedly poor areas of Peckham and Penge they have vibrant and diverse high streets that we are sorely lacking (new kebab shop, estate agent, cheque cashing shop, pound shop anyone). S'pose all this has been said before and if I had not been mentioned in person then I wouldn't have bothered. Too much dancing on the fight floor is what I say. Now Coventry in the early 80s, there was a horid place. |
BaggyDave
Joined N/A
| | Posted on Friday, 21 January, 2005 - 12:31 pm: | |
I rembember when the grocer's boy delivered your weekly shop, this is if the maid was ill. And Sainsbury's was posh. Specials - ska music?? I remember those damned bover boys in the 1960s dancing to Jamaican music. Is that the same?
As for Sainsbury's in Forest Hill - on a wet Saturday I recall about 200 people in Sainsburys around 100 in McDonalds and the rest of Forest Hill deserted, no wonder the indie shops trying hard in Dartmouth road fail so quickly. OK it can't get worse and at least I don't live in Sydenham any longer, but visiting the supposedly poor areas of Peckham and Penge they have vibrant and diverse high streets that we are sorely lacking (new kebab shop, estate agent, cheque cashing shop, pound shop anyone). S'pose all this has been said before and if I had not been mentioned in person then I wouldn't have bothered. Too much dancing on the fight floor is what I say. Now Coventry in the early 80s, there was a horid place. |
mike
Joined N/A
| | Posted on Friday, 21 January, 2005 - 01:02 pm: | |
Everyone goes on about how Sydenham doesn't have any empty shops blur blur but what they fail to mention is that all of them are c**p! Personally I could do without 4 Hairdressers, 2 Pound Stops and a Cheque Cashing shop! I mean who actually uses those Cheque Cashing shops! |
Jack
Joined N/A
| | Posted on Friday, 21 January, 2005 - 01:15 pm: | |
I don't know about that - the Budgens is good with very friendly staff who can't do enough for you (ahem). And don't forget the Apollo that has had to resort to installing an Internet Cafe in a desperate attempt to stay in business.
Personally, I don't think you can have enough cheque cashing shops. Obviously, there is no need for them on the posh side of town, but they perform a valuable service for those people whose finances are in such a bad way that they can't wait for a cheque to clear via the normal method. And where would we be without pound shops - the other day, I bought five mars bars for a quid! Bargain. |
Adam
Joined N/A
| | Posted on Friday, 21 January, 2005 - 04:23 pm: | |
Is there a story about these 'friendly'staff we should all know about?? Do tell Jack, I have five marsbars to donate for the gossip! |
mj
Joined N/A
| | Posted on Friday, 21 January, 2005 - 05:22 pm: | |
and the usual boring chat is here! |
BaggieDave
Joined N/A
| | Posted on Friday, 21 January, 2005 - 07:21 pm: | |
MJ - I love you, I've gone off Jack, Adam and the rest, and given up with Toffee Jim |
megan
Joined N/A
| | Posted on Saturday, 22 January, 2005 - 02:08 pm: | |
mj get over yourself if you don't like it don't read it |
Sue
Joined N/A
| | Posted on Sunday, 23 January, 2005 - 07:19 pm: | |
While I agree that the supermarkets have undoubtedly killed off many of the local convenience stores, I don't believe that extending our Sainsbury's will contribute to the downfall of Forest Hill town centre. One only has to look at many of the successful areas in London, which almost always have a big supermarket. Potential homeowners and shop owners want a nice area that is on the up; the Sainsbury's development will do exactly that without encrouching on many of SE23's existing shops in the area and, hopefully, many that we don't have. |
The Dommy
Joined N/A
| | Posted on Sunday, 23 January, 2005 - 10:59 pm: | |
http://icsouthlondon.icnetwork.co.uk/0100news/0500lewisham/tm_objectid=15076915%26method=full%26siteid=50100%26headline=promise%2dof%2dplenty%2din%2dstore-name_page.html |
