Does anyone know when the presentation is going to be online, at the link advertised on the poster? All that's there at the moment is the one rendered picture.

I have just recieved the following email

but I cannot see the designs there yet

I've just emailed them to ask.

From Lewisham...

"Yes the display boards will be available for viewing online. I am hoping they will be available from tomorrow at the earliest. The link is http://www.lewisham.gov.uk/foresthillpools to view the designs and the latest information on the project."

Anyone who wants to see an image of the pools frontage (and an option that has need discarded as far as I know) should look on the Labour Party leaflet that was delivered over the weekend. We got one yesterday morning.

How come they were allowed to use one of the images that isn't even current when the stakeholder group have not been allowed to have any images outside of the stakeholder meetings? I wonder.....?

Did they not use the same image as shown on the poster that you made available previously on this thread?

No. They used an image which has a curved roof over the plant building (see attachment).

Guess there are some advantages to being the party in office

Very Hornimanesque.

Don't get too excited, but the PDF File of the designs is now online

...and the plant building in the exhibition material is considerably different to both the Labour leaflet, and indeed the plant building on the front of the leaflet advertising the exhibition itself! It's morphed magically overnight into something not nearly as subtle or interesting. bah.

I prefer the Labour party's proposed design for the plant block. Does anybody know if the Labour party will be campaigning for this design or if they will be publicly backing the designs provided by the council in the consultation?

I'm looking forward to discussing both versions of the plans this afternoon at the station.

Good luck Michael but I don't think you will get to discuss both versions. The image they used was from an option being considered back in January and was discarded I think because however it may look in that one image it was even more bulky than it needed to be.

They really should be more careful who they give images to.......

I imagine the Labour Party will be one of the many telling us "that it was them that did it".

I will be interested to hear peoples view on the exhibition material. I am generally impressed and think it's positive. The proposals show an alternative to the glass porch on the front.

Key issues that I think are worth discussing include:
- Are they confident that both entrances will remain in use, even when the cafe is shut and the one that faces the town centre is out of view of the reception area?
- Why is the signage on the front when most people will see the building from the north or south?
- Is the ceiling height sufficient on the learner pool (it looks very low on the section) and how will the acoustics work (at Downham the learner pool is quite noisy and has a similarly low ceiling)?
- How will the reception area cope when there is a long queue (as there often is?)
- How do pedestrians walk around a parked disabled vehicle when there is a coach dropping of children and does this seem an ideal arrangement?
- The (new) vertical cladding on the new frontage/cafe block to the pools seems to make it relate less well to the retained frontage, what is the rationale for this? This seems to me to be the least successful part of the design at the moment.
- Who will manage the pocket park and what will its main use be?
- How will the pool be managed and how will Lewisham make sure it is open and useable when it is supposed to be (unlike the Bridge which always has some excluse for not being open on a sunday e.g. short staffed, pool too cold, needed to do 'sessions' that finish in 10 minutes but didn't put this on our website etc.
- Are they confident that they can let the cafe to a good operator who sells good and fresh food and be open at the same time as the pools?

A few issues to resolve but on the whole I can't wait. My 6 year old keeps asking me when it will be ready!! He wasn't really very impressed when I had to tell him he will be nearly 9 before it is finished!!

I have just noticed that the exhibition boards say "In july 2009 the Council approved a new proposal by Allies and Morrison Architects for he redevelopment that includes the retention and integration of the pool building's Victorian frontage."

Just to be absolutely clear this is NOT any kind of Planning Approval for this scheme.

As many of you probably know I don’t make a habit of posting on the web sites which facilitate discussion of local matters – not because I’m not interested but because there aren’t enough hours in the day.

However once in a while something comes up which I feel compelled to comment on and the discussion about the designs for Forest Hill Pools and which image the Labour Party used on a recent leaflet is a just such a case.

First let me be clear that I don’t control the images the Labour Party uses (if I did some of the ones of me wouldn’t see the light if day!). In this case as I understand it they were seeking a generic image of the new pools and it appears that what they got while meeting that description wasn’t the most up to date one.

The use of that particular image has no more significance than that – it could as easily have been an image of the pools as they are now or one of the rather splendid drawings of what the pool might look like I saw at a local primary school not so long ago.

The point is that there is a consultation going on right now which I hope as many folk as possible will take a look at.

While I’m on I thought I’d have my twopence worth of comment on who can claim credit for what. Lots of people have been involved with the future of the pools going back more than 20 years. When I was council leader back in the 1980s (yes I really am that old) there was a “threat” to Forest Hill Pools which people like myself and Jim Dowd (then a councillor) saw off. It would have been great if we had had the resources then to do a complete rebuild but frankly at that point we had a Conservative government in office that was deliberately running down the infrastructure of our communities not rebuilding them.

Things have changed since then and I have always been clear that I intended to do what I could to have a swimming facility for use by residents of Forest Hill and surrounding areas. I’ve said it before and I’ll repeat it here – if anyone can produce evidence of me proposing anything else I’ll pay for a slap up dinner for them in the Dartmouth.

What has been really difficult is the difference of view between those who wanted a new pool and those who wanted the old building restoring. Factor in all manner of technical issues and we had something which was always going to be hard to resolve. After I was re-elected in 2006 I decided that whatever else I did I was going to sort this issue before the next election. I’m glad I did because post recession times are going to be hard for the public sector – maybe not as hard as they were in the 1980s but still pretty tough.

Anyway we have now found a way forward and I’ve managed to make the money just about add up so we can afford what is now being consulted on. I’m afraid I’m not going to enter in to a protracted discussion on this as I’ve also got the rest of Lewisham to deal with. I will post things on my own web site over the coming weeks – and no doubt Forest Hill will feature at some point!

http://www.mayorsteve.co.uk/

Mayor Steve, no offence intended.

Simply, it is frustrating that the Labour party are allowed to use an out of date image of the scheme and put it in the public realm when the stakeholder group are not even allowed to take copies of plans from meetings to give further consideration to and in order to provide constructive feedback. Despite a number of polite requests.

Secondly, it is a shame that there is rarely an 'inclusive' view of the many people and organisations involved in assisting the delivery of the pool, whilst not in any way doing anyone out of well deserved credit for their hard work and continued persistence. Undoubtedly there are key players, but the way the Council, Councillors community have come together over this (in the end) is the project's real success story.

Looking forward to December 2012....

Unless I'm missing the point, isn't the image used by the Labour Party already in the public realm,as many of the older designs are and were? I also think that its not entirely relevant whether that particular design is current, approved , not approved, etc, as it is what it is- promotional material for the Labour Party and not intended to be up to date or correct proposals for the Pools.There will undoubtedly be more of the same from all parties leading up to the election and we can look forward to more incorrect facts and dodgy promotional material from all sides and more comments from each party on each others badly designed and inaccurate leaflets. I just love the one with Gordon Browns head badly transposed onto Ed Ball's body. You just know its been touched up as he's smiling....

Surely what's most strange is that the image of the new pool pictured on lewisham's own leaflet advertising the consultation isn't actually the pool design being consulted on! The plant block is substantively different.

Despite repeated requests for access to any plans for the pool, the only picture available for public consumption before the Consultation poster was released was on Lewisham's Flickr stream. This image was made available after the February meeting of the Forest Hill Local Assembly.

While we were invited to examine the plans in private, we were not allowed to disseminate any pictoral evidence to our members or the public in general. This is why there have been few details on our website, or elsewhere, and our December newsletter included an image of the Ynysawdre pool. Various members of the Stakeholders' group have passed on descriptions of the various designs as best they could.

Somehow the Labour party was able to obtain an image of the pool design as it stood in January and published this on their spring newsletter. I don't mind that they had an out of date picture; indeed I think it would have been better if the various designs had been more widely available so that ordinary people could see the progress and comment. What I object to is the preferential treatment (insider trading?).

The reason for the difference in design between the poster and the consultation display is that the architects are still working on the design and made some modifications as a result of the Stakeholder feedback (for example, removing the glass box from the front of the Superintendant's block and trying to reduce the impact of the new block) - this is not the finished product and we welcome the public consultation while wishing that LBL were more liberal with the information they put in the public domain about this project.

Sorry, I don't quite follow. Is the building in the consultation document the one that's been modifed because of stakeholder input? Or is the one on the leaflet? Which is the latest model?