Interesting to read FH Society's June newsletter which seems (p 4) to accept without comment the demolition of the pools in August, quoting the cost of security and power at ?100,000 p.a. as seeming justification for this. In contrast, however, p.3 has a report on the proposal to extend FH's Conservation Area with a consultant recommending the conservation area be extended "up Dartmouth Road to the Library on one side..." the Mayor to consider proposals by March 2009 - making a bit of a mockery of the Mayor's decision to demolish the pools in August 2008...

I contacted my daughter in California about the neglect of the pools and the current "plans" and this is her reply (which I am copying in here for you to read in case the technology didn't allow hers to make it):

Dear All,
I just wanted to send a note from southern California, where I now live, to tell you how important Forest Hill swimming pools are and how important it is that they remain intact. I spent my formative years going to Saturday morning swimming lessons (with Mr. Penny, for those of you who remember him) at those pools. My mother was a single mother at the time, caring for two small children by herself. Our car was unreliable and getting three of us on a bus to Crystal Palace was a big hassle. However, we WERE able to walk to the pools, our local pools, every Saturday morning for our lessons. I have been a life long swimmer: I swam for my secondary school team and my college team. I now live next to the pacific ocean and surf. I believe my love of water comes from the opportunities I had at Forest Hill pools, as a three-year-old, taking weekly swimming lessons. Without those early life opportunities I may never have experienced the joys of surfing with dolphins and now swimming with my own daughter. Swimming is SUCH a healthy sport and is something that people of ALL ages can enjoy and derive benefit from. It costs little money and the cardiovascular and overall fitness benefits are undeniable. I don't know who is behind the plan to demolish Forest Hill pools, or which "get quick rich" scheme is driving this poor choice, but I do know that demolishing the pools IS a poor choice. Forest Hill pools are important, not only for their architecture, their exterior, but for their interior: The countless hours of joy and the health giving benefits for young and old, rich and poor alike, that these pools can offer.
Sincerely,
Anna McCarthy,
Huntington Beach
California, USA.

i remember the pools when i was a kid too, about 24 years ago, i can remember them as a nasty place to swim, unclean changing rooms with bugs all over the place and the strong smell of clorin, not good but we still went.

the pools do need a change i don't no how that cannot be seen, but... the facade must be kept intact, they need to be very smart and not destroy the red brick, i am keen to see what these options will look like. i have an element of faith after the changes that were made to sainsbury's following the consultation.

I think it's a foregone conslusion that the facade is going unfortunately. It is a scandal but there you have it. The really important thing is that a good modern design is agreed upon and we get our pools back pronto. We do not want a high rise council estate slap bang on top. Happy to use the Lemon Grove for a coffee and church and school halls for meeting space, if it means we get a good design and some open space. Like for like. No demolition without plans.

Any rich benefactors out there who would like to help with keeping the facade plus a modern pool - say 3 million should do it? Happy to see the pools named after you!!!!! I doubt there would be any disagreement.

I don't know if it is the same at Forest Hill pools but at Ladywell because the sauna and turkish baths are permanently closed the company managing the centre is paid ?20-?30K due to lost earnings.

Following up the "It wouldn't happen in Dulwich", "It didn't happen in Dulwich!" comments, I went to look at the Dulwich Pools last Friday.

There are several boards in the foyer displaying (drawings and text) Southwark's enormous refurbishment proposal, together with piles of takeaway comment postcards. The Victorian heritage and its preservation are emphasised throughout the exhibition with a header "Preserving the Heritage" and a statement: "Refurbishment is guided by the following principles:.......Dulwich leisure centre is over 100 years old and is a Grade II listed building. By working with English Heritage from the outset the new centre will provide users with a state of the art building and retain all the best Victorian features."

At the moment there is only the one Victorian swimming pool (ca. 27 metres and five lanes), in a land area much, much larger than that occupied by Forest Hill pools, and with many side rooms which used for yoga and all kinds of other activities. The sites are not comparable in size, and Forest Hill pools aren't listed, but the Victorian Society thinks they are worthy of preservation. The idea that FH could have a Victorian facade and a new interior pool plus perhaps a community meeting room does not strike be as being outlandishly beyond reason - if Southwark can do it in Dulwich why can't Lewisham do it in Forest Hill?

I have spoken to about 200 people now, as I collected signatures for the petition. What do they want? Their priority is simply to have a LOCAL pool where they can swim on a regular basis, which is easy to get to and where school children can go for their swimming lessons without the expense, time and energy involved in bussing them across the borough.

The majority of people I have spoken to also want the heritage of our Victorian forefathers respected by the preservation of as much of the original buildings as possible.

The issue is lack of local swimming facilities, but it is also about protection of the urban social and historic environment.

oh lewisham can do it but they have no imagination.

The Victorian Society doesn't make the decision, English Heritage do. They have looked at it on a number of times and have concluded that the pool does not have sufficient interest to merit listing.

Unfortunately the pool is not within a Conservation Area and could therefore be demolished tomorrow if Lewisham wanted it to. They have, rather bizarrely, been considering about extending the Conservation Area to include the site, which would make it more difficult, but not impossible, to demolish it. Think that there is a lack of joined up thinking at Lewisham.

I want a decent pool to swim in. A victorian facaded building would look ridiculous - picture below is of a facade retention in Cardiff - doesn't look great does it?

   

As for why it won't happen in Dulwich, the building in Dulwich is LISTED, that's why it will not happen......English Heritage are not interested in a building which has been turned down for listing on several attempts and has no Conservation Area protection and is only of local interest...

See the bigger picture!

The bigger picture I can foresee has a big empty site with weeds growing on it and no pool.

Also, your picture is quite silly and no more relevant than someone uploading an image of a random ugly modern building and saying "look, aren't modern buildings ugly". It demonstrates precisely nothing.

Yes I agree walked past this afternoon , already on the way to becomming an eye sore

The point of the picture is that facade retentions often do not work, especially when you need to get a large volume of building behind.....

the site is already an eyesore, just like the building next door to it......we need to come up with a solution which looks forward rather than being obsessed with preserving the building which has no protection through the planning system.....

Just because it has no protection in the planning system certainly does not mean it has no merit. Plus we also know the planning system is not immune from mistakes and bad decisions.

FH pool has a significant value as a unique building that's part of the historical fabric of our area. And the way the council is pushing through the development of more flats at the same time makes me question anything they promise, because they will change the rules to suit their own interests at the drop of a hat.

Campaigners supporting the retention of the Victorian buildings gathered approximately 120 signatures at the Havelock Walk Open Studios at the weekend - in just 2 1-hour stints. To sign the same petition online, go to this link:
http://www.gopetition.com/online/19745.html

Both Louise House and the pools are not pretty buildings - they are severe and spell out quite clearly that there is no fun to be had in here.
Which considering their purpose, it is quite incomprehensible (today) why they were designed like this.

And no-doubt the Victorians would judge our buildings as looking like they were designed by and for children - and so encouraging lewd and unfitting behaviour.

This is no mere change in fashion, but these buildings give us a real insight into a very different set of values - of the very people who built Forest Hill. We are so lucky the buildings survived.

Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. Ironically, I suspect that the councillors and their associates very much would like to return to Victorian values and these buildings must be an unwelcome reminder to them of what a cold, hard and authoritative world that was in practice.
Destroy the evidence!

Can I point out that the petition is not supporting the retention of the Victorian buildings, but consultation before demolition, which I understand Lewisham Council has now agreed to do (although I don't believe the consultation options will go far enough for some people).

What nobody wants is the scenario that HTG describes, where the site becomes waste ground because all other options are too expensive. I am sure that most people would prefer to have the buildings there than nothing at all. If they are to be demolished then we need a good replacement leisure centre that appeals to residents of Forest Hill.

The reason they are putting the flats on the site are to help meet some of the costs of the development, which means that the Council has less to find out of its coffers and that means that the taxpayer pays less!!!!! Surely that is a good thing?

Think that you'll find that I said that the building has local interest. Until the Conservation Area is designated around the site, the building has no protection in the planning system.

I just want a local pool to go and swim in....that's all.....and I would, preferably like it sometime soon....

you may think that these building are terrible, you may feel that retention solutions do not work most of the time but in the context of things, there are 3 very valuable historical buildings that sit side by side, the value of these ugly buildings is their their context and their story, remove the building and you remove that narrative of a society that has evolved. it is these sort of things that bring genuine value to an area that is why they are so important.

having said that it needs to be done in a sensitive way or it will not work, intelligent solutions. we need to see what the options are before anything goes ahead, a competition is the right to go with consultation.

if lewisham council were at all clever these pools will still be open, they really do not care much, they allowed them to get to this state and that is a real shame, your right, reporting them is the way to go.

I see very little value in two empty buildings being allowed to decay where they stand (see listed concrete house on Lordship Lane which is falling apart for a worse example). Derelict buildings of any character (especially unlisted) are an eyesore unless they are demolished or sensitively developed. It was years of derelict shops on London Road (now part of Sainsbury's expansion) that allowed East Dulwich to overtake Forest Hill as the best local high street.

The question, and it is a real question, is should the council spend money preserving these buildings OR providing better leisure facilities on the site. The renovation of the pools buildings into part of a leisure centre or housing will cost millions of pounds, which will mean more housing on the site , and prc's photo from Cardiff could be the direction in which we go.[/quote]

Although I would like to see the pool building retained, I do not want to see the buildings protected if it means 10 story buildings surrounding it and ruining the context and the local area. I'm not saying 'bring on the bulldozers', I'm saying that we need to make sure we get the best leisure facilities in Forest Hill and I would be delighted if we could do this while preserving architecture that many people feel is worth protecting.

Would those values be represented by Lewisham's first Mayor and builder of the pools (Theophilus Williams) who committed suicide with a morphine overdose after being declared bankrupt and then charged with embezzlement ?

The sorry state of the shop fronts in Forest Hill was down to Sainsburys selfish greed and Lewisham Council for not enforcing Sainsburys to do something about the neglect. If the shops had been refurbished rather than pulled down, how bad would that have been? Sainsbury's threatened to leave Forest Hill - we should have called their bluff - I cant say I'm that impressed with what we eventually got. Unfortunately we do not have a crystal ball so will never know what might have been (a parallel universe would be interesting!). Perhaps smaller enterprises would have sprung up? Perhaps we would have become more like Lorship Lane. In fact using Lordship Lane as a comparison is silly, Forest Hill is much smaller, further from London (zone 3 not zone 2) with less parking and housing. It's really unlikely that we would ever have rivalled East Dulwich.

However what we lost was the character of the area, which is again being threatened by the loss of Louisa House and the Pools building.