Whilst I'm not quite as vexed as our friend Roz, I must admit that I find this latest development quite depressing - enough to break my self-imposed silence on this matter/thread.

I can understand the need to create a Listed Building register to protect unique items of our shared heritage, but we must also realise that society moves on. We cannot, and should not, preserve buildings for the sake of it. Louise House is NOT a beautiful building nor does it have the kind of unique history that BBC Period Dramas are made of.

I speak as a parent who desperately would like his two kids to be able to choose to go swimming regularly in a local pool. Instead, every time we consider it, we must plan excursions to Beckenham or elsewhere involving the car. We are lucky, we have the car, but what about others, and what about the ability to do something "in the community"?

Do we HONESTLY think that the vast majority of SE23 residents would choose to keep the buildings over having a pool and facilities they can use? I do not.

Preservation of the status quo would have meant that there would have been no pools in the first place. This would all have been a big forest and instead we could be grazing our sheep here a few weeks a year.

I'm fairly certain the distinguished Victorian gentleman who bequeathed the area and built the pools in the public interest would laugh out loud at such nonsense. He built a 'modern' pool of the time. It is now time to take that baton and run with it by building the kind of place he would have built if he were around today.

I am not a fan of what the Council were proposing, and I think that they were misguided in their approach to the development process, and had demonstrated little reason to trust them with this running this building as I blame them entirely for getting us into this mess. However, listing Louise House is not the answer.

I hope most of you know who know me (including many who will disagree with my position) understand that I do love Forest Hill, and that I do my utmost to make it a better place, but I find this entire thing very depressing.

Personally, I wanted to go swimming in a local pool with my son and daughter some time before the next Olympics. I honestly believe that this will never happen now.

A very sad day.