Thank you Michael.

Part three:

I have also uploaded the related designs here.

Thanks again Michael.

Anotherjohn, in reply to your post #118 I'm not sure who all of the stakeholders are & how they were chosen, but I think all of the traders should have been made aware/invited to this meeting & you definitely should have been made aware/invited as a D Rd stakeholder!

I've asked our Cllr's to make all traders aware of any future stakeholder meetings, so hopefully they will do.

Michael, thanks for posting the minutes

Have the stakeholders agreed to this?
Is this what we're going to be stuck with?
Who are these stakeholders?

Whilst the new seating outside Paddy Power will no doubt be welcomed by our regular street drinkers, I'm sure they wouldn't mind budging over a little bit to allow a little space for a couple of [ E S S E N T I A L ] parking bays on that [ R E A L L Y W I D E ] part of the road.

Also, now they seem to have named it 'Sylvan Post square', one presumably needs to ensure that their clientelle are not inconvenienced by the pesky Boots lorry pulling up to deliver stuff to a store that's been an anchor for Dartmouth Road for donkeys years, so maybe the stakeholders might want to restrict loading times so as not cause offence to the newbies.

Oh, and whilst I agree that trees are nice, I think it would be fair to speak to the freeholders before planting very close to the shops at 63b and 65 because it could affect things like basements and visibility of the shops and their signage.

PS
I'm not having a pop at the proprietors of the Sylvan Post or their clientelle as I think they're major plus for Forest Hill. I just want to see a more fair and balanced approach to providing a strategy that can work for everyone - especially at that end of Dartmouth Road.

BTW just for the record so everyone knows, I'm not a stakeholder & wasn't made aware formally or invited to this meeting. I just found out about it happening by chance!

I'm baffled that all traders didn't get a formal invite

Re the paving slabs - there have been serious problems in Sydenham with obtaining slabs to replace ones removed (and in the process damaged) for utility repairs. So there are some ugly temporary tarmac repairs marring the otherwise lovely pavements. If the ones for Dartmouth Road are coming from the same source, this might be a problem.

There is similar to Devonshire Road, which has ugly tarmac filled paving holes, but it differers in that the missing paving slabs on Devonshire Road are ugly cast concrete slabs that are not in short supply.

What is the argument for reducing the width of these roads? It is can be a nightmare at busy times manoeuvring a car in and out of Thorpewood Avenue from or into Dartmouth Road when cars are also coming in the opposite direction along Thorpewood. There is often no room to pass because of the cars parked in Thorpewood near the library and Holy Trinity school. Wouldn't this just make the problem worse?

I'm extremely peed off I wasn't invited to this meeting to voice my comments on Dartmouth Road happenings as I see what happens day in and day out! I'm not surprised as I am very outspoken but can't help this.

Oh well let's just put up or shut up then shall we! NOT!

Oh no I don't think so, surely we should have a big say in this!!!

Even more so as you run a business there, see and hear what is happening, so are probably best placed to comment.

It sounds as if Michael at any rate is a member of the 'key stakeholder group.' Perhaps he could answer Anotherjohn's question, i.e. tell us who set the group up, who it reports to and who its members are. What is Chris Best's role? I thought she represented Sydenham not FH.

The stakeholders group was set up by the consultants for lewisham and has now met twice.
I have asked for the consultants or Lewisham officers to attend the ward assembly (I believe they have attended two such public meetings to hear views from the wider public). It was on the agenda of the last ward assembly as well although the consultants were not present (but then nor were any recent contributors on this thread). It was a waste of time at the latest ward assembly since no plans were displayed and the councillor was left to tell the group all the things that will not happen.

The stakeholders group is meant to tell them if they are heading in the right direction and includes representatives from Forest Hill Traders Association, Forest Hill Society, councillors, and others who I hope can at least begin to provide constructive input into the process.

There is a role for the stakeholders, there is a role for surveys of local shops and residents (apparently 1000 leaflets were distributed and 25 responses received), and there is a role for public meetings to discuss these issues.

Personally I'm disappointed that the loading bays need to be on the same side of the road as the shops. I don't think this is necessary and is poor use of the space, as mentioned by anotherjohn. This morning I saw The Butchery loading their van on the other side of the south circular. If they can do it , I'm sure dartmouth road shop keepers could too.

But there are some positives and I would point in particular to a bus stop for dartmouth road shops and double yellow line on more of the road. The parking, particularly on Sunday (when it is legal) ruins the high street and makes driving round Forest Hill extremely time consuming. I'm pleased that the council are trying to improve this because the current situation is not acceptable.

This post was last modified: 22-03-2016 12:54 AM by michael.

One trader can not be a representative of FHTA far from it! Especially when none of the rest of us were aware of what was going on. This is not the traders fault, I think they were trying their best BUT we should ALL have been contacted to voice our opinions on this AND share with locals, not just one individual on this important decision!

Aw, flippin' 'eck Michael - there's me throwing digs into the stakeholders; and one of them is you! I feel terrible now because I appreciate the time and effort you put in for Forest Hill so you're the last person I want to steam into.

Okay, so I accept that there was an extensive public consultation initially, but I think it was an unfortunate oversight for the stakeholders not to have shared any subsequent tweaking sessions with people on this forum or on the FHSoc website because of the possibility that others (outside of the stakeholders group) may have one or two ideas that could still improve what's currently on the table.

Isn't this an internal communications issue for the FHTA? Presumably when they are asked to provide a representative for this sort of group, there is some sort of mechanism for selecting who he or she should be and how s/he should keep the rest of the membership informed?

I have put all I possible could on the FHSoc website:
April: Initial concepts presented to the ward assembly (and then by me to the SEE3 meeting - I'm still unsure how that landed on me)
June: Once the Forest Hill Society executive had discussed the issues and listened to local opinion we submitted our response to these concepts. I also sent this response to every trader on the FHTA email list so that they were aware of the views of the Forest Hill Society - some of which they may share and some of which they may not.
December: More detailed plans were produced and made available
January: The Forest Hill Society planning and transport committees produced a response to the latest proposals

All these links above are to the FHSoc website and most of these posts were also included in e-newsletters to members, posted on Facebook and Twitter.

If you have other feedback on the scheme you can send it to transport@lewisham.gov.uk

I don't know whether the Traders Association met to discuss these proposals in detail, but I'm sure that had the Traders requested additional seats at the stakeholders meeting it would have been possible to arrange this.

I saw everything that was made public up until January but my gripe is about people not being made aware of the mid-March meeting - especially as this one was likely to be critical due to the fact that this project needs to be completed within a certain timescale.

Robin, We were not contacted as a group and asked to provide a representative which is why most of us never knew about this meeting taking place.

Michael did send FH Soc response to our FHTA Google group as he mentioned.

None of my grumps and gripes on this are aimed at Michael, thank goodness he is a stakeholder otherwise we may never have been given access to these minutes!

There was no FHTA Exec or general meeting to discuss the proposal but there should have been. The problem seems to be that we weren't informed about this meeting taking place as a group. This could have been avoided quite easily by just sending an email to the whole of our Google group which also includes local Cllr's.

Personally I think these meetings should be public meetings rather than stakeholder meetings!

I don't see why that is a problem P1971. The point of having FHTA representatives is surely that they can report back to the group. If you wanted a public meeting then a representative could have made that proposal at a meeting. Sorry, seems that FHTA dropped the ball here unless you are saying that all the individual stakeholders, who were part of the meeting distribution, were not invited.

Am very pleased you have a traders association though, so hopefully the association can learn a lesson and move onwards and upwards.