Hmm. If it looks like spam, and smells like spam, it's probably not prosciutto.

Still with the old Hills & Parkes signage but Honor Oak Provender is open now.

Noticed that the From the Forest shop window has been fixed and the junk is slowly starting to clear from the window....should we be hopeful that something may actually be happening? Does anyone know?

Don't get me started on this!

Here's what I know in short, and it was me that tweeted & told some people about this.

A while back my friend found out who the landlord was & hand delivered a letter saying she was interested in renting it.

She was due to sign the lease to open a gift/homeware shop (different to Bunka so as not to be in competition) but the original tenant decided for whatever reasons he wanted to keep the lease on the day she was due to sign.

The shop again was just left.

A few weeks ago someone came to ask if I knew of any info on a few empty shops as he wants to open a fishmonger/greengrocer so I have been in contact about this & passed on the landlord of "From the Forest" number.

He called the landlord & the landlord told him the original tenant said he wasopening something soon but would keep his details just incase.

So my guess is the original tenant is now opening something but I don't know what.

But then again if I'm not a 100% reliable source then I may be wrong so please correct me if I am.

...the 'original tenant' needs to s**t or get off the pot, and the landlord needs to develop a bit more of a sense of civic duty, eh?!

(apologies for the coarse analogy)

Tough one, because 'civic duty' might mean letting the incumbent tenant get their finances together so they can reopen, rather than turfing them out and forcing the tenant to go to the expense of refitting other premises - and jacking up the rent before the next tenant signs, of course.

I know nothing about this situation other than what I read here - though I do agree the place is an eyesore and it would be much better to have a trading business in that slot. But it appears that none of us know the whole story.

Small businesses were entitled to "retail rates relief" but we've now had letters to say this ends on 31st March. See letter attached.

I really hope this doesn't effect our small independent shops in FH too much.

I've spoke to a couple of traders about this today.

One is having to pay an extra £94 per month, and the other £150 more per month. I'll be paying an extra £28 per month which is due to the size of my shop but all shops that are bigger than mine will definitely have to pay more as the rateable value is based on square footage

   

There is some good news for most independent traders in shops and other small business premises in Forest Hill.

The annual threshold for small business tax relief is to be raised from £6,000 to a maximum of £15,000

Yup, I saw that.

I think it goes back to what it was in 2017, so just 1 year of increased business rates for local shops/small businesses

No - it's never been at this level.

Commercial properties with a rateable value of up to £15,000 will be exempt from Business Rates whereas, previously, the full exemption was only up to £6,000 after which Business Rates became payable from 0-100% on a sliding scale up to a rateable value of £12,000.

This will be a great help to many traders in Forest Hill.

Even better for the local economy then

Business rates were devolved to local councils, this measure does not cost the government a penny. This may be good for business owners, however, there will be less income for councils, means less money for local services !

Who gives a c**p about the politics!
I doubt that struggling local business owners are overly concerned about who's funding this respite.

I think the point is that the savings for businesses are coming from local government, not central government. And unless Lewisham Council is suddenly on the receiving end of some central government largesse, it will have to fund the savings for businesses by raiding budgets elsewhere. Get ready for slower road repairs, less street cleansing, additional charges for services, reductions in social care services, squeezes on non-ring-fenced education, slower turnaround times on planning and licensing applications...

It's good for local businesses, which is a bonus after seeing other areas lose their small independents, but it may well another nail in the coffin of local services.

Thank you BigEd, I appreciate everything you've said.

It's kind of ironic that we're currently faced with cuts in funding for our library but local businesses are pulling together in a huge effort to ensure that we will continue to have a library; and one that's going to be better than before.

Now the respite/benefit they'll receive from the Business Rate cuts will help to compensate them for their public spritedness and generosity in offering 10% discounts to library supporters so this, in my view, balances it out quite fairly. In any case, it's way better than losing shops and other businesses that operate in the background - all of which help to make Forest Hill a relatively nice place.

I accept that there might not be the same level of give-and-take in other towns though.

Just to expand a bit on what Anotherjohn has said about the library.

If our bid (see volunteers needed for FH library thread for our group submitting a bid) for the library is successful we will be creating "Friends of Forest Hill Library" & anyone that would like to join would pay a small membership fee which would go towards the running costs of the library & they would receive extra benefits.

When I emailed the FH traders (we have a google group) 4/5 days ago asking if anyone would like to offer a discount to "Friends of FH Library" (if our bids successful) the support from my fellow traders has been totally amazing. Around 25 so far have offered to give a 10% discount to support us in our bid for the library.

So I agree with what Anotherjohn has said.

I came to open up this morning to find my shop door window shattered. Thankfully I have anti-terrorist shatterproof film on all my windows so the window didn't smash. If anyone saw anything between 6pm last night (Wed 30/3) & 10am this morning please come and tell me so I can pass all info on to the police dealing with this.

The police were great & got here 5mins after calling 101.

   

Sorry to hear this, and hope the miscreant is caught.

Thanks edd, I do too!

After posting on here, all my social media & speaking to locals it seems that this never happened before midnight last night but before 7/8am this morning. So through the night.

I'll apologise now for the eyesore which will be fixed in a couple of days. Due to the film I have on my windows (not a safety issue, I ran my hands along both sides & it's smooth with no sharp parts) thankfully I didn't have to get this fixed as an emergency which would probably cost at least double the price, also due to this it would be a very hard task for anyone to get past this (probably a couple of hours of someone picking glass by the piece).

The glass has been measured today by a local & will be fixed as soon as possible with this film inserted between two sheets of glass for this to be fixed as soon as possible.

Again I apologise for the short term eyesore.