I'm sure before dartmouth arms arrived there were cries of 'there's no market for a gastropub - if there was a market for one, there'd be one here already'. It's not the way it works, baboonery. It takes a couple of forward thinking, imaginative businesses to take a risk and dive in with well placed products that people want, and the market grows - shops don't just reflect what consumers want, they create and change what people want, too. The demographics or FH are changing and money is coming in, and will continue to come in with the arrival of the ELX.
But to be honest, regardless of this, I fail to see the point of negative comments about forest hill that have no positive input. Perhaps you'll say you're just being 'realistic', but i don't buy it. It just drags the place, and people's spirits, down. And before you say it, I'm not waving a tambourine round and standing, Canute-like while the walls crumble around me, I'm just broadly content with FH as it is, but believe that with effort and demographic change, it can and will be a better place to live and work for everyone.